Think Twice Part 2

Part 2

The Mess That Followed

Somehow, by the grace of God or most likely my mom, I graduated high school. I was about to turn 18, and I thought I could be on my own and move out and do whatever the crap I wanted. So, that I did. I disappeared for days at a time. Staying at random houses. There was a group of “friend’s” I had found. We would just go from house-to-house partying until we wore out our welcome and then crawl to the next, little to no sleep happened.

The summer of 2001 I moved out of my parents and into an apartment. I shared a room with a friend of a friend, K. On the other side of the apartment, three jocks shared a room. I have no clue what their names were or what they would even do all day. K and I would party, and I mean party. We would stay up most nights and sleep during the day… sometimes.

My mom was letting me borrow the car because I got a job at IHOP. That only lasted three days, and when she found out she came to the apartment to take the car. She walked into what was the aftermath of a ragger. People sleeping everywhere, beer bottles everywhere, and me only partially dressed lying in bed with some guy. After she left, I remembered my friend and I had gone to planned parenthood for condoms and because we were immature teenagers, we decided to take about 50. They were in the glove box of the car my mom had just driven away in. I think that one hurt for a while. Sorry mom! Another year had gone by, and I didn’t even know it.

In 2003, I woke up at a house one morning (or at least I think it was morning), I didn’t recognize, in clothes I didn’t recognize in this body of a girl I didn’t recognize. No one else was there. I was alone in a stranger’s house. How long had I been there? How long had I been asleep? What happened? I called a friend who found out where I was and rescued me. I spent the next week detoxing and withdrawing. He fed me and kept me hydrated. Once I woke from the fever dream of withdrawal, I went home. I told my parents everything. I cried for help and opened up for the first time in my life. I was finally honest with my loving parents, and I was honest with myself. I hate that it got that far. I hate that I made the choices I made. I think I needed to hit rock bottom in order to ask for help. It worked, I cleaned up, I started writing in my journal again, and I started to learn who I really was. Things I liked and disliked. It felt like there was finally a real person inside of me, and I wanted to get to know her. I finally wanted to be me. The real me was starting to shine through. I had been numb for so long I forgot what it felt like to think for myself. I forgot I had a voice in there that mattered and wanted out.

I found a new therapist, Dr. A, and I stayed with her for about a year. Don’t get me wrong; she was a bit of a nut job, but I felt like I could talk to her. I was still on Wellbutrin, but I was no longer on any recreational drugs. With the help of my family, I started cosmetology school and found a place where I felt like I fit in. Shortly after I started school, I got pregnant. The most amazing thing happened: I didn’t fall apart. I had a few tools in my belt by then, and I was able to manage my feelings and really look at what I wanted and what would be best for the baby. I decided to place him for adoption.

It wasn’t an easy decision. And there was a lot of fighting between the birth father and me. Like every other tragic event in my life, I owe a lot of the positive outcome to my parents. They gave me all my options and never forced me into any of them. They were there to support me, no matter which decision I made. I was able to sit with myself and decide on my own. I chose adoption for the sake of the baby and for my own sake. People always say it’s the most selfless act a person can do. But I beg to differ. I had some selfish reasons to place this baby for adoption. I didn’t want to be stuck in a co-parenting situation with someone I didn’t want in my life. I also didn’t want this baby to be raised by two drug addicts. Well, one former drug addict and one current drug addict. Either way, this was not the life this tiny little creature deserved. He deserved the world.

Once I made up my mind, it was quite easy. I picked an adoption agency, and they appointed me a therapist, one I actually liked. Brad was my favorite. He was the least judgmental of all the weirdos that I had seen in the past. Working through the process was long and stressful, and Brad helped me navigate it all. Once I picked a few parameters, they made a binder of all the people that fit my criteria. I must have looked at 100 different families looking to add to their family. But when I saw this picture of an eight-year-old girl, I just got this feeling she was supposed to be this baby’s sister. I didn’t even need to look at the rest of their file. This was the family this baby was supposed to go to. I wrote a letter to that eight-year-old girl and told her she was about to be a big sister. The next six months were happy and calm. Being pregnant was a beautiful memory that I will always carry near to my heart.

On May 12, 2004, he was born. Labor was simple and fast. Once they plopped him on my flattened tummy, I fell in love. It was truly incredible.

I hadn’t told anyone but my parents that I had gone into labor the night before. But somehow the birth father knew, and he showed up that day. I still to this day have no idea how he knew and how he knew where to find us.

The hospital takes certain precautions when they know it’s an adoption. It’s not your typical birth where anyone can come to visit. So, my name was not to be put on the door, and the files were to be kept very private. I had to get approval for my brother and niece to come visit.

“I’m going to run to the car, Kari, I’ll be right back,” my mom said as she set the baby in the bassinet in the corner.

A few moments passed, and she came rushing back into the room.

“What!” I said worried.

“He’s here, T is right outside looking at the files on the doors,” she said quietly.

“Give me the baby!” I said from the bed, not being able to move too quickly due to the epidural I had just 20 some hours earlier.

T barged in and said he was going to fight this. He demanded a picture and left as fast as he came. A few moments later, I got a call from a frantic nurse, saying that the birth father was asking what it was he needed to do to fight it. Legally, she had to tell him.

In the state of Utah, if the birth mother doesn’t want the birth father on the birth certificate, he has to register in order to be on it. I called Brad, and he was in the car headed our way before we even got off the phone. I was supposed to be able spend one more night with the baby, and we were scheduled to meet his new family the next afternoon, but because of the new circumstance, we needed to meet them that day, a day early.

Again, in the state of Utah, if the birth father has not signed the registry, the birth mother has full rights. It was down to who finishes their signature first. Brad was on the phone with the state as I signed over my rights to his new parents. It was done. T never signed. And the baby was no longer mine.

We met his new parents at a new location just to be sure T wouldn’t know where we were. It was the most sacred time in my entire life. My mom and I passed the baby back and forth for the hour we visited with his new family. When it came time to hand him to his new mother and never hold him again, I felt peace and a screaming turmoil inside of me all at the same time.

The days that followed were a blur of tears and pain, yearning and ache. I’ll never hear the sound of his voice. Never smell the top of his head. I won’t be there to kiss his knee when he falls or hold him after his first broken heart. It took a while to pick the pieces of myself back up again after leaving him. But I did it. One thing that got me through were the pictures. Once a week I would pull myself out of bed to go to the adoption agency to get the picture’s the family had sent. After a while, they started to send less pictures, less frequently. It’s part of the healing plan. And it really did help me slowly move on and start to think about going back to finish school.

“The baby” is now 18 years old. He has an amazing family and is well loved. He has a sister and a wonderful life that I couldn’t have given him. I hope one day I’ll get to meet him and tell him why I did what I did. I hope he knows how much I love him.

The Narcissist

I pulled through and finished cosmetology school. I even started dating. I learned how to be an honest and confident young woman with a plan and a future. I met a boy named Jeremy, who I thought I liked, but for some reason he made me feel like my younger, confused self again. I was weak around him. I was insecure, and I didn’t see any of the signs. After just 10 short months of dating, we got married. There were so many bad signs, but I was under his spell. The type of emotional and verbal abuse I experienced was different than most.

My mom worked for the college he was attending, so she decided to look him up and check out what kind of classes the boy her daughter was dating was taking. But she couldn’t find his name in any of the school records. She brought it up to me, and I brushed her off thinking she must have done something wrong because I just talked to him, and he said he couldn’t hang out that night because he had to study for his test. The next time I saw him I asked him about it.

“Oh, because I was a late transfer, it probably just hasn’t posted yet,” he answered.

“Right. I knew it had to be something like that, silly mom,” I said. She always had a feeling about him. She could never put her finger on it, but my mom did not like him. She didn’t approve of us dating, let alone getting married. But I ignored her.

Time went on and odd things kept happening, but he could always talk his way out of it. He would tell me lies and blame me for not remembering it the way he told it. He wrecked the car one time and blamed it on me. He was so good at lying he almost convinced me I wrecked his car. It was the 4th of July, just a few months before we got married, and he was going to pick me up at my parents’ and take me on a date. He came in to say hello and have a bite to eat before going to watch the fireworks. We were giggling on the couch, and I was practicing signing my soon-to-be new name. I asked him to sign his name.

“What does your signature look like?” I asked.

He took the pen, and it was like his hand wasn’t doing what his brain was telling it to do. He shook it off and tried again. Scribbles. He brushed it off again and made a remark about how this was a stupid thing to do and that we should just go. I let it go, and we left. His driving seemed a bit off though, he was swerving, and his eyes looked different. As he made a right-hand turn, he hit the median in the middle of the road and scraped his rim. He mumbled something under his breath and kept going. He insisted he was fine. After a few more swerves, I finally spoke up and made him stop so I could drive. He reluctantly pulled over, and I drove us the rest of the way.

Fast forward three months, he came home from work furious. Yelling about how I wrecked his car and how I tried to hide it, not telling him about it. He was so sure he just about had me convinced until I remembered our little 4th of July date, the one where he was acting a little odd and swerved the car into the median. I can’t believe how manipulated I was. Not to mention the financial abuse. Yes, that’s a thing. He told me I had to put my paycheck directly into his account so he could pay rent. He would check my balances to see if I had bought lunch or spent any money, and I never thought to look and see what he was spending money on.

One month before the big day, I got a phone call while I was at work from his mom. She was frantically crying; I could hardly make out what she said.

“He wouldn’t wake up. Meet us at the hospital!” My heart sank. I told the girls at work, and they said to just go. He was unresponsive, but his heart rate was super high. He was unconscious for three days. I honestly can’t even remember what his story was of what happened. I think we all thought it was an attempted suicide, but we never spoke about it, and I never asked. It was just this unspoken elephant in the room. Once he woke up they kept him for another day to be sure he was stable then sent him home, and we never brought it up again. I suspected it was a suicide attempt. Thinking all the lies had become too much or that he maybe had some other big lie. I wondered why all the time but never asked. But I tried not to stress about it, though, since we were about to get married.

In 2006, we got married and moved into our own apartment. Since my mom didn’t like him and he didn’t care for her much, I started to become isolated. Not talking to my mom, not seeing old friends, and not taking care of myself. It was all becoming too much, the lies and the manipulation. I was about to break.

We decided to switch cars one day, and I thought I would be a nice wife and clean his car that he left behind. As I was cleaning, I found a couple of surprises. One, a bag of pills, and I mean a bag, not just a little tiny baggie. It was a full-on gallon-size zip lock about 1/3 of the way full. Random pills, only a few I recognized. Tylenol P.M. Some crazy cold medication no longer sold over the counter because kids, like me years ago, were taking 10 at a time and getting high. And the rest I couldn’t tell what they were, so I took them to a pharmacy. The pharmacist said there was an array of pills. Sleeping pills, blood pressure medication, a few different types of cold and flu medication and even a few he could identify.

Why in the world does he have all these pills? Wait a minute…

A few things are starting to add up. Remember the story about him wrecking the car? And how he could hardly write his own name? Now it’s all making sense. He figured out a combo of pills to get high but still function, or so he thought. And the story about him being rushed to the hospital before we got married. He wasn’t trying to kill himself. He almost overdosed.

The second thing I found in the car was a receipt for my wedding ring. But instead of the diamond that we had gone and picked out together, it said something about a cubic zirconia, which is basically a fake diamond. Now look I’m not a diamond snob. It wasn’t about the cubic zirconia. It was the fact that he had gone out of his way to take me to Morgan Jewelers to pick out a diamond together, then come to find out he lied about that too.

I left the pills and the receipt on the counter for him to find when he got home.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Oh, those are my dad’s pills.” Yeah right. “And I was going to tell you about your ring. I just didn’t want to hurt you. I needed the money, so I had to sell the diamond we picked out and replace it with the cubic zirconia, it was the real thing until right before the wedding.” WHAT!? What a stupid lie! Just own up to it! I had had enough.

“That’s enough,” I said. “I can’t take the lies. I can’t do this anymore. If you can come clean then we can figure this out, and I will help you through this, whatever it is.”

“Okay,” he went on to tell me a whole bunch of crap. Nothing I believed and nothing that made any sense. I couldn’t sit through it anymore, so I let him believe I believed him.

A few days later we got a knock on the door. It was a police officer delivering a subpoena, Jeremy was being sued for theft and fraud. He again had an excuse for all of it.

A few days after that, my parents decided to take me to lunch. Yep, both of them. I knew something was wrong right away. My poor sweet mom went on to tell me how they got a call from his old boss back when he did vinyl fencing. He called to ask what the square footage was on the fence for a job he did a few months back. What did they pay him and so on? Turns out he was forging contacts and taking people’s money. My own parents. His own future in-laws. What an idiot. Anyways, I was not surprised given everything else that was going on. So, I went on to inform them all what had happened with him and what I had kept from them. We devised a plan.

A mother always knows, I thought.

He had court the following Wednesday. But he didn’t tell me. He told me he was going to work that day, and I told him the same thing. But because my parents were involved in the case, they knew about the hearing. My mom picked me up five minutes after Jeremy left. When I walked in that court room, and he turned and saw it was me, he was white as a ghost. My mom and I quietly sat down, and the judge pulled his attention back by clearing his throat.

He, of course, denied everything and didn’t have much to say. After the judge told him his charges were two first-degree felonies with theft and one third-degree felony with fraud, we met in the hallway.

“They called this morning on my way to work,” he lied.

“Oh yeah? Ok let’s see your phone.”

“I mean I called them to see if there were updates.”

“Oh yeah? Ok, let’s see your phone,” I repeated.

“Okay. Okay. Look There are some things we need to talk about.”

Ya think. I thought.

The plan I had already worked out with my dad was already in motion, and he was at my apartment packing up my things as we spoke. So, I let him go on and on and sorry this and sorry that. I was done. I had already made up my mind. I didn’t crumble. I stood up for myself, and I left. And once again went to my parents for solitude and safety. Luckily, he didn’t try to get revenge. I was able to make a clean break with only a few emotional scars.

By this time, I had pretty thick skin. I knew if I could survive the wreck years ago, I could survive this one. If I could eat through a straw for six weeks and wear that horrible back brace. If I could get through all the therapists, and if I could go through nine months of pregnancy and hand my child over to another woman to raise as her own, then I could do this. I could handle a divorce. I could stand up for myself. I had forgotten along the way in this controlling relationship that I liked myself, I respected myself. Damn it, I loved myself, and I was not going to waste one more minute of my precious life with this loser! My dad and brother were done packing up my things by the time I got to my parents’ house.

The Fire.

In 2007, a year after I moved out of my parent’s home and in with my brother in his basement in Salt Lake City, I wasn’t feeling well, and I had decided to stay home from work one day. I wanted to order a pizza and needed to find my check book. I still had boxes everywhere. I dug through a few and couldn’t find it. I started some laundry and went upstairs to see what my brother had to eat. I made myself a tuna fish sandwich and started to smell smoke. I walked downstairs and saw smoke along the ceiling. Was it the washer or dryer? Did I just break my brother’s washer and dryer? I walked around the counter and the whole box that I had just dug through that also happened to be on the stove was on fire. I grabbed my phone, ran outside, and tried to call my mom. My mom? What was she going to do? Call 911! I ran next door pounding on their door while calling 911. The neighbor happened to be on off-duty fire chief. I ran over to the house to check out the situation. His wife offered me shoes. Shoes? Oh, right, yes, I need shoes. In my rush to run out of the house, I didn’t think to put on shoes.

When the fire department arrived, there was smoke coming out the upstairs windows. The entire basement was on fire. We lost just about everything. If it wasn’t damaged by fire, it was damaged by smoke. If it wasn’t the smoke, it was damaged by water from them putting the fire out. Everything. Gone. You don’t realize what that really means until it happens to you. Your toothbrush. Your phone charger. Your pillow. Your Food. All of it gone.

The 911 dispatcher makes you stay on the phone with them until they get there. Once I was able to, I called my mom.

“Um… hi…um... Eric’s house is on fire,” I stuttered.

“What? His What? Are you okay? Is he there?” she gasped.

“No, I can’t tell him. Can you? Can you tell him?” I pleaded.

A short time later I got a call from Eric. He was so kind and understanding. I felt horrible.

All the neighbors were out by then. A couple stood across the street with looks of sympathy on their faces. Another woman half-dressed and clearly drunk at 12 in the afternoon approached me. “Oh man, someone always has it worse,” she said to me as she tried to offer me a shot of vodka. Excuse me? Maybe she didn’t realize by my hysterical disposition that it was me, I was the one that had it worse.

I once again moved home and found solace with my parents.

The Surgery

I found a job doing hair at a fun, hip salon and found a new group of friends who I am still close with today. Years passed and I was doing pretty well until I fell. I mean literally fell.

In 2010, it was a nice sunny day and some friends, and I went snowboarding. Now, listen, I was not an avid snowboarder. I went maybe twice a year at best. We were about halfway down the mountain when we decided to stop and take a rest. The mountain curved to the left and was shaded by all the trees. It was the perfect spot to practice carving toe side. The plan was to do the old “W” where you go from one side of the path to the other, switching from toe side. Right before I got to where my friend was sitting, I was going to switch to toe side, but I didn’t get enough speed and chickened out, so I decided to just sit in the snow. I didn’t have much momentum and just simply sat down. My elbow caught all my weight, and I landed right on a patch of ice. My friends all heard the crack, and we all knew what had happened. I immediately grabbed my elbow making sure my bone wasn’t protruding through my skin. It wasn’t, but I couldn’t extend my arm. We all carefully walked the rest of the way down to the hospital area at the ski resort. One friend carried my snowboard, and the other helped me walk. They x-rayed my elbow and confirmed it was broken.

Cracked, right down the center. The doctor said it was the cleanest break he’d ever seen. I had to get two plates and seven pins in my left arm. Waking up from surgery was a horrible experience. I woke up to myself screaming. I didn’t know what was happening or where I was. All I knew was that I was in excruciating pain. The pain came from my left arm but ran through my whole body. I started to focus and saw a small clock on the wall. It said 1:45. I started to remember what happened. How long have I been screaming? How long have I been in this much pain? If you are asleep, can you still be in pain? Who else is here? Are they awake or out like I was? Finally, a young nurse asked if she could get me something. I was still pretty hysterical, and I couldn’t answer her. The pain medication wasn’t working so they had to call a doctor in to do a nerve block.

“I’m going to insert the needle here,” a doctor said. “Tilt your head,” he said as he held the needle to my neck. There were 10 doctors, nurses, interns learning from my pain. He inserted the needle and my whole arm started to shake uncontrollably. “Here,” he said, “that’s the spot, we found it.” He released the goodness from inside the syringe and my entire left side went completely numb. That old familiar feeling. No thoughts, no feelings, just white noise.

It took seven pins, and two plates to put my elbow back together. All of which I still have today. The doctor asked if I'd like to get them out some years later.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT! I will not go under anesthesia again, especially willingly."

I woke up in a hospital room, my mom in the corner crocheting. We didn’t say much or talk about much. That’s not really our style, but she was there, loving and supporting me from the corner. When morning came and I began to feel somewhat normal again, I was able to eat some breakfast and keep it down. Or so I thought. I could feel my tonsils tingle and my mouth start to salivate. I tried to stand up to get to the bathroom and forgot to remove my oxygen. I pulled it off. I tried to stand up again, but I forgot I was hooked up to an IV tower. I hit the call button.

“I need some help, please,” I said.

“I’ll send the nurse right in,” she said.

I was finally able to stand and tried to walk, but I couldn’t make it in time. I tried to reach for my bed pan with my left hand, realizing that was not possible. That’s the arm they just did surgery on. Falling on the bed, I reached for the bed pan just in time with my right hand, losing the breakfast, I thought I had kept down. I paged the nurse again.

“Help me!” I yelled.

“She’ll be right there,” she happily replied.

Even after all that I still had to use the bathroom. Slowly and with one hand, I made it to the bathroom and back to my bed crying, exhausted, and angry. As I tried to get comfortable, I stuck my foot right in the bed pan I had forgotten about. Like a savior, my mom walked in, looking beautiful and clean.

“Hi, how was your… oh,” she said surprised. Mom, like always, put me back together again, calmed me down, and even got me to smile. Then, almost on cue, in walked the nurse.

“Anything I can do?” she asked.

“No!” I replied. “My mom already did your job, thank you!”

“Okay, be back later,” she said with a smirk as if she knew.

“Bitch.”

A few hours later I was able to go home. It was a long six weeks of recovery. Trying to brush my teeth and bathe with one hand is a bit tricky. I called the salon I worked at four weeks into recovery and told them I was coming back. It wasn’t so much a question but a demand. I couldn’t sit around and smoke cigarettes all day making up stories in my head about my neighbor’s any longer. I went back to work and put myself back together.

The Loss

In 2011, things with my mom started to change. She started getting sick and didn’t know why or what was happening. Over the years she saw many doctors with few answers. She just kept telling us something was wrong. She couldn’t explain what it was. Or that she just didn’t feel right. She couldn’t keep up in conversations anymore. She mostly just observed. Then out of nowhere she would join in and say something completely relevant. As if she were following all along but just couldn’t articulate it. Next, she would get stuck on a word that didn’t fit where she had placed it. Then it became bursts of non-relevance. We all mourned each part of her that was lost. Every time I saw her or talked to her it was something new. Another piece of her, gone. The light inside of her just started to go out. She couldn’t remember who we were anymore. It was a long 10 years for everyone. But my caring father took the brunt of it. He cared for her every step of the way. He gave up all of himself to make sure she was as okay as she could be.

In August of 2020, at the young age of 63, my rock, my solace, my wonderful, sweet, loving mom died. Just one short year after she was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. After 10 years of confusion and struggle, she finally let go. After her diagnosis, it took her fast. It was as if she finally had an answer and could let it take her away from her pain and misery. I miss her so much every day. She will always be with me. I’m not sure where they go or what happens after death, but I believe they are closer than we think, and we can call on then whenever we need them. Luckily, I learned how to do hard things, so I could get through this. One day at a time. The pain of missing her will never really go away, but it does get easier to live with.

Part 3 to be released February 13th.