September 15, 1993

So I’m sitting there in the counselor’s office not really knowing what to say.

I didn’t know what was wrong. I still don’t, but I do know that I just can’t seem to function. I get up, get my son breakfast and I sit. I sit all day. I don’t want to do anything. I turn the tv on and sit. Nothing is fun. Nothing excites me. Nothing.

This has been going on for quite awhile. I don’t know how I decided to go see a counselor, but there I was and I didn’t know what to say. So much goes through my head and then nothing really.

She asked me about stresses in my life currently. I don’t know. I got married in January, less than a year ago. That was good stress, but she says still stress. We moved…also good stress. Nothing else is going on right now. I’m not working. I’m a stay-at-home-mom.

She asked me about my family…family of origin. That takes a little explaining. There’s my mom and step-dad that I lived with most of my life. Things were mostly good…until they weren’t. He started drinking. It got worse and worse. They separated when I was 13 and we moved from Indiana to Florida. Then there’s my dad. I never lived with him after the age of two, until I was 16. That’s when my mom, a single mom now, could no longer handle a teenager and sent me to live with him…in Michigan. My stepmom never liked me. I never liked her. When I moved up to live with my dad he left her. I have two half brothers and a half sister. That’s it.

She asked me about my stepdad, the alcoholism and the divorce. That was hard to talk about. I hadn’t opened that up for a long time. I’m the oldest child. I knew about his drinking. I knew about his affair(s). I knew how bad my mom was hurting and how she really tried to help him get sober. He tried but never did. He came home one night and chased her around the kitchen with a knife. I knew about that. My sister and brother didn’t. She stayed with him until she found out about the other women. That was the last straw.

The hardest part was after he left. He came to pick us kids up for a visit. He took us back to his place. She was there. That woman. The other woman. I was angry. When he took us home I vowed to never see him again. He didn’t understand. He called me all kinds of names that I don’t even remember now. I think I must have just blocked it all out. I kept my promise. I never went to visit him again…till the day he died. I went to his funeral. Nine years. I talked to him on the phone a few times and he’d always ask me to come over for dinner. I politely refused every time. Some things are unforgivable.

It’s been about a year since his death. I guess maybe its finally catching up with me. Maybe all that long ago stuff is why I’m depressed. There’s so much other than him, though. It could be something else. All I know is I’m not happy. I don’t know what happiness is anymore.

Time was up so that’s all the farther we got this time. Not sure it helped any.

Just me…Marissa

turn the page~~>