Thoughts on Love

What is true love, and how do you find it, and if you think you have found it, how do you know it’s real? How do you know he is really the one you are looking for?

I have written a couple times about how I met my ex, my again, current boyfriend as I should say now. It was all by chance, what if I had never went to the bar that night. In reality I should not have gone, I had left my “date” early and decided to meet my best friend for a drink, yes the date was in fact that bad, but I never should have even been there that night at all. Can you call it coincidence? Would you call it fate?

I now look back as a young adult on my younger years and wonder what my life would have been like if he were in it with me, after all we did go to the same school. I look back and realize that he was very close my whole life and I never really noticed, was it planned like that? I used to go to sleepovers at my friend’s house and his best friend lived across the street and he was older so we used to go over and try and spy on them (I had forgotten all about these times until I took a walk recently in that old neighborhood), He ran cross country and I had always wanted to join but never had the nerve too, we had very close mutual friends, so close in fact we just discovered we were in the same group going to homecoming when I was a freshman. I wonder if we would have connected this way back then, like it was planned for us.

There is no use in wondering about the past but I do, but more often I wonder about the future. I can’t describe what I feel for him. How do you describe colors to a blind man, it’s something you just know, and experience in your own heart. Why do we try and explain feelings, because I don’t think they are supposed to have words, they just ARE. Our relationship is so strong because of the fact that we don’t get to see each other, all we have are conversations and to get to know each other, physical relationship die because they miss this piece, but we have all the time to communicate and hardly any physical time.

We do have a child together, as you have read about. This was a big part in our journey, he was gone from our lives my entire pregnancy until she was three months old. He was deployed but he could have still had a part, this took a very long time to forgive but ultimately I did because the whole time he was gone, he was all I could think about, he is all I ever think about. I have experienced life without him and I know that I hate it. I never want to be without him again, just hearing his voice is enough for me, not that I don’t dream of the times we could fall asleep together, times I dream to come again soon.

But Forever is such a scary word. F o r e v e r, I don’t know that anyone was in my life all that time, that I can fathom wanting to have someone in my life that long other than my daughter. These are thoughts that plague me day in and out. Why do we feel the need to figure it all out anyway? Why do we rush life? We have our entire lives to decide and we think that in just a year or two we need to decide our entire life out. So I guess I will just sit and wait for this thing to sort itself out and enjoy the ride as I go.

But haven’t we all thought like this? And how many times have we loved and then looked back and wondered how we ever could have thought that way in the first place, how do you really ever know? Just some thoughts and hopefully a more lighthearted post than what you are all used to from me

If you feel like you would like to share your experience with me or have something you would like me to talk about in the blog email me at: a_song4hope1123@yahoo.com
God Bless
-          Adriene Song

My Last Letter To A Lost Cause

Some insight to this Blog post. Many people didn't know it but I wrote letters to my ex about once a month after he left me, about once a month or so. I kept writing and hoping he would answer, knowing how pathetic it was and I was. I wanted to  share this with the world because it's important to my journey and it is important for me to share how I feel, for everyone that has ever gone through this and been ashamed to love someone after they clearly doesn't care. 

This is the last letter I will write to you. I can finally say that I am 100% over you. I wish I could say that there is someone else and that is what brought me to this revelation, but there isn’t. I guess the reason behind it is when we first broke up, I kept wondering what would have happened if I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. I wanted the summer I had dreamed of with you and all the adventure it could have held and just falling more in love with you but I didn’t get that and I was stuck on the idea of it but it doesn’t matter anymore. Whether you want to be a real man and admit it or not, you did get me pregnant and everything changed.

                I used to get so mad thinking about all the things you said to me, the messages and voicemails that you left me that said that you loved me and missed me. It took me a long time to realize and admit to myself that you never really loved me at all. I would read the ones from the night that we went out alone, you went out with Chris and I went to Jokin with Rae and Tiff, and you couldn’t get a hold of me and said that you were scared and never wanted to lose me. I believed you then but now I don’t. I get that you weren’t ready for a kid, but neither was I and IF you loved me you wouldn’t have left, you would have stayed with me, and even if we did break up, you would still be there for this kid, but you aren’t and that’s how I know.

                It hurt, it hurt for a damn long time. In ways that you will never know, being pregnant is hard. Being alone with no one to support you like parents and family, is hard. Having your ex say terrible things about you is hard. Loving a baby and protecting it while also at the same time thinking it might be ruining your life, is hard. I’m glad you didn’t go through that, or maybe I wish you would have, I don’t know.

                So how did I get over all this? There comes a time in your life when you miss the phone calls, someone to talk to, to make plans with, to hold you, to tell you there’s a future. I used to miss you for all of these things, but finally comes a time when you realize that I missed the idea of you, not you. When any man could fill this, not just you. I want someone, a real man, one that’s not going to run scared, someone who truly loves me, and that’s not you, and it finally clicked.

                Someday down the road you are going to wake up and realize that you want to have a real relationship and have kids and I hope you think of us and what you missed out on. I really hope that you regret what you did. I don’t care about me anymore, but I care what your child will think when it’s old enough. Wonder why you weren’t there, and why you didn’t care enough to stay. Feelings I know you have felt, and I have felt and prayed that my child would never feel but that’s how it is, and it’s your fault now.

                I don’t hate you, I really wish you would grow up and be a man and not a selfish boy, but I don’t hate you. I also have no love for you though. I hope deployment is going well. Happy Holidays.

 If you feel like you would like to share your experience with me or have something you would like me to talk about in the blog email me at: a_song4hope1123@yahoo.com
God Bless
-          Adriene Song

Two Pink Lines

Like I said in my past post about relationships, sometimes they work out and other times they do not. This is a therapy for me and for my readers and there are just some things I need to get off my chest. I met a man at a bar a week before Christmas, I did not think anything of our little fling that we had at first because I knew he was leaving 3,000 miles away and from past experience I knew that long distance and I do not get along. Something happened with him though that I couldn't put my finger on. He wanted to hang out with me, see me, be with me before he left and to me that was a new thing, I was always the one that wanted to be with a guy and this time the tables were turned. I liked the way I felt around him, we could just talk and sit and play games together and I was totally content. Before he left on Christma night, I slept with him and I though that was the last time I would see him, I took one last glance as I slipped on my clothes and left that morning and kind of wished he wasn't leaving but again, I thought he just wanted a fling.
Turns out he didn't and we talked everyday for an hour or so on the phone and texted all the time. I started saying things like, 'I miss you' and 'I wish you were here'. Eventually it turned into 'I love you' and counting down the days until he came back to see me. When he did, though, it was all different. There is a big difference between talking to someone thousands of miles away and being with them face to face, we had a fun week but I had my doubts. When he sailed out I knew I wouldn't be able to talk to him and we had a rough time before with that. I questioned whether we should be together at all but I decided to take it day by day because I honestly did love him and knew that someday, this could work out if I was patient enough.
The tables turned on me though. See, while my boyfriend was gone for 4 months I didn't see any reason to be taking my birth control and when he came home, I wasn't protected, so I found out three weeks after he got back to California, that I was pregnant. I just can not tell you how shattering this was and is to my life.
I decided to take the test after a night out drinking with friends. I had gotten drunk so fast and just wasn't myself (crying and all over the place), I looked back at the past few days and noticed I was a bit off but at the time, I thought nothing of it, I thought 'I'll just buy a test, I've had scares before' but this time I ended up crying on the floor on my grandmothers lap, texting my friends and screaming 'God, why?!'. I went to confirm the next day with the doctors and set up everything with insurance and such but all still wondering, 'what in the hell am I going to do?'
The kicker was, I was supposed to go to California to be with my boyfriend this summer. Could I just not come and make up an excuse? Break-up with him and not tell him about the baby? Get rid of the baby and never tell him? I was completely lost and confused but I decided to tell him about the baby and his answer? Abortion (included with laughing and sucking sound effects). I can't lie, I did think about it. I had all the pamphlets, called to talk to the clinic, talked to my pastor, but it just didn't sit right and he may hate me for that forever, but less than two months after I get out of the hospital for attempted suicide, I didn't know what abortion would do to me. Not in the long run. So I decided to keep the baby, until it came out.
Sometime in July I decided to keep the baby completely, not to give it up. It's scary. I have no idea how in the world I am going to do it by myself. Most people have parents, I don't. I do have a job and am going to school, but will it be enough? I gave up so much to keep this baby, my college, my friends, my boyfriend, and my life as I thought it was going to be. I dreamed of getting my nursing license and moving to Tennessee and doing whatever I wanted until I WANTED to settle down. I wanted to get married first, to have a house and a career first, but those were not the cards that I was handed. I still don't' know for 100% that I can do this, that I can keep this baby, but I have about three family members and a handful of friends I know that could help me. Maybe I just need to keep altering my dreams, I'm just not sure.
There is a lesson to be learned here. Take your birth control is #1 but ladies, please, know who you are dating. I thought I met the love of my life and all it took was a test to turn positive for him to not only leave me, not return my calls or texts, but to totally run my name through the dirt. I went from 'faithful loving girlfriend' for waiting months for him to come home, to 'lying cheating whore' because he "didn't know what I was doing back home," right? Wrong. I know that many of my friends have gone through the same thing and I pray that no one reading this will ever have to experience pregnancy alone, because it is so tough. Later I will post a light-hearted and funny post about my pregnancy but right now, this is how it is for me.
 If you feel like you would like to share your experience with me or have something you would like me to talk about in the blog email me at: a_song4hope1123@yahoo.com
God Bless
-          Adriene Song

Three Day Stay

                The Psych Ward is a strange place. Neuroscience Psych they call it here, but we all know where we are, we are all in the nut house. They take your stuff that you brought with you as soon as you get into the door and give you blue pajama like clothes to wear until you can get yours back again. You can’t have anything with strings or ties so shoes , homemade blankets that people like to make, sweatpants, hoodies, those types of things are all taken away and locked up for fear of us trying to strangle ourselves or each other, there is plastic around the sinks and the toilets so you can’t bang your head against the metal, they even took away my notebook because it had spiral on it and I was not so happy about that but they managed to get me one I wouldn’t try to kill myself with.  They told me not to be scared when I got there because to be honest I was terrified, I was by myself in a strange place with God knows what kind of people. The tech told me it’s not like the movies but to be honest it was exactly like the movies, not like the horror kind but definitely like ‘Girl, Interrupted’. We all had different “pods” with 5 rooms and most everyone had a roommate, there was a common room with a TV and chairs, they brought us food from the cafeteria and we ate around 4 tables in the common room, and we had groups that were scheduled throughout the day to work out whatever was wrong by talking and crafts.

 When I got there and was checked in, I really didn’t know what to do with myself, so I did a 500 piece puzzle and I wouldn’t really talk to anyone.  I really didn’t want to be there, it was completely out of my comfort zone and I wanted to break down and cry and convince them that I wasn’t crazy and I just want to go home and watch Netflix and lay in my bed like I usually did, Like I could bargain to them that if I signed a piece of paper that said I wasn’t going to kill myself that I could leave but I knew that I had been sick for a long time and I needed to do what they told me when they admitted me, to get diagnosed and be put on meds and watched to make sure they would work well for me. Thank the good lord for my friends bringing me clothes and coming to see me when I thought I was going to fall apart, no one wants to be there alone.

The first whole day that I was there I slept until 3:30 in the afternoon. The tech was telling me that it’s common for everyone to do that the first day they are there, they just want to sleep. Honestly after being up all night in the ER and not being able to sleep plus the fact that it’s a scary new experience I understand why everyone just wants to be asleep. That day though I did meet most of the people that I would stay attached to through the entire experience. My roommate was Tarra and she was the nicest person I could have been roomed with and I was extremely thankful for her, she woke me up for meals and meds that first day when I was sleeping. She had lost two of her children, sons, her husband was in jail for beating her and she was a crack addict, on top of her mental disorders, to me it seemed normal for her to be suicidal as well. Amanda, she was a tiny little thing, she told me about losing her daughter after nine days on Earth, her experiences with doing bath salts, being a teen mom and high school dropout, but she was the most honest, she was there because she was bi-polar and the cops made her come. Mike was a good looking guy probably in his late thirties he was high anxiety and bi-polar, he got checked in because he tried to kill himself on heroin but they shocked him back to life, “talk about waking up pissed” he told me, it was his second time trying that. Charity was who I spent the most time with, her boyfriend came every day and brought sweets, they were both just nice to talk to , she was bi-polar and tried to kill herself by taking all the pills she had at the time. Greg, I’m pretty sure he was a schizophrenic because he would talk to himself, you could tell by the hand motions and the random outburst of laughter, I’m also pretty sure he had a problem with anger as well. My favorite was Eleanor though, she had all timers and her favorite word was ‘Motherfuckers’ and then she would burst out into Gospel music.

I guess the thing that shocked me the most was the fact that most everyone was pretty normal and they just had a rough time in life like me, I guess I expected to see more of the weird disorders and freak outs everywhere but that wasn’t the case.  I felt saner than I ever had in my life, that’s true but I also felt like I found people that truly understood who I was. I love my friends more than life but I feel like I come from a different planet sometimes but these people knew the loss, the drug use, and the disorders that I struggled with. Even in group that day I learned to see the signs when my disorder is going out of control and that I need to seek help because it sounds weird but I never had looked into what was wrong with my body and mind to know when I was sick and it helped me to even understand why I felt these things as a kid.

The last full day that I was there I got to sit down and be evaluated by a psychology grad student, three long hours of her asking me questions and going through the DSM to decide which diagnosis was the best for me. I had to tell her my life story and describe why and how I think the way that I do, things I had never told anyone before. It’s long and hard and some things require a lot of detail just so you don’t get misdiagnosed but after the time I spend with her I got it all. I came in for Depression and Bulimia but she also got Body Dismorphic Disorder (because even though I throw up my food, I don’t eat enough to be a full bulimic), Borderline Personality Disorder, and PTSD. Although it is hard to be sat down and told that you have all these disorders it’s kind of nice knowing what was going on with me all these years. Simply saying and thinking you are ‘Crazy’ just isn’t a thing, they are disorders, they are real and once you know they are there and have been there for years it really makes sense. Also, for years I thought I could have been bi-polar but after interacting with a bi-polar person going through a manic episode, I know that I can say with certainty that that isn’t me.

It’s interesting, I’ll tell you that much. In the morning you wake up and everyone lines up for food and the nurses are running around trying to give everyone their meds with these huge carts in such a small area, you aren’t allowed to watch TV during the day because of groups so that’s how they get you to go because why not there is nothing else to do, you sit and talk to the people going in and coming out and it’s like jail because you ask ‘What are you in for?, How long are you in for?, How Long have you been here’, and if you are lucky you can call home for fifteen minutes. That’s all it is all day long, groups talking, food, and meds, that’s how you get to know everyone so well so fast.

Most of all the nurses that I talked to were nice but none as much as Sheri. She sat me down in a room they use for private conferences with your doctors, and we just talked about her life, about my life and what was going on with me. If you are wondering I will tell you too, I was suicidal and depressed. I didn’t want to go on anymore, so many friends and family are on the other side and I want to be with them so bad and when things like not knowing what I want to do with my life, convinced I will never truly fall in love, things like that along with the depression not being able to rationalize it, it gets rough but I went in because I knew it wasn’t the answer, suicide.  But, Sheri helped me understand my disorders and why it is that I might have them and just listened to me and I guess I need that every once in a while.

The last day when you know you are going home in an hour or so is scary and riveting. All my friends went home on Thursday like I did, I was the last so I had to hug everyone goodbye. It’s scary though too because you are going to be back in the real world and you don’t know what’s going to happen to your new found friends or yourself. I will never see them again but I will always hold them in my heart and hope that they are ok. There is so much I wish I could tell you and write about this experience and what it meant to me but for now, this is all I have. I can’t say that I will never be back there or in a place like there and I know I can never say that I won’t feel like that again because I know I will. I guess my reason for writing this blog is for everyone that struggles with a disorder and feels too scared to go and get help, just know that it is not that bad and for those that have gone through this experience before, you know that you are not alone.

If you feel like you would like to share your experience with me or have something you would like me to talk about in the blog email me at: a_song4hope1123@yahoo.com

God Bless

-          Adriene Song