“When life gives you lemons…..”

I am a 41 year old single mom with three boys. I’m disabled due to several different conditions and most can’t be seen just by looking. Such as, I have epilepsy, severe migraines, and a bone condition, and hypoglycemia also severe anxiety, depression, and personality disorder. I understand that there are lots of people they take advantage of the system and draw a check because they don’t want to work. But, I don’t think it’s as many as most people assume, just because you can’t see someone’s disability, doesn’t mean it’s not there. It is heartbreaking to have to tell my kids they cant have the things that the other kids have, the things they want and the things I want them to have and sometimes things they need. We live on $800 a month. I would give anything to be able to hold down a job and bring home a regular paycheck, but, I’m just not able to do that. My life really didn’t turn out anything like I thought it would. In 2007 I was 27 years old with a four year old and a two year old my mom was 47. She had been my lifeline my whole life. She raised me without any help from my dad, who was a bad alcoholic. My step dad never really liked me at all. I never understood why. I feel like my whole life I always was just trying to make people love me but failed. In March of 2007, I got a phone call one morning telling me my mom’s life was in God’s hands. the girls that worked for her were taking her to the hospital, she had had an aneurysm. For 6 days I slept on the hospital floor, so I could see her every chance that I could. Day 5, we were in her room during visitation, saying if you can here us move your fingers. Her fingers moved! My step dad said it was just muscles twitching. He didnt want any test done to see how much brain activity she had. On the sixth day, my stepdad had her taken off life support. The family stood around and watched as her body convulsed and jerked as every organ shutdown, for about 8 hours. After that and the funeral was over, everybody else’s life went back to normal, my stepdad decided since I lived in one of their rental trailers he would kick me and my boys out and wanted nothing else to do with me. He and my mom had been married since i was 18 months old. They were the inly family i knew. This drug out for a couple years, i worked as a cna, and private duty home care. But, my health was getting worse. I had nowhere else to go, so I called my dad and ended up moving to his house. but that wasnt gonna work for long. he lived in a small trailer and had a live in girlfriend. So he helped me look for a job and get moved into a place down the road. I was working home health, loved taking care of people, and was good at it. I had a very hard time handling my moms death, for several years. I was so sad that my kids would not remember her and she was such an important role in their life and love them so much, but they would never see it or feel it, it broke my heart. I struggled with it until 2013. I was no longer able to hold a job because of my health but I was helping take care of my grandmother at her home who was battling breast cancer. Seeing that and everything that she went through I didn’t handle it well. I started drinking often I realized it had become a problem and decided but I had to get help after trying to commit suicide. July 4th 2013 I was in a rehab facility and got called to come into the office where they told me that my grandmother had passed away. My dad promised me that she would be fine for 30 days while I was gone. she had no idea where I was because no one told her. so, I got a weekend pass for her funeral and I went back and finished the four days I had left. I came back home and by this time I had my third son and was still with his father. Who was very emotionally abusive and verbally abusive. Which done a lot of irreversible damage. 2 months later I got a call from my oldest two boys dad, who I was still good friends with, and told me to sit down, he needed to tell me something. I have been married one time we were still married but separated because he was physically abusive during the marriage. But, we also we’re very close friends after I left him. My son’s dad continue to tell me that my husband was killed in a motorcycle accident. I was devastated. This was on September 13 2013, the day before his birthday.That’s all I can say about that. 2 months after that I received the call from my Daddy’s girlfriend, she said you need to get up here now your dad has shot himself and hung up. I thought I was losing my mind so my youngest son’s father called her back. It was true my dad had shot himself. At that time we live about 35 minutes from him. It seemed likely longest trip of my life. We turned on his Road and all I could see was blue lights everywhere. This was much different then watching my mom die. Because once she was gone my stepdad was in control of everything and I only was allowed my input where he wanted it, which wasn’t a lot. With my dad I had to go to the hospital and identify him because I was next to Kin. It wasn’t what I expected it wasn’t like you see on TV his mouth wasn’t closed his eyes weren’t close it was devastating. I was completely traumatized. He had become a completely different person after my kids were born. He made up through them, not being there when I was growing up. They were very young but still very close to him. And, I will never forget the looks on their faces at the funeral home that first night. I initially had tried to lie to them and say it was an accident, but at the funeral home they heard people talking and found out different. They came up to me and asked me. So I had to tell them the truth. My oldest who is extremely close to him, and did not handle it well at the time. They were unable to attend the funeral the following day, because they were both up, sick at their stomach, with their dad that night. But overall ended up handling it better than me. I believe my oldest was ten at the time and my middle one was 8, my youngest was 2. So now with pretty much all my immediate family gone, any that wanted to be in our lives anyway. my kids had no grandparents. No Aunts Uncles cousins or family to show them how it’s supposed to be. My dad left me as beneficiary on his stuff which wasn’t a lot, and that also made me the beneficiary of any debt he owed. I think people take for granted such little things in life like being able to call your mom or your dad and ask for advice about something with your kids, or how to prepare a meal that she used to make good, or having Christmas and Thanksgiving get-togethers. Or having someone you can go to to borrow $5 for a pack of diapers or gallon of milk. It has been extremely hard to try and raise my three boys the way I wanted to with the morals and teach them the important things in life, when I could barely keep my life going. Most of the time havent even wanted to. I guess the moral of the story is just because you can’t see somebody’s illness doesn’t mean but it’s not there. You never know what someone is going through or what they have been through. You should never run them down or talk about them if you don’t know them and their situation. Because literally in the blink of an eye your entire life can change and you end up with nothing. Now my oldest son is 17 he’s about to go to prom next year he’ll be graduating and I’m trying to figure out how I’m even going to pay for a tux for him to go to prom and I worry that it won’t be good enough or that people will laugh at him because I don’t have enough money to do what everyone else does. And, i will once again, have let him down. Now, my car is also messing up and i cant afford to put it in a shop! I’m open to suggestions or advice if anyone is interested in giving it. The struggle is real. I dont have ANY KIND of support system, or friends. Idk how nuch more i can do this. View all posts by Crystal