Trust

Broken Alliances

My Dad (Fred) and Joey

What do you do when the trust you put into people has been broken? What do you do when you have been deceived by people you have given your most valuable treasures to? The people that you entrusted with your heart and happiness? The people who swore to you in front of others, God and the law that they were to be trusted? What do you do when you find out it was a lie and you were being played for a fool?

It's an awful feeling to realize that not only were you deceived, but your family is also hurting because of the selfish acts of another. Someone who claimed to be loving and selfless and wanting to put others before themselves has turned out to be just the opposite. 

For years I defended this person and their motives whenever I heard anything negative and now I feel as though I may have been the one who was wrong the entire time. 

My Dad and Joey

Apparently I have a bad habit of wanting to believe the best in people, so I tend to look past and give second and third, fourth chances. 

My father is hurting so badly right now because of this person and he doesn't deserve to be hurt this way. He has done nothing but show love and gratitude for this family and his great-grandson is being taken from him. Within days of the adoption being finalized, the adopting family went back on every promise they made in order to be able to adopt that little boy. We made an agreement before he was ever placed there and it was that my father was to continue to have ongoing contact and in less than a week of the adoption being finalized, he got a text saying he could not have any more visits with him.

He had an attorney write a letter asking for visits to resume and they have now cut off all contact with any bio family members including myself.

Aunt Judy and Joey

Apparently, I pissed them off by sticking up for my father and daring to question why they would cut off visits. 

I was there at my grand-daughters birth. I cut her umbilical cord and they just came down to visit me in South Carolina. But, as much as they have preached about bio family involvement and how important family is, it was all a lie.

Lanah and Mémé

I was wrong and everything I had been told all these years and the warnings I had gotten were true. I just didn't want to believe them. I thought I knew this family better than that. I thought they really did care about the kids and their welfare more than pettiness and that the relationship we had built over six years and the love I had for all those kids and they had for me meant something. 

Joey and Mémé

 It's adoption fraud when you make promises to a bio family in order to adopt a child for financial or personal gain. It's a crime and it hurts on every level. I have emailed several times now with zero response asking for a compromise. Begging for a middle ground and asking why on earth would I suddenly be shut out after six years of continued involvement. My poor father. He lost a grandson 20 years ago when my son died and this selfish family just broke his heart again by stealing the little boy from him that he helped raise and it's ugly and cruel and it's completely uncalled for. I can only imagine what will be next. 

Joey driving with Grampy Fred

Joey pretending to drive Grampy Fred's
Old Lawn Mower

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Postpartum Depression

Postpartum Depression within the African American Community

LaShonta Edwards, mom of three, describes her experience with postpartum depression.

*Uploaded to youtube to enable Closed Captioning and the ability to access in multiple languages*

By Planet Grande Pictures with Postpartum Support International on Vimeo

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Postpartum Psychosis - Dad's View

Fathers Talk About Postpartum Psychosis

Three fathers share their perspective and describe their experience of how they were affected by Postpartum Psychosis. 

*Uploaded to youtube to enable Closed Captioning and the ability to access in multiple languages*

By Planet Grande Pictures with Postpartum Support International on Vimeo

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Postpartum Psychosis

The Real Tragedy - Watch Now

This is beautiful and I love how Carol calls Postpartum Psychosis a murderer because she knows first hand what it truly robs you of and how heartbreaking it really is

"Carol Blocker describes her experience watching her daughter struggle with postpartum psychosis."

*By request, I created a link so we could have it with closed captioning and also the ability to have it translated into other languages*

By Planet Grande Pictures with Postpartum Support International on Vimeo

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

The Dark Silence of the Night

When the Loneliness gets to you

I am very much having all these thoughts and feelings right now. I really wish I had paid better attention to and heeded my own warning about allowing people into my life. 

I already kept people at arms length and hadn't allowed anyone in my life intimately in five years. I thought my husband was sincere when we met. To find out I was nothing more than anyone else he was trying to get to marry him to keep him in the country feels like a level of betrayal I don't know how to describe. 

I know we do and say things in the heat of the moment, "Dino Brain" as the Imago Therapist called it. I get that and I can understand that. But to plan and scheme ahead of time. To be so malicious and try to use this against me and tell others about Hunter. 

To keep coming for me. 

------------------------------

-Originally Blogged on January 23, 2016 

I'm used to being alone. Even when I have others physically near me, I am usually alone. I can't remember the last time I was able to let someone into all facets of my life and with each passing day, month and year I become less and less hopeful that will ever happen. I've become really good at keeping people at arm's length. It's one disappointment after another and that's when I am reminded of how lonely I really am.

Life is hard. Some days are harder than others and I keep trying to leave people better than I found them. It's not always possible, but I am trying. 

I sit here crying, alone and this is where I turn. Because I am expecting a virtual hug at best when I am finished. 

I tell myself it's okay if someone else hurts my feelings, I will always reach out or attempt to make the extra effort. I don't ever want to regret how I left a relationship. I would rather make sure I did what I could. 

As I keep trying to date, I know I push people away. I am afraid they will leave, they will hurt me and I just don't have it. I couldn't take that kind of emotional blow in my life. 

I have gotten better at not allowing myself to be taken advantage of though and set better standards for how I allow people to treat me. There comes a place in the middle where with some men I can't tell if I am pushing them away too quickly or I am practicing better standards for how I am treated. At times I know it lies somewhere on the middle. I have little hope to find someone to walk this journey with me.  

I am puffy faced with a pile of tissues beside me. I cannot breathe out of my nose. My cheeks and eyes are swollen and it almost looks like I've been slapped around. An emotional beat down. 

Amazing Grace just came on my playlist. The tears started again. I know self forgiveness is the toughest of all. Because even as I type this words pop into my head all the time like penance, paying my dues, lifelong sentence, this is what I deserve.
Now I can tell anyone else besides myself that is not true and have compassion for them. But I don't feel that for myself. I have given myself a life sentence of guilt and grief that comes in waves. On nights like this, it feels overwhelming, as though the weight of a thousand grieving mothers sits upon my heart. 

You are good, you do deserve love, you do deserve people in your life who love and care for the whole you. All of you; your past, present and future. I am going to say this to myself and I encourage any of you who need to say this to yourself to say it as well. Because it is true and I promise it will feel like it eventually, even if it doesn't in this precise moment. In this dark silence of the night.

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Depression is a Black Hole

The Ballad of Lucy Jordan ~

The evening sun touched gently on
The eyes of Lucy Jordan
On the rooftop where she climbed
When all the laughter grew too loud

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

*Always Try to be Something and be Kind*

Take Me To Church

There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

Gentle sin is without malice or intent. You cannot want to do harm to someone before entering a room, that is intent. You cannot break down our apartment door with an audio recorder in your pocket, already recording and while breaking things throughout our apartment tell me I am "destroying our apartment" all so you can let people listen to that recording later.

That is premeditated and malicious.

You cannot assault me and then claim you don't know what I am talking about and that you were never here.
You cannot bring an audio recorder into our private marriage counseling sessions, so not even the counselor is aware that you are recording the three of us. All of this was done with intent and malice and has insidious qualities. You kept telling everyone that all the things you were doing to me, I was doing to you. You kept taking my car keys, my debit cards, my phones and hiding them. I just found a pile of cards a week ago when I went to move a pile of your stuff I had never been able to lift because it was too heavy and last week I was finally able to have it moved. A stack of cards I'd had tucked in the front pocket of my purse, that I left sitting on the kitchen table went missing one-day last summer... I asked you if you took them and you told me I must have lost them. 

So, so many things you took and hid of mine on purpose. 

It makes me feel horrible, scared and so bad about myself. That this person that I believed loved me, never loved me at all.



That a person who claimed they loved me, a man who should have been protecting me, was trying to hurt me in one of the worst ways possible. 

You knew about my son.You knew that I lost my mind 20 years ago and it almost killed me. You knew that it tore me up every day and I shared with you how much this website meant to me.
How far I've come.
How much talking to all these women meant to me. How I honor my son with this website. 

How lost I was for so long.

You took the very things that caused me more pain than anything else in the world, the one thing that scarred and scared me more than anything and you tried to make not just me believe, but the people around me believe that I was losing my mind.

You were telling me daily that I was losing my keys, my phones, my debit card, my storage card. You were locking me out of our apartment and wouldn't let me in.
You were making me stand in our hallway and call you over and over, texting for all hours and pounding on the door... the entire time claiming you couldn't hear me. Our dog was barking the entire time. I stood out there for over 20 minutes trying to get in through our door and couldn't. 

When you left, you wouldn't tell me or our therapist where you were staying but the truth was, you were staying at the hotel next door. All these games. 

You told so many people I was having a psychotic break. You tried to tell them I was having a "ppp" episode.
I am just so thankful you were never as smart as you thought you were.

You were someone I thought I could trust. I would never have hurt you like that. I tried to help you.

I have nightmares every night. I have nightmares every night about being attacked, about being assaulted. I wake up in the middle of the night panicked thinking I am being assaulted. I feel like I am being held down on the bed. Like someone is on top of me and I can't move. 

There are times I am so scared I wake up frozen and it feels like there is the weight of a body on top of me.

I just want it to stop. You have done these things to me. Even right now, all you want to do is continuing taking things from me. 

You are sending your attorney after me right now to try and take the dog and cat. No matter how nice and no matter how much I try and compromise on anything it's never enough.
I can't afford an attorney.
I am trying to be practical, genuine and compromise. It feels, as usual, it's all about what Karl wants all the time, any time, no matter what.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life

In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene

Only then I am human

Only then I am clean

Ooh oh. Amen. Amen. Amen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

Razor's Edge; I will get back up

There will always be times in your life when someone wants to keep you down when you are down instead of offering a hand when you could use one. It's unfortunate that people don't practice paying it forward more often. It's easy to get caught up in the pettiness going on around you when you are surrounded with it everyday. 

I practice telling myself sometimes dozens of times a day that the job I have selling vacation packages is the minutiae of life when moms and their families struggle with their lives and existence every day. I love my "job" for the simplicity of it and the mere fact that it takes almost zero brain power to do it. People are happy talking about vacations and I get to spend a few hours every day just talking about sending people on vacation.


Then I get to leave all that behind and focus on things that will change someone's life. I remind myself that this is what's important. This feeds my heart and soul. I save all my emails and messages I get from moms and families out there. I cannot tell you how much they mean to me, especially when I am struggling myself...

Below Originally Blogged - Monday, November, 26th, 2012 - 9:56pm

Are we measured by the worth of the words we speak? Or the words whose ears we reach.

I can remember in a strange foggy, yet with surreal clarity, the moment I gripped the razor in my hand and pushed it down into my wrist. I still have the scars. I remember watching the blood flow behind the razor and it didn't really feel like anything. I recall thinking I could see inside of my flesh. The veins and at some point realizing I wasn't bleeding very much and I would have to cut deeper. So I did, this time I could see what I thought were tendons.

AMHI After Closing 2005 - Front Admissions

I wasn't afraid. I just remember it didn't look like me. It was a part of me I had never seen. Apparently I wasn't aware of how to cut my wrists the most efficient way. I would learn that After I was admitted to AMHI. They had plenty of tricks to teach you once you got there.

I have a terrible head cold right now. I am listening to Johnny Cash "Hurt". One of my favorite artists and songs. The lyric in this song that says "everyone always goes away in the end". I've said that for a long time, even before I heard this song. It doesn't seem like people keep their word anymore. Once upon a time that used to mean something. I don't promise anything to anyone because I don't want to be able to not keep my word. *Sigh*

On the day my son, Hunter died, I thought I kept hearing him make noises. I know now it was just my mind playing tricks on me. Some kind of sensory tricks. I kept going back in to check. Even when I think back now to the memories I have, I have them in two different ways. Seeing them from my point of view and seeing them as a bystander. -

Giving him CPR... that's about the only thing I can see is a brief snippet. Holding him, in my hands for a moment before laying on the bed. Then I'm back out. Looking from behind us. Shaking, my hands are shaking. I'm desperate again in my head; desperate. My thoughts are racing. I put my mouth on his, but it's wrong. Over his nose and mouth. Push, push, easy on his little chest. I am trying to breathe for him. Over and over. I'm not there anymore. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It's just not working. I keep going back to it being from my point of view to being a bystander. That doesn't stop for weeks. Maybe months.

My memories have faded and sometimes that's a blessing. But I'm so afraid some day I'm not going to have any real memories of Hunter left. The memory of his first smile I can't see in my mind anymore. I certainly don't have the pictures because there never were any.

I couldn't even begin to count how many nights I have stayed awake or how many hours I have spent in therapy trying to understand and get to a place of acceptance. Forgiveness, tolerance. People on the outside, who often think they have a front row seat into your life, want to judge and throw stones for all of your abominations instead of taking a closer inspection at their own lives.
I've made a lot of mistakes. Knowing myself the way I do, I am pretty sure I will make more. My biggest hope is that I just won't repeat many of them.

It's difficult to get your feet completely under you when everytime you try to stand up, someone comes along and decides it's up to them to give you a little push back down.

~Bonus just added~ If you've never heard this Warren Zevon "My Shit's Fucked Up" do it and listen twice. Anyone who's reading this blog should love this song. I find some kind of solace and I just heard it as I was finishing up this blog so I added it.
Now there may be times when I just take a breather and lie there on that floor for a day or two. But Postpartum Psychosis be damned; I will always get back up!

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~

I Don't Know You

All In

I don’t understand. I have said your name over and over again. I can’t look at any of your photos. When I see you - them. It hurts me so much I feel like I can’t breathe. I feel horrified that you would do and say all those things about me that weren’t true. When I see a picture of just you, you look familiar, but I don’t have that surge of feelings I always had before. When I see a photo of us together, I don’t recognize you. I don’t know who you are. You are a complete stranger to me. I have no idea who that is in the photo with me.

Where there once was such a strong sense and feelings of love and longing, I have such incredible sadness and a hollow feeling in my chest and stomach. 

Now, I try to just avoid pictures. 

I feel such a mix of emotions; I feel things I can’t even describe, that you would try to use what happened with my son against me in any way. 

It takes my breath away. 

You tried to have me question my reality. You wanted people to think I was having a psychotic episode. 

Some of the absolute worst years of my life were spent coming back to reality and knowing that I was responsible for taking my son’s life. Most days I don’t feel like I can ever really be forgiven. Not deep down inside. I usually feel as though I am living in purgatory. 

I’ve dedicated so many years to educating myself and now helping others with Postpartum Psychosis and Maternal Mental Health. It’s how I honor my son. 

The times I think about my son are a precious gift to me that I rarely talk about with anyone. You encouraged me

to share thoughts and feelings with you. I did, little by little. You have used what I hold sacred to me, not only against me, but as a tool. You have diminished and made light of the most important thing I do with my life. You have jeopardized my entire wellbeing, for your own self-serving purposes. You are trying to tarnish and diminish how I honor Hunter. 

I have had many people not like me over the last 20 years. Some people have been wonderful and some hateful, most fall somewhere in the middle. Never in my life, have I ever had anyone do anything like what you have and are trying to do. That is a level of insidiousness and conniving I can’t even comprehend. 

Jane now believes you targeted me from the beginning. That when you found out about my past, you set your sights on me intentionally. I was an easy target. 

I feel like such a fool. I fell for it. I really thought I meant something to you. I can see from all your downloaded and saved interactions with other girls, that you were, at any given time, interacting with someone else. I can see your “To done” list and there I was, right there, like nothing. 

Anytime a red flag was raised for me in our interactions I would say to myself, oh it’s probably because he’s European. I just didn’t know any better. I thought it was because I hadn’t really been around a lot of people from other countries. 

My God, I loved you. As I reread old emails I sent you, I realize how much of my heart I poured into them and it was just a waste. I really believed it mattered, I really thought it would mean something. All that mattered to you was if I ever got upset, you might be able to use it against me later for your VAWA application.

You took advantage of how naïve I was. How much I didn’t understand, how ignorant I was about other cultures and immigration. I was trying my best. How many times did we talk about and did I struggle with racial stuff and not understanding what people were even talking about? How many times did I get approached in parking lots from people looking for money? How often did I give rides to people and give them gas money believing they were actually out of gas? I get it now.

I believed you. I believed we were going to have a real Christmas Tree. I don’t even remember how many years it’s been since I had a Christmas Tree. You said we could get a real tree so it would smell like Maine. I was looking forward to that. I was excited even though we didn't have any ornaments or decorations. 

But none of it was real. The entire time you were telling me these things, you were badmouthing me to everyone, telling them how abusive I was to you, systematically paving the way so they would write you an affidavit for your VAWA. 

I was just a token, something to be used and thrown away so you could get what you wanted. A means to an end. 

I didn’t matter. You wanted a Green Card so you could do exactly what you wanted to do. You finally found someone that was a perfect target. A past riddled with trauma and complications, it would be easy to convince people that I was the problem and that I must have gone crazy right? I mean I went “crazy” 20 years ago. I took the life of my son. All you must do to get most people on your side is tell them that and there’s a good chance they won’t like me much from the start. 

I used to look at you with such adoration and love. I had so much love in my heart for you. I thought you were so wonderful. Even up until recently, I still had my heart full of so much love for you. 

It wasn’t until I realized what you have been doing and for how long. After Indy when you spit on me, slapped at my face and swiped my sunglasses off my face twice. Called me more names than I can remember, tried to drop me off in downtown Indianapolis in my pajamas and YOU emailed the Whitlock Gray attorneys to say YOU were being abused. That was at the end of May. 

I am so… I am not sure I even have the words for what I am feeling. 

You were so completely awful to me that entire weekend. Made me beg to lie down in the back of the car so we could sleep.

The entire summer and everything that happened was a sham. So was our marriage. So was our friendship. I didn’t start falling in love with you when you took me to the hospital last year. I fell in love with whatever persona you were showing me at that time to trick me. 

I can’t breathe. You’ve crushed the light that finally started to brighten since I came to Myrtle Beach to live. I don’t know who you are. When Stephanie said to me she thought maybe you also lied about your name too, I can understand why. 

You have lied about so many things, not just to me but to everyone. You have taken things so far out of context and twisted them to only benefit you in whatever circumstance you are in. 

I have had several people ask me if Karl is even your real name. Can you comprehend that you have lied to so many people about so many things now that they question even what you tell them your name is? You can’t keep track of the lies you tell anymore.

Occasionally I have thoughts run through my head that if I can just look at you, look you in the eyes and talk to you, ask you to please just tell the truth. If I can tell you once again, that I have all this stuff I don’t want to hand over, but you are tying my hands, and I am going to have to in order to protect myself against the things you are accusing me of. Maybe you will listen this time. But, every time I have said it to you before, you tell me I am threatening you with going to Immigration. I feel like no matter what, it’s a losing battle.

Then I remind myself I have tried repeatedly to say this to you and all you do is twist my words and try to use them against me. That every time I extend a gesture in good faith, an offer made from love, hoping you’ll grab onto it; you turn it into something ugly. 

I’ve begged you to do things out of love and kindness for months and months. Instead, you have been doing things out of a place inside you that is self-serving and ugly.  

I moved to Myrtle to be away from chaos. I loved living simply. The truth, no matter how ugly or terrifying is always better than a lie. I could never get that through to you. 

You seem to thrive on Chaos and dysfunction. You love being the center of attention. In any form.

It’s devastating when you realize that someone you love is not the person you thought they were. That not only were they lying, they were cheating, manipulating and aren’t who they claim to be at all.

They were fooling you and everyone else all along. For their own personal gain.

You had your hearing a couple days ago about voluntary departure or being deported. 

The prosecution was reading to me the letter Stephanie had written to get you kicked out of PTI on my way down to Georgia. I wondered if Mike had ever shown you the text I sent him with the screen capture. 

It was just a reminder of how many things you have blamed me for that I haven’t done and have had nothing to do with. 

I was so incredibly prepared to tell the Judge to please allow you to voluntarily depart. All I needed from you was to stop lying. Maybe I am just still being naïve. Maybe you really are a sociopath. Maybe I am just a complete fool for even hoping that you believe you’ve painted yourself into a corner. 

This is where I have used the expression “of two minds” before. The part of me that doesn’t want to believe you are just liar, holds out hope that you see no way out of this road you started down a long time ago now.

You started weaving this tale about abuse and attempting this VAWA, that you see no way to back out of now. You committed to it. That early on when there may have been opportunities for you to walk away from that choice, but, you dug your heels in. You decided to stay committed to the story you were telling and now, you think it’s just too late. 

It's never too late to tell the truth Karl. I know, I absolutely know you do not believe that. I have seen you lie about just about everything. When I have confronted you about this, you told me you needed a backup plan. 

I think you underestimate the power of not only forgiveness, but how much it could be of benefit to not just you mentally, to be remorseful, but to start being, remorseful. 

Part of our justice system is built on remorse. You show none, and as a matter of fact, take no responsibility and try to blame others for your own choices. 

I have wanted so much for you to just tell everyone that yes; you took this too far and you are sorry. Genuinely sorry. That you want to try and make up for the mistakes you’ve made and the people you’ve hurt. 

I was so ready to stand up in that courtroom if you had told the truth and ask them to let you voluntarily depart. But, if you’re not remorseful Karl, I believe you will just do it again. 

I wanted to defend you. To tell them I can clearly see now where you learned all of this from. I am sorry I never took your complaints about your mother as seriously as I should have. I can see now just how manipulative and controlling she really is. I am sure being your POA, while you are locked up while waiting to be returned to Ireland is just making her year. 

Kit is under investigation for ethics violations. I filed them on your behalf and mine. But, I was very clear that I did not believe you would have ended up in a deportation center had you had a therapist who hadn’t created so many boundary issues and ethical issues. A therapist who was qualified to treat you. 

You needed someone long before we were together to help guide you, give you feedback. Not take advantage of you because you were a substitute for his son.

You will not see it this way and I wouldn’t expect you to until you get to know and have a therapeutic relationship with a therapist with appropriate boundaries. 

Every time I suggested an evaluation to get you the help you needed, and the kind of therapy that would benefit you and Kit said you didn’t need that, he was jeopardizing your health. When you forwarded him my texts and emails suggesting a different therapist and he let that continue; when you tried to see a second therapist over the summer and he said he was going to close your sessions with him and “that would make Natachia happy” is such a manipulative move. 

You deserved to get the help you needed. That was his job.

These are not excuses for the things that you have chosen to do or have done. We are all responsible for our choices. They’re just part of the reason you got to where you are now. 

I can’t even remember how many times I begged and begged you to stop doing what you were doing.   

The longer your mother has been here in America and I have seen all the different tactics and been on the receiving end of her manipulation and just plain old, entitlement and do as I please attitude, I have more and more empathy for you. 

I feel like between what you learned growing up and how to deal with stressful situations maladaptively from your mother, and attempting to get therapy from Kit, who crossed so many ethical boundaries, you were bound to fail. 

I wish I had seen the email communication between you and Kit sooner. I would have realized just how serious it was and how much more you needed. I would have filed the complaint a long time ago to get him away from you so you wouldn’t have ended up where you are now. 

Natachia

-------------------------------------

I feel bad because the same way that I was naïve about coming down here, to the Bible belt, and trying to understand racism (in the South) it feels comparative to you struggling with what the United States was about and the laws in the federal government.

I feel as though I’m stuck in an episode of Groundhogs Day. I get up every day and I have to work through my feelings of hurt and anger; resentment, being horrified and betrayed. All those things and more, at times, to try to get back to that place of forgiveness and finding love still for you. It’s something I do almost every day. I can't recall a day, I don’t go through this process. 

I think about what can I do to help you still without completely re-engaging because I can’t put myself in that position. I can’t open myself up to being vulnerable that way again. Knowing that you were betraying me on every single level possible, including trying to blame me for things that I didn’t even know about that involved your Ex. I mean, I'm still working on how to process that.
When I think about all of those things, it just tears me up inside and I start crying because I think, how could you do and say those things to hurt me when I gave you the opportunity to have everything that you wanted and you just turned on me?

I don’t feel guilty for the choices that you made, or the things that you’ve chosen to lie about and tell people. You created the circumstances that landed you where you are and constructed an atmosphere that made it all but impossible for people to step in and help you in any genuine way. 

I just feel guilty because I wanted to help you, and you wouldn’t let me because of the choices that you made. I feel awful because you were not able to see the road you were going down. I attempted to tell you what you weren't willing to hear. Or maybe you weren’t able. I feel horrible because I saw this months and months ago, and I kept telling you this was what was going to happen, and you wouldn’t believe me.

Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser

~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~