••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Disclaimer:
I am publishing this because in our history it's absence would make O.M. incomplete. It is, however embarrassing in the way that these responsibilities are pretty normal for a Dad to perform. And that I have a beautiful, doting wife, who is also my best friend.
These entries are old, outdated and represent my doubts, hurtful emotions and related pain over many years. All of it is a prime symptom of my bi - polar, and its often paralyzing effects. By far I am still in love with, and lucky to have my wife.
My Dear Rose,
The end has come. I am not happy.
I do what you want, when you want, all the time, and you ask all day and all night. Then you tell me I am not doing anything, that it's all put on you. I want to return to work, have for years, but you will only allow it on your terms, your hours.
Our daughter doesn't even like me anymore, she has been conditioned not to.
I do what you want for me to do. I eat what you want to eat. I drink or don't drink what you want, and if not it's all bad on me. I watch what you want to watch. I listen to you talk ten fucking hours a day. But if I talk, I am "manic". You talk about, revisit your past all the time, but if I do, I'm "living in the past". When I went back to work, it was "inconvenient" for you.
All throughout this relationship I have been me. I am a writer, actor, comedian, musician and an artist. You have never supported my efforts. You don't even look at my work. At all. Over a decade of toxicity put to the test for me.
Despite, I have chosen you and our daughter and choked down when you disbelieved me, or my stories, called me "ill" or "deluded". It's adequate to say I am more than unsatisfied.
How could I think I would fit with someone who hates concerts, shows, theater, opposes the very idea of me following my dreams for me?
You have instilled in our daughter that "Dad" doesn't work, is lazy, incompetent to measure up to anything she should look up to. She'll never view me in a good light as I would want my daughter to.
I'm sick of spinning my fucking wheels.
We never kiss. We aren't intimate. We never have heart to heart talks. For years.
You speak of getting the American dream. But hold no credit that I can help get us there.
Stuck.
I am going to take my chances on finding happiness elsewhere and in my career.
You would say "What career?!"
And that's just how I will remember you.
I'm not going to serve you by only doing what you desire anymore.
You can keep your fucking insults and disinterested slander.
I don't need it.
Goodbye.
Where am I going? Far away from here.
So now you can have it your way. I'm sure that will make all of you happy.
And so on this day I get to write you a heart break letter.
I've known I was losing you for quite some time now.
I've gone through so much with you, but you deserve so much better than me. The world is your oyster, may you find all of it in pearls.
I don't want it to be over, but I can't stand ruining your potential happiness anymore.
There are times I wish for more, and I will always wished it could have been for you, but I guess this is the way it goes.
Take for instance, the fact that I am lying here crying five feet from you, and you don't even care to notice.
We almost made it real, huh?! Almost.
I am holding you and our daughter back from a life with someone I am sure you will find. Someone to provide for you what I never have.
I wish I could.
That time is past, you already act so numb to feelings towards me so much, I won't be able to stay around to watch you break my heart anymore.
I'm sorry, but I can't do it. That's why I lost you they'll say.
I came from the streets, and now I will return to them.
"Vita est morte, est vita."
Memento Vivere.
The last straw to me was the blindness with which you handle my hopes and aspirations for my career life. You don't support them at all. Not even when I have demonstrated worlds beyond what needs to be in my skill set to have a professional life that will bring me wealth, prosperity, happiness, and fulfillment.
If that's the way it is, then what do we have to look forward to?
Enjoy your life "trapping" someone else in the world you alone are allowed to contribute to in complete disregard for the partner you "love".
You have said "I love you" of your own volition I bet you less than 100 times in over a decade. That means you would have "initiated" it, and meant it, for me to know - that's less than ten times a year.
I will now go on the daunting adventure of making my own life improvements. Away from a daughter who abuses her priveledge (always will), and you, the woman who settled for the "tramp" she thought she could own.
No Regrets,
All of My Well Wishes.
Joel
"All of this shit becomes the shit we've been through..." [(???)]
-Slug from "Atmosphere"
I wish that I could honestly say I could just "stick it out", make it work, but I can't.
It's just too fucked up.
(My wife)
Her brother said, just before she made me quit my full time job at Sycuan, he said, hunched over in a raspy whisper "I don't like the way she treats you dude! She is constantly like, up your ass, like way up there!"
This from a man who has been best friends with her his whole life.
It's been over a decade of long, hard fought years. Our daughter was born (premature) ten months into it, she's been a factor since the second month of the relationship.
She doesn't love me. Or maybe she thinks she does, but it's this disfunctional she is "the boss", and she gets to make my life living Hell because of the she is "always right" bullshit.
It's funny but she (49) and her brother (45) basically never left home. A home with an untreated bi - polar Mom makes her subservient, bitter husband's life living Hell. He stays, out of obligation, what with his Retired Naval Senior Chief Petty Officer pension, probably six figures. I think she (my wife) expects me to live on with her to the bitter ends, as the family tradition demands. No way I'm doing this 50 FUCKING years.
I am going to break the cycle, for my daughter. My daughter has begun voicing her upset over my wife (by common law marriage) to me, and I find, I am impotent to help. I need to show her that you don't just put up with it out of some kind of twisted obligation.
If y'all haven't gathered, we live in a multi - generational family dwelling (1300 sq.ft.) with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle and his son, me, my wife and our twelve year old. Like crushed sardines in a tin can box.
In the beginning, I had dreams of a home, a career, and yeah we talked of kids. She, she had 300 pregnancy test strips she peed on daily with hopes. She told me we would live at her parents home, work fast food jobs, and inherit wealth from here, at her parents behest. I didn't want that.
She got her way.
I was told I was not allowed to work from 2012 all the way up until 2020, because she "couldn't handle it". If it makes any sense to you her anxiety made her drop out of High School, and not leave the house for 19 years. She would never, but NEVER, leave the house alone.
She told me very early on I was not allowed to try to have a relationship with my (now 20 yr. old) son, out of fear and jealousy for my relationship with his mother. I was threatened that I would now lose my daughter too. I have to say, that was the first knife to the back.
In 2020 she forced me to leave Walmart. I had only been there 3 months, and I was looking at a fast track to management. I would probably have a proper career now. Though she denies it openly, she admitted to me during a fight that she meticulously planned and manipulated me leaving that job.
Mind you all of these things I say, she gaslights me and denies all of it.
I am FUCKING man slave too. I do the dishes for everyone, alone, 5 times a day, empty the trash cans and recycling several times a day, laundry, cat boxes, water, and food, make lunch and dinner food, the list goes on, and on.
When I went to work in April 2024 at my long awaited job at Sycuan Resort and Casino, Full Time Box Office Employee (Entertainment Ambassador) I was psyched! I loved my job, I loved the people, the benefits were awesome, the pay decent enough to ride out to promotion, but she wasn't having it.
The second day in training she started a fight, and threw me out of the house! The fights continued for months while I worked. Everything from coworker jealousy, to claiming I would leave her unfairly for her problems with my "dirty" money job.
All the while I gave her $400 per paycheck... Over $800/month every time, and when she convinced me to quit, made me leave, she said she'd help me til I got a new job. That ended quick, and now I get an earful every time I need something, and she won't help! She FUCKING lectures me about not quitting a job before I have a new one, when she made me leave!
She bitches nonstop about me, calls me stupid, full of myself, uncaring of our daughter, lazy...sick, a "piece of trash"...
I'm expected to get new part time work except no Saturdays, Sundays, or Mondays, and mornings only. And this is subject to change around her schedule!
And as for a relationship, well, there's no intimacy. I'm not allowed to talk. She talks for hours every day, uninterrupted and all about her stuff, it couldn't be called a conversation as I am not to speak, and corrected if I do. If I correct our daughter, I'm always subject to a lesson on parenting. Everything has to be done her way. I'm not allowed to write my novels, make music, or vlog, or do stand up.
I'm expected to give her hour long massages, at will.
I could go on forever.
I won't, though.
The thing that gets me is that I have nothing to start over with.
No money. No job. No home. No car. No license.
And where do I go?
I would love to go home to Pennsylvania, but my family there is abusive, and I can't trust my son, and I already put that on the map here blogging, so I'd be scared they'd meddle again.
It'll be me and a backpack full of toiletries, nicorette, and medicine vs. The World.
My knees are really bad these days too, osteo - arthritis in both.
I don't smoke habitually, I don't drink, I don't do drugs, and my mental balance has long been restored. I have a fighting chance at starting over, but I will lose my daughter, probably for good. And my wife, she's FUCKING spiteful so all the more.
I don't know where to turn.
I have no one.
I guess I have No. 1
Perhaps better than ever.
Peace by Peace,
Joel E.A. Brooks
1.) Take the trash out - several times a day
2.) Take the trash for 7 people to the curb- once a week
3.) Wash the dishes - several times a day
4.) Cook for Bella - a couple of times a day
5.) Give Bella a shower - every other day
6.) Dress Bella - several times a day
7.) Grocery shop - twice a week
8.) Give Bella medicine - every night
9.) Cook for RGK - once a day
10.) Give 45 min. long back massages- I've given over 1000, literally...(13 years)
11.) Do the laundry - at least once a week
12.) Go shopping for the house - once or twice a week. Up to 5 stores.
13.) Take Bella to school - every day she goes
14.) Do the yard - as needed for many hours
15.) Help Bella toilet - several times a day
16.) Help Bella with brushing her teeth - once a day
17.) Go to Bellas psyche appt. - once a month
18.) Clean up after Bella_ find perpetually lost phone - several times a day
19.) Take stuff to storage - I've filled a 25x10, and a 10x10
20.) Clean the cats litter - several times a week
21.) Feed the cat - several times a day
22.) Clean the hamster cage - every few weeks
23.)Clean the refrigerator - every few months
24.) Major projects like moving trash built up in the backyard for half a day, cleaning the garage, putting together new furniture
25.) Work on Bella's homework - several times a week
Morning View
12pm "Joel, get up, get Bella's LUNCH!"
12- 12:15 serve a four course meal
1PM - 2 PM Argue over being able to use ipad while in virtual zoom classroom
3pm "Joel, clean the kitty litter, feed the cat, give Bella her medicine, do the dishes, take out the trash, and get Bella dressed to go to the store."
3:01 "Daddy take me to go poop!"
3:30 Listen to afternoon itinerary
3:45 Leave for Walmart Grocery, WalMart Dept. Store, Target, Fast food run
4:00 - 6:30 pm - shop
7pm - arrive home, unpack, "Daddy take me to go pee!"
7:30 pm - empty trash, recycling, feed cat, hang up laundry
8pm "get the salt and pepper" "get me ice water" "get my glasses case" "hand me my vitamins" "get dry food for the cat, and do the dishes before you make my aging mother do them." "Empty the bathroom trash" "break down the boxes delivered and take them out" "clean the cats water bowls" "when I'm done earning money, since I'm the only one with a job supporting this family, give me a 45 minute massage!"
8:15 "make Bella Mac n cheese on the stove, a hot dog in the air fryer, and cut her up some watermelon..."
8:30pm "can you wash the bedclothes, and linens, and scrub Bellas shoe soles?"
8:45pm "Give Bella a shower and give me her detangler and brush from the bathroom!"
9:15 pm " Dress Bella and change the laundry loads."
9:30 pm " Brush Bella's teeth and mouthwash, give her Melatonin and tuck her in."
10pm " It's so messed up I have to do everything, micro manage you and Bella..."
11pm - 3am ozenoz media
3am - 4am massage
Who knows when zzzz....
Up at 12pm "Get up Joel, make Bella lunch!"
Fubar reality. Ugh.
(Etc... A LOT OF ETC...)
Benefits:
Rent free
With my girls
Included in outings/vacations:
San Diego Zoo and Safari Park
Birch Aquarium
Disneyland
Knotts Berry Farm
Museums
Yosemite
Zion National Park
Movies
Padres Games
Air BnB w/Pools "staycations"
World Mark Timeshares
Warner Brothers Studios
+Others...
The problem really lies in my ability to make money. Not that I can't, I just haven't been "allowed".
I'm not wasting my time on this dead end anymore.
What a waste.
Goodbye to this chapter of my life.
Sad.
To have spent a quarter of my life on this, and lost it all to selfishness. Not my own.
Unspoken
Goodbye Love
Sorry Goodbye...
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Disclaimer:
I am publishing this because in our history it's absence would make O.M. incomplete. It is, however embarrassing in the way that these responsibilities are pretty normal for a Dad to perform. And that I have a beautiful, doting wife, who is also my best friend.
These entries are old, outdated and represent my doubts, hurtful emotions and related pain over many years. All of it is a prime symptom of my bi - polar, and its often paralyzing effects. By far I am still in love with, and lucky to have my wife.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
This isn't your normal love letter.
It is not your normal lover.
I am still desperately, and completely head over heels in love with my wife.
She is the best thing that ever happened to me, and is truly more than just my partner. She is my every dream come true, the true object of my every affection, my best friend, confidant, and really my other half, in fact the better half.
She has gotten me clean and sober, I've quit smoking, I've had career improvement because she allowed me to heal and learn, grow, and change, stay and foster new things in my life.
Over that time she has put up with my bi polar, several psychotic episodes, hospitalizations, and medication adjustments. She has shown me love, kindness, and understanding through it all.
She influences me to make healthy choices, bearing the brunt of my unhealthy habits, and gently steering a different course.
She is patient, diligent, and as attentive a mother to our child as I could ever hope a spouse to play in the role of such a demanding kid. She reads up on techniques, literature and methods of parenting for children like our daughter, and implements and buys a neverending supply of the things necessary to give this treatment.
She homeschools our daughter almost single handedly. She found the private school quality academy our daughter attends on her own time and efforts online.
She has been there every step of the way, every day and night for our daughter. She is nurturing and caring beyond what I could have ever demanded.
She nearly lost her life giving birth to our daughter, and she has, without blame, taken care of her health to insure she will always (we pray) be there for us.
She works three jobs to pay all of the bills without help, and has done so well that she has earned promotions to management as a virtual assistant, and been offered advancement to a position that would require a college degree in her pursuit of caring for other disabled children, like our daughter.
She pays all of the bills, and yet keeps her eye on the road ahead, planning and doing all of the driving for our shopping, recreational, and healthcare trips. I do not have a license.
Still beyond that she plans our food situation, our event attendance, exercise, and educational outings. She has a million more photos than me.
She is a very private person, who puts up with my blogging, and forgives me my trespasses.
She is loving, affectionate, cautiously empowering, ascending the scale of my rating of her to an ultimate ratio, 10 out of 10 for the isms and listens as I go on and on about armchair physics, schizophrenic level visions and experiences, recovery war stories and misnomers, and lets me handle my own fears of threats I deal with without confrontational impasse.
I love this woman with all of my heart, and would not, do not, will not ever leave her for any reason but the passing of life.
As I try and dispel any negative backlash from previous posts, you might ask, why publish any of it at all?
Because my mission, my purpose, my goal is to inspire people to work their problems out without having to leave their loved ones out of their lives.
It is my belief that when we choose a husband, or wife, it is what we are meant to do. You will experience the same love, light, living, friendship, the same pain, breakup, heartache, the same change and transition with that one person as you would ten more different relationships. Forgive me, I pick one, and stick to them as long as I possibly can, this being the cause.
So yes, I broke it off with my wife a hundred times in the last more than a decade. But I'm still with her, and will be forever and a day.
Apologies for my past deceit, it was me who was truly deceived.
All of my love to you, my Rose...
The bird who never flew.
- Joel
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Why am I sharing all of this?
Because sometimes I feel like I'm failing and want to run away. Because I have no friends, and need an open, empathetic ear.
The bottom line is, I have a 12 1/2 year old daughter who is disabled.
She has Bi Polar I., Autism, Intellectual Impairment, and ADHD. She was born prematurely, causing physical development issues too.
At this point we are seeing things are getting much harder, as she gets older, and the normal functioning expectations are put in place.
We still have to do everything for her. For this reason, along with my issues, I have no time to devote to work.
She:
• Can't toilet herself
• Can't dress herself
• Can't make her own food
• Can't clean up after herself
• Can't do her schoolwork
• Requires homeschooling
• Cannot do physical activities (also has asthma)
• Can't take care of her hygiene (shower, hair, teeth brushed, nails etc...)
• Cannot be in a room by herself (scared)
...and has a slew of symptoms which make her slow, defensive, bossy, combative and rude out of the exact definition of ignorance.
All of this, is definitely not her fault.
But it's been killing us in droves of stress, duress, high emotions, and poverty we are not at fault for.
Day by day we rise to the challenge, though, and nor will we give up, ever.
Comments
Post a Comment