Yesterday was Father's day...and I mentally kept going back and forth, coming up with every excuse to not go to church. I recently just started going back...mainly for my daughter, she loves to go to church,  but since her dad passed away unexpectedly in December from an overdose... I can't pawn off that task to my family that helped manage his supervised visits with my daughter on Sundays, and they would all go together. 

Her dad used to be a worship leader in church. He was huge in the community, and everyone loved him.  Even after his death, and as his family tried to keep secret the truth of how he died... no one would suspect it could be from an overdose...

Yesterday was hard...I woke up feeling guilty that I'm alive, and that my precious marriage was a huge failure and that I couldn't prevent or save my ex-husband. I stayed for years, trying to make it work, but i left shortly after my daughter was born, after I started to realize how badly the addiction had a hold of him,  and after time after time, refusing to go to rehab, I couldn't live in the chaos cycle of manipulation, lies, secrets, financial destruction, and crazy making. I couldn't have my daughter living in that environment. Constant fights. No peace. Nothing ever made sense or felt right. 

I used to spend so much time with him at the church as he practiced his songs. It's hard to be in church, they play so many songs that bring up so many memories, and it's overwhelming. I have to fight back tears almost every Sunday. Physicslly pinch my finger hard, just to distract myself.  

My daughter is 4, and as my fiance was holding her, during the worship music at the end, she started loudly singing her heart out to the one song...and all I could thing of, was how proud he would be, and how in the world did this happen, and why did he have to get back on tramadol, that led down a slow road to things that would destroy him. I valued marriage so much,  and it's hard to process how badly I failed my first one. His family blames me for his death. And I don't blame them, I struggle constantly, with the what ifs....what if I would have stayed...would it have kept him off the harder drugs, would be have still been alive.. would my daughter get to grow up with her dad? 

As I'm standing there in church, while my brain is overwhelming me with things that start making it nearly impossible to breathe...I pray that God doesn't let anyone come try to pray for me. Because I know, that it's the time of the service where people pray over people that go forward or rinse their hand...and although I'm doing neither...I all of the suddle felt terrified that someone would randomly come pray for me...and I couldn't have that happen...because I could barely keep it together as it was...

All of a sudden, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I look,  and there's this sweet older woman, and she asks me in a soft voice, how she could pray for me. It had been so long since someone had asked me that, and I was emotionally a mess, and I just reactively gave her a hug, which I think took her off guard. I couldn't even verbally say anything for about a minute...which seemed like forever in such and awkward moment...and then I just started pouring out about my daughter's dad, my ex husband, and that it's Father's day, and that God gave me strength to make it through the week and be strong for her...etc etc...as I'm bawling... in a huge room, full of people... I'm standing there, tears streaming down my face, as I'm opening up to this random stranger, about things so vulnerable, that I don't talk about with anyone,  other than my partner....and I'm just telling her my life story about my failed married, my ex-husband that overdosed, my family and his that are being ripped apart from his death...that my daughter has been struggling with missing her dad....i just tell this random, sweet, quiet stranger so many things, I would never talk to anyone about. My makeup in coming off my face, i can't stop crying, my fiancé has taken my daughter out in the lobby, and most everyone has left the church,  and I'm in this huge room, with very little people left, still going on with all the things that have been eating me alive, for years...the things I struggled with in my marriage, separation, divorce, after the divorce, now as I'm engaged... I'm bawling like a small child, to this stranger...I couldn't get it back together...I couldn't stop... it was like my depression and anxiety just overtook my entire being, and all the things that I've been secretly struggling with for years, I'm just verbally expressing to this sweet, random stranger, as I'm bawling....

I'm mortified. I don't want to go back there. I'm so embarrassed. I'm so closed off from people, and I opened up to someone, and now I feel mortified. An entire room of people saw me break down, and I feel so vulnerable, and I don't want anyone to ask me questions. I don't want anyone close to me. I don't want anyone to know what's going on in my head. I don't trust people. Especially in the church.  I got excommunicated from my church previously for living with someone I wasn't married to, meanwhile,  my ex-husband was actively using drugs,  and not only was not excommunicated, was asked to keep leading worship music for the church.  People loved my ex-husband...he was very likeable...I get it. It feels hypocritical, but at the same time, I'm not surprised. Just a little scarred. 

I feel so damaged and broken, the only thing that keeps me going most days is my daughter. I have to keep repressing memories and thoughts,  just to function, and then stuff with just pop in my head that I repress, and I just break down.