This is not a journal! Or a diary!

[GraybeardGhost]

I think I get why you don't want to tell your wife about these dreams: you don't want to burden her mind with the horrors of your past. She likely has a head full of worries of her own, what with raising three kids in a world such as this and all the other doubts and fears that come from simply being alive. You don't want to add to her load, and that's admirable.

However, I suspect that by not telling her what's going on, you're inadvertently doing the very opposite of what you intend. She knows something is wrong, and she knows it's something bad, so naturally she wants to help. That's what spouses do. Instead of easing her concern, though, you've put up a wall, and every time you rev the engine or crank up the tractor, you add another brick. As the wall gets higher, so will her unease.

This situation may seem merely embarrassing or uncomfortable to you, but I feel obliged to point out that it's more than that. It's dangerous. If you've reached the point where you're screaming and punching the bed, how long do you think it will be before you miss the bed and hit your wife by accident? What if one of your kids wanders into range? When you're fighting your demons in your sleep, you have no way of knowing where the real punches will land.

You're a strong, capable guy, JC, but you shouldn't have to carry this all by yourself. The choice is yours, of course, but I strongly advise you to talk this over with your wife, no matter how difficult it may be. Tear down the wall, even if you have to do it a single brick at a time, and let her in. You'll be taking a load of worries off her plate.

 

[jc972]

I think I get why you don't want to tell your wife about these dreams: you don't want to burden her mind with the horrors of your past. She likely has a head full of worries of her own, what with raising three kids in a world such as this and all the other doubts and fears that come from simply being alive. You don't want to add to her load, and that's admirable.

However, I suspect that by not telling her what's going on, you're inadvertently doing the very opposite of what you intend. She knows something is wrong, and she knows it's something bad, so naturally she wants to help. That's what spouses do. Instead of easing her concern, though, you've put up a wall, and every time you rev the engine or crank up the tractor, you add another brick. As the wall gets higher, so will her unease.

This situation may seem merely embarrassing or uncomfortable to you, but I feel obliged to point out that it's more than that. It's dangerous. If you've reached the point where you're screaming and punching the bed, how long do you think it will be before you miss the bed and hit your wife by accident? What if one of your kids wanders into range? When you're fighting your demons in your sleep, you have no way of knowing where the real punches will land.

You're a strong, capable guy, JC, but you shouldn't have to carry this all by yourself. The choice is yours, of course, but I strongly advise you to talk this over with your wife, no matter how difficult it may be. Tear down the wall, even if you have to do it a single brick at a time, and let her in. You'll be taking a load of worries off her plate.

After some pondering on it, I took your advice and told her what's been going on. It took a while and thankfully she held her questions until I was finished. I spilled it all. I told her exactly what the nightmares have been about and that they've got worse after all these years for some reason. She was understanding and non judgmental as I figured she'd be but as a result of my upbringing it felt unnatural to admit problems and/or weakness to a girl. The whole time I was growing up my grandpaw raised me to be the strong, silent type - never admitting weakness or showing fear, and looking back on it, that's probably why I turned to drinking years ago when all this started. Not that I'm blaming it on him but he never told me that someday I'd have to actually talk about problems. He's one of those manly men quiet types that can handle anything coming at him, and whom I've always tried to be as tough as. But in reality, he never seen the things I have and if he did he'd probably have to eventually talk about it to some extent to somebody. I don't see it as a sign of weakness anymore like I used to. And a long time ago when I was still a fireman sometimes I'd come home and set down with a drink and the wife would set down with me and ask what I'd seen to make me want to drink that day, sometimes I'd tell vaguely what it was and sometimes I'd just want to be alone but in later years I didn't want to let her in at all. Like I should be able to deal with it myself but I did feel I owed her some explanation of the nightmares and whatnot. So I told her about seeing the burned faces chasing me in the nightmares and hearing the screams and sirens and smelling the smoke and all that. I told her about the ones that still keep me awake. And I told her why I didn't want to tell her before. I told her not to let the kids around me when I'm asleep because as you said, I do punch and hit in my sleep and they don't need to see that or be close to me while I'm doing that for obvious reasons. And I told her not to tell anybody about what I told her, under any circumstances. It's not that I'm ashamed but nobody needs to know. She was understanding and I'm glad. I feel some better since I broke down and told her for some reason. Thanks for the shove in that direction

 

[jc972]

Today I woke up and it was a nice day outside so I decided to take my older son and go up to my grandparents old house place up in the mountains where I grew up. I was sure something needed done and I was right. An old, dead Ash tree had fell in the yard, uprooted the whole thing and laid down in the front yard, from a wind storm no doubt. As a matter of habit, we'd took the two big chainsaws with us and a lot of gas. So I cut that tree up and piled up the limbs and burnt them. Then we got the tractor out of the barn and I pulled the stump and root ball down into the woods with it where it'd be out of the way and watched the brush pile burn while we ate the lunch the wife sent with us while we sat on the tailgate of the truck. I decided to cut that tree up for firewood since ash burns good and hot, I knew somebody would want it. So I filled the truck bed up with heater-length wood and it took a while. That boy of mine will make an excellent supervisor some day, he's good at standing around watching me work lol. Before we got off the mountain, we drove out to my great uncle's house a few miles away. This is the one with cancer. He still heats his house with wood so I figured he might want it. He did. After visiting a little while, I got the wood out of the truck and got my old axe out of the truck bed and started busting the wood (he's way too old to be splitting wood). It was about 40 degrees here today and I had on a t shirt and a flannel shirt over it, by the time I was done busting the pile of wood I was shirtless and sweating. Then me and the boy stacked the wood up next to his house where it would stay dry. It ought to last him a while, it was more or less the whole tree! He has always been my favorite out of grandpaw's brothers. We finally got home and the wife had made pork chops cooked in brown sugar and butter with fried potatoes and yeast rolls for dinner. It was awesome. I love a good dinner like that after a day's work. After a hot shower and a shave, I felt really good. Seems like I work more on my days off than I do when I go to work every day, just a different kind of work. I'm glad I got to spend time with my son and teach him how to do man stuff and look after old people. That's what I want him to be: a hard worker and a boy who respects his elders. He'll make me proud, he already does. Good day to be alive

 

[MollyBeGood]

Great post about a great day with your son. Was nice to read.

 

[jc972]

Great post about a great day with your son. Was nice to read.

Thanks, April

 

[jc972]

Snow and ice outside as I left for work on the ice covered roads, I got halfway to the factory when I got a phone call from the office telling me not to go to work because they cancelled the night shift tonight. So I came back home and have been doing nothing all day. Before 9 A.M., my daughter's school called the wife and told her to come get our daughter because they were calling school off due to the weather headed this way, so while she was there she picked up a friends daughter and she has been babysitting this friend's youngest girl for a week or so. So there have been 2 extra little girls at my house all day and then their mom called the old lady and asked if they could spend the night here due to the weather and road conditions. I told her I could bring them home but she insisted they stay here with us for some reason. Didn't really set well with me, her inviting her kids to stay over here but whatever, my kids enjoy them being here. Weird, huh? So here I set, in my chair, watching the snow fall out the window, with the 5 kids and the wife all tucked in various beds in our cozy home. It's kinda peaceful here for once today

 

[jc972]

So early this morning my wife's great aunt's house caught on fire (space heater caused it) and her aunt was there, her daughter and her three daughters were there, and her cousin and his life partner (is that the politically correct term?) were there, all asleep, and the house caught on fire. The wife's cousin's life partner (I [hope I'm being PC here) noticed the house burning around them and he got everyone out of the house. He had to carry the old woman, the wife's great-aunt, and the wife's cousin, his life partner out. In the process he got 2nd and 3rd degree burns over a lot of his body. He is at a burn hospital in Georgia right now and both of his lungs have collapsed and they don't know if he'll live or not. Everyone made it out without injury but him. The house is a total loss. It's just a bad thing that happened. I hope the guy lives. He's a hero in my book. Some of the wife's family was saying not-so-nice (We live in the "Bible Belt") things about the cousin and his partner and I got mad. I told them all that the guy is a hero to do what he did, and it was a selfless act of courage, and his sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with any of it, regardless of anyone's beliefs! In person I was yelling and cussing when I told them all this and some of them might not like me too much now but my Father-in-law agreed with me and so did the wife's uncle. I couldn't believe how callous some of them were acting. How childish. Then I went on to work and had an ok, normal day.

 

[MikeyC]

^ What a scenario. Damn. :sad:

 

[jc972]

So early this morning my wife's great aunt's house caught on fire (space heater caused it) and her aunt was there, her daughter and her three daughters were there, and her cousin and his life partner (is that the politically correct term?) were there, all asleep, and the house caught on fire. The wife's cousin's life partner (I [hope I'm being PC here) noticed the house burning around them and he got everyone out of the house. He had to carry the old woman, the wife's great-aunt, and the wife's cousin, his life partner out. In the process he got 2nd and 3rd degree burns over a lot of his body. He is at a burn hospital in Georgia right now and both of his lungs have collapsed and they don't know if he'll live or not. Everyone made it out without injury but him. The house is a total loss. It's just a bad thing that happened. I hope the guy lives. He's a hero in my book. Some of the wife's family was saying not-so-nice (We live in the "Bible Belt") things about the cousin and his partner and I got mad. I told them all that the guy is a hero to do what he did, and it was a selfless act of courage, and his sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with any of it, regardless of anyone's beliefs! In person I was yelling and cussing when I told them all this and some of them might not like me too much now but my Father-in-law agreed with me and so did the wife's uncle. I couldn't believe how callous some of them were acting. How childish. Then I went on to work and had an ok, normal day.

UPDATE: The guy is doing much better now and will possibly be going home next week. Still might have to get skin grafts and do physical rehabilitation but he is pretty much out of danger now and will live Awesomeness in action!

 

[jc972]

This winter has wreaked havoc with the central heat/air units in my neighborhood. It's been so cold here I've had the big kerosene heater running quite a bit to keep the heat pump from running itself to death. Hopefully this time next year I'll have wood heat with the electric as backup. I have enough room for a good sized wood heater in the house and there are plenty of places around here to cut-yer-own-heater wood. Not to mention it's way cheaper than a $300 electric bill every month in the winter. I could actually leave the electric heat pump off from October to April if I install a wood heater. The bad side is that it will make my homeowner's insurance go up in cost, but I ain't sure how much it'd go up. This is because of a perceived fire danger with wood heat. I reckon it's true BUT I believe it's a lot safer than the electric space heaters that have burnt down untold numbers of homes and killed scores of people just trying to stay warm over the years. I refuse to own one of them contraptions. The deal is this: I have to convince the wife, a city girl who's never been around wood heat, to go along with me on this. I.e. what to do if it gets too hot, how to keep it at an ambient temp., how to properly light the fire, etc. when I'm at work. She's definitely smart enough to do it, but she might not want to mess with it. Tomorrow, hopefully, will find me and my older son in the mountains again sawing and splitting more firewood for the old people. I'd rather be working outside on a nice day. The clouds looked like it might rain tomorrow, though, so we might not get to.

 

[jc972]

Took my son to the mountains to cut more firewood today. Then we gave it to an elderly couple to help keep them warm since it's supposed to snow yet again this week :kickingmyself: It was a beautiful, sun-shiney day and it felt good to be working outdoors. I split the wood with my axe before we even piled it in the truck cause I can fit more in it that way but 8 hours later my shoulder is hot and sore and feeling sort of inflamed. I have ice packs on it as I type this. When we got home my favorite neighbor walked over and asked if I'd sell him my saw. I had to ponder on that one for a minute. :thinking: I told him that I'd sell it to him after this winter is over and most of my firewood cutting is done. He asked what I'd take for it and I said $400. He said when spring comes he'll buy it. Now, I like that thing quite a bit, but lets face it, it's older than me by a decade, and any piece of equipment will wear out even with meticulous care, so I reckon he can buy it off me and I'll go get a brand new one! I'll just put a couple hundred bucks with the money from the sale and go fetch myself a brand-dang-new-one, but with a bigger engine from the same manufacturer. He knows I've not owned the thing very long but that I had it overhauled and tweaked a bit and that I take care of my stuff so he's getting a pretty good deal and I only have $200 invested in it. I priced it that high because I really didn't wanna sell it but a brand new one would be awesome! So there's that... I made dinner tonight, we were going to have tacos... The wife put the taco shells in the oven to make em crunchy and they caught on fire in the oven. So with leather gloves on, and her holding the door open, I yanked the flaming pan of food from the fiery depths of the oven and carried it through the house and tossed it outside. She left it on high heat for a tad too long lol. So we had burritos instead since she had some tortilla thingy's in the cabinet. I'm just glad that I didn't burn them, and it was her. I teased her about it for a while before they all went to bed. The house still smells like burnt taco shells though.

 

[jc972]

WARNING: ADULT CONTENT

So today we went to grandmaw's 70th birthday. We gave her presents and had cake and ice cream and the whole deal. We also celebrated my stepdad's birthday too since he had to work on his actual birthday. While we were there one of my stepbrothers, whom I used to be pretty close to, asked me to come outside and have a look at something wrong with his car. We go outside and I opened the hood on his car and I'm looking for something wrong and he says "there ain't nothin wrong with my car. I need to talk to you. I made a mistake, dude." I'm surprised at this and it took me off guard so I'm like "Uh...ok...what'd you do?" I figured he'd got in trouble with the cops again or he'd been involved in a crime - he has done things like that before. When he was 15 he was caught trading drugs to girls at his school for sex. But today he drops a bomb on me. He said "I met this girl at a party and well, you know, we hooked up (had sex)..." I replied "So what? What's the problem?" I figured he impregnated some random girl. Nope. He finally blurted out "I didn't use protection and I think I caught like a disease or something. Something's wrong. I didn't know who else to talk to cause I'm embarrassed and Dad don't know nothin' about that stuff and... well... you've been around and... did this ever happen to you...? I'm scared." I stood there a minute just looking at him. I had to think about what I was going to say, and how much I should say... I could feel my face getting hot, I wiped my hands on my pants, for some reason they were sweating. I reached into my back pocket of my jeans and grabbed my can of skoal and took a good sized pinch of the tobacco and put it in my mouth, I needed the nicotine! In that moment in time I was staring numbly down at the toes of my boots. I was put on the spot. After several seconds of sucking the nicotine from the tobacco, I spit on the ground and said "Yeah. Something like that happened to me back in the day, but I went to the doctor and got medicine and got rid of it." I told him that if he didn't get it gone that bad stuff would happen. I reckon it can, can't it? Like long term after affects? He said "Well I didn't like take a shower till the next day... is that why I got it do you think? Ain't ya supposed to shower after...you know... sex? I've heard people say to do that." I didn't know how to answer this one so I said "I've never done that, I just got dressed and went home, or took the girl home, and went on with my day. You got it because you got it from some girl that has it I reckon. Next time use protection." That's all I knew to tell him, besides to go see a doctor. The kid made a mistake and I reckon he's learned from it or at least I hope he did. I did. I probably handled it all wrong but I didn't know what else to say. Should I tell him anything else? Should I call him this week and make sure he goes to a doctor? I don't do good talking about stuff like this mg: What should I do? mg: Confused.

 

[MikeyC]

^ I swear, your life is just one big adventure.

He should go to the doctor for sure. If he really believes he has an STD, leaving it unchecked can't be good. It will be embarrassing to talk to a doctor about it, but it could save him some heartache in the end.

He won't be the first and certainly won't be the last to contract an STD!

 

[jc972]

^ I swear, your life is just one big adventure.

He should go to the doctor for sure. If he really believes he has an STD, leaving it unchecked can't be good. It will be embarrassing to talk to a doctor about it, but it could save him some heartache in the end.

He won't be the first and certainly won't be the last to contract an STD!

True, very true. It was so embarrassing! I hope it's a curable one anyway. I reckon they can kill most of 'em these days. I don't know about my life being an adventure...more like a B-level comedy.

 

[MikeyC]

True, very true. It was so embarrassing! I hope it's a curable one anyway. I reckon they can kill most of 'em these days. I don't know about my life being an adventure...more like a B-level comedy.

Some aren't curable but are treatable. I guess he'll know when he goes to the doctor. B-level comedy is still good. Keeps you guessing.

 

[jc972]

Some aren't curable but are treatable. I guess he'll know when he goes to the doctor. B-level comedy is still good. Keeps you guessing.

I have my fingers crossed for him

 

[jc972]

I'm home from work early. A 200 pound piece of iron rolled off the steel rack and crushed my left hand, I have no feeling in 3 fingers. Had a glove on when it got crushed and I immediately pulled the glove off my hand and it was already filled with blood where it mashed it out. So I drive myself to the hospital and they x ray it and theres some fractures but nothing serious, they said I could have permanent nerve damage. That would explain why I can't feel 3 fingers and some of my palm. What a great day No, seriously, I'm happy! I could be missing fingers right now but I ain't so, hey, life is good, huh? It sucks, and the parts I can feel really hurt but I still have the standard number of fingers

P.s. I typed all the above with my right hand only, which totally sucks!

 

[jc972]

I'm about to take my hunting knife and cut this cast off my hand! It's awkward and I can't sleep and it's itchy! And my hand is bleeding out of the cast again! Now I'll bleed all over my sheets and mattress and stuff, ... it'll look like a crime scene! Ugh! NO! I wonder if I could wrap a pillow case around it and so like soak up all the blood? :question:

 

[Hoppy]

Sorry about the hand, it really sounds bad.

Any chance of going to see another doctor for a second opinion? Or a physiotherapist?

 

[GraybeardGhost]

Holy crap, dude!!! You sure know how to keep life interesting! I'm glad your digits are all present and accounted for, at least, and I do hope the nerve damage will only be temporary. Got my fingers crossed for yours, bro. :thumbup: