Our Story, Part 6...

This is Part 6 of Our Story.  To get the complete story, read in order starting with OUR STORY PART 1, OUR STORY PART 2, OUR STORY PART 3, OUR STORY PART 4, and OUR STORY PART 5.

I've been feeling for a while that I need to write down Dean's and my story for our family history books, for our children and grandchildren to know and understand how their parents/grandparents ended up together.  But I realized that I needed to give some back story because there are some key people along the way that set me on some necessary paths to get to Dean that will help you to understand who I am, how I've changed over the years, and why Dean is the best man I've ever met and how he's perfect for me.  I didn't want to write a short love story "We met at church, dated, married, had a baby 3 years later....", that's too vague for my tastes.  I want my posterity to know WHY I love Dean, and why we go perfectly together.

Our Story, Part 6

Dean grabbed his cell phone as I laid there struggling to exhale these debilitating sobs of despair while staring at the ceiling praying in my mind that God would just take me right then and there so that I didn’t have to feel like this anymore.  I prayed to remember what it was like to have my heart and mind be able to truly talk to one another.  I prayed to be able to take one, if only just one, full and complete calming breath.  I prayed that I could stop thinking like this.  I prayed that that Dean could take this infirmity from me because I would have selfishly given it to him to bear for a time.  I prayed that I could remember what it was like to be me. 

I finally prayed that a miracle would happen.  It was all I had left in me to plea.  

Dean felt strongly that he needed to call one of the counselors in our bishopric in our single’s ward that we attended.  Thankfully, he answered even though it was the morning of a workday.  Dean told him what was going on, what kind of a mental and physical state I was in, and that he needed a referral to an LDS psychiatrist ASAP for me.  We needed a psychiatrist because they are experts in medication management to see what was going on with me even though I was taking an anti-depressant.  This saintly bishopric member told Dean to meet him over at the church within the hour so that they could get the phone numbers for some different mental health professionals for Dean to call, and plus he needed to write Dean a referral note for me to see an LDS therapist or psychiatrist, and Dean heartily agreed.  The bishopric member left his job to meet Dean over there, and I was in no state to leave so Dean hugged me and through tears made me promise that I wouldn’t do anything drastic while he was gone, and that he was going to get help for me. I looked him in the eye and promised.

I sat there alone staring and flipping mindlessly through the tv channels not caring what was on while my bodily manifestations of symptoms were still in full force, my mind was fighting its’ own horrific battle, and I looked at the clock every minute expecting that 10 minutes would have surely passed.  It was the longest time alone I’ve ever experienced in my life even though the grand total was less than an hour and a half.  

Dean met this bishopric member at the church, and he got the phone number of a few LDS therapists, but there was only one LDS psychiatrist, ONE, in the entire Puget Sound region that was on record, and psychiatrists are notorious for having weeks and sometimes months long waiting lists to get in for an appointment.  Dean was determined to plead my case to get me in as soon as possible.  This psychiatrist was semi retired, and he only did appointments out of his office in his home.  

He got back to the house and immediately called the psychiatrist having the faith that someone would answer, and that I could get in that day.  He answered.  The psychiatrist answered!!!  Dean asked him if I could get in today and he started to do the, “Well, I’m pretty booked, how does 3 weeks from now look?” spiel, but Dean interrupted him and told him truly how bad I was, and that my thought processes were now slowly taking a suicidal path.   Hearing that, magically all of a sudden he had an opening in his schedule that afternoon.  He would squeeze me in.

I got my miracle.  My prayer was answered.

That afternoon Dean drove me up to North Seattle to the psychiatrist’s home, and I sat in the car watching as a girl walked out, obviously having been crying, and then I looked at the clock, and it was my turn to go in.  Dean hugged me, told me he loved me no matter what, and that he would be right there waiting when I was done.  

I knocked on his door, and this white haired man that I dwarfed by at least 5 inches answered.  He introduced himself as the doctor and kindly asked me to sit down.  I sat down, slid a check for $200 across his desk to him to pay for the hour that was beginning, and then waited.  He asked me a little bit about myself, where I was from, how many in my family, parents divorced or married, what did I do, and then he asked me how I really was feeling and why I was there.  The waterworks unleashed.  I sobbed my way through the next 55 minutes describing the past couple of months, my physical symptoms, how my anti-depressant worked and then didn’t work, and how now I felt exponentially worse than ever.  I explained that I truly didn’t see a way that I would ever feel or get better, and why would I want to live and how could I live feeling like this?  I explained that I had this stalwart boyfriend sitting out in the car who hadn’t waivered in his love and affection for me for one microsecond since the moment of our first date, but I didn’t feel like I could ever wholeheartedly trust him even though he’d never ever done anything to betray my trust.  I told him that I hated who I was, but I used to love myself, and I hadn’t changed anything at all in my life to warrant this perpetually anxious and unsettled Michelle.  Dean was the only variable in my life that I could see from pre-depressed Michelle and currently depressed Michelle.   

Towards the end of my hour after he asked a few questions here and there, he started to explain what was going on with my body, first of all.  My anti-depressant had worked, but it definitely wasn’t working anymore. It wasn’t anything I had done.  He told me about how a small percentage of people have this experience I was having with an anti-depressant where this new foreign drug is introduced into the body,  and it ran its’ course for a few weeks because it’s this new potent chemical that my body is craving, but then my body rejects it for an unknown reason. And it rejects it on a large scale even though it’s still being presented into the blood stream every day.  It will amplify the symptoms of depression because my body was screaming for this drug to not be introduced into it anymore, it wasn’t allowing for it to be effective, but of course I kept taking it like I had been instructed to do by my primary care doctor. 

He wrote me a prescription for a different anti-depressant, and told me that I was going to do a quick 3 day wean off this one I was currently on that wasn’t working and add in this new one.  Day 1, take 3/4 pill of the non-working one, and take ¼ pill of the new prescription.  Day 2, take ½ pill of the non-working one, take ½ pill of the new one. Day 3 take ¼ of the non-working pill, take ¾ of the new one.  Day 4, I was only to be taking the new prescription.  It’s never a good idea to go completely cold turkey in 1 day off an anti-depressant, but he felt like I’d be ok doing a quick 3 day wean when coupled with the new prescription, and of course he wanted to see me again in a couple of days to see how I was handling the switch.  

Then he told me that aside from the issue with my non-working anti-depressant, I needed to do therapy.  I had a lot of issues from my growing up that had never really been dealt with that were being projected unfairly onto Dean.  I’d placed my own little band aid on them, but he told me that unless I professionally dealt with my growing up, mainly my parents extremely dysfunctional marriage, the effectiveness of the new anti-depressant would only be so much, but more importantly, I would never completely be ok and my relationship with Dean would never progress past the insecurities that I was currently dealing with.  

He was right.  So very right.

I started the new anti-depressant and it worked beautifully, noticing a significant improvement in how I was feeling over a couple of weeks.  It completely helped alleviate the physical symptoms like the first anti-depressant had done, but this time it held.  I never had the tingling arms, shortness of breath, paralyzing anxiety, or sleepless nights ever again.

But equally as important as getting on a new anti-depressant, I decided right then and there at the end of that appointment that I was going to do whatever I had to do, pay whatever I had to pay, work however hard I had to work, so that I could get better, and so that I could deal with undealt with matters.  Dean was worth it. I was worth it.  I couldn’t just rely on a magic little pill to make everything all better when that pill is only half of the solution in my situation. 

So I paid thousands of dollars for therapy over the next 6 months.  I decided to do some intensive therapy.  I saw the psychiatrist a few more times for medication management, and of course for actual therapy, and at $200 a visit that adds up fast, but Dean and I didn’t care, we would have paid $500 per hour.  We realized we couldn’t put a price on mental health.

But then he said that he felt ok having me see a licensed therapist now that the anti-depressant was definitely working and he’d monitored me for a while, which of course is much more affordable at $80 per hour, so that’s what I did.  

Weekly I went in and talked, explored, cried, vented, understood, didn’t understand, laughed, remembered, complained, wished, and slowly allowed the change to happen.  The change to let go.  The change to realize that Dean wasn’t ever going to be my Dad.  He was never going to cheat on me.  He was never going to berate or belittle me. He wasn’t ever going to abandon me in my moments of weakness or anger.  He wasn’t ever going to accuse me of anything that he knows I didn’t do.  He wasn’t ever going to let his selfish desires and addictions become more important than me.  He wasn’t ever going to be bad for me.  

I learned to accept that I KNEW Dean already.  I knew him and I knew his soul.  I learned to not sit there waiting for him to screw up even though he never had.  I learned to trust my intuition with him.  I learned to trust that he is his own person, and that he defied the odds despite some of the unfair hand that he was dealt growing up.  I learned that I loved him even more than what I thought I did. 

And I realized that I wasn’t going to be my Mom.  My Mom was bipolar and through fearful tears, I asked the psychiatrist in one of our appointments if I was, and he said no.  I was so afraid of embodying any trait whatsoever of my Mom’s, and her manic depression was something that I felt defined her because it was so present all throughout her life up until that present time. I had to spend such a great time of my teenage years and early 20’s energy learning how to deal with her depression on my own since I was the only child left at home, and my parents got divorced in the middle of my teenage years after 32 years of marriage.  Of course I learned and eventually accepted and understood that it didn’t define her, but it certainly was a part of who she was. There is nothing wrong with the fact that she was bipolar, there is nothing wrong with the fact that anybody is bipolar.  My Mom just didn’t manage it well at all, medication-wise.  She picked and chose when to take her medication, and all of us suffered for that.  

Through therapy I learned to accept that I was a stronger person than my mom was, that I would never stand to be in a less-than-ideal marriage.  I learned how to argue fairly.  I learned that I knew how to do the work. I learned that any real gritty issues or fights that Dean and I would ever have should never be broadcast to anyone but a professional.  I learned our childhoods and growing up years don’t have to define us, but they certainly can have a heavy bearing on who we turn out to be.  I wanted to be better than my parents.  And I am. 

    

I wish I could say that it was easy to do therapy, but I would be lying.  It was a hurt so good feeling during and after each session, with the bewilderment and resentment and acceptance melded into the same thought.     

I wish I could adequately explain to you how liberating it felt like to have each link of that chain cut and lifted of my heart that had unknowingly settled itself into a stranglehold on the most vital piece in my physical body.  I wish I could adequately explain to you how complete I felt once my heart AND my mind could actually talk to each other again in agreeance.  I wish I could adequately explain to you close to heaven I felt when I could actually feel that I had a soul again.

I did the work.  Therapy doesn’t make you perfect, which is not to say that I never had any regression because I did, but I never ever ever got anywhere near to the low where I did before.  I would have my blah days even while on the anti-depressant because anti-depressants aren’t meant to make you feel euphoric, they take you back to even, and they make you feel like your old functional self.  I would sometimes regress in the way of not understanding why my parents stayed in such a ridiculous marriage, and not take into serious consideration how it would affect their kids.  I would sometimes regress to trying to pick fruitless arguments like my parents did, but Dean would call me out on it.  Communication is always a work in progress in any marriage, ours included, but it’s completely worth the work.  When I had those blah days I wouldn’t let those thoughts get me down for long.  My parents made their own choices, I couldn’t expect them to change just because I think they should, and I am my own person in charge of my own choices. 

  

I ended up only having to be on the anti-depressant for a total of 9 months.  Three months after we were married Dean and I decided I had felt good enough and stable enough to try to go off the medication.  We consulted a doctor, and he said that it was ok to do, just to monitor myself very closely on how I was feeling during the weaning.  So I gradually went off of it over the course of 2 weeks and I watched myself very closely every single day to make sure that my body and mind were ok with it.  They were.  I didn’t regress at all, and my body didn’t need the medication anymore.  I haven’t had to take any anti-depressants since January 2006, but I most certainly would take something again if I ever felt like I needed to.    

My sweet children and grandchildren that are reading this, I want you to know that if you’re ever down it doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means you’re human.  Unfortunately you’re genetically predisposed to this because of me, but it’s such a manageable predisposition.  It’s ok if you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.  If you ever feel angry or alone even when you’re surrounded by everyone you love and who loves you, I want you to know that I’ve been there, that I understand, and that I want to help you.  I don’t ever want you to be embarrassed of being depressed if you are.  There are some things that we can’t pray away, some things that getting a blessing doesn’t take away, and there are some things that Heavenly Father doesn’t take away for a while and sometimes indefinitely despite our pleas.  Sometimes we have to seek out the extra help that is needed.  I want you to know that Dean and I will absolutely listen to you, help you, and align you with the right resources in a heartbeat.  I don’t want you to ever suffer alone.  I wrote this story for you.  For you to know that it’s ok to be down or depressed, there is help.  For you to know that Heavenly Father is mindful of us even in our darkest hours.  Sometimes it takes others who love us to pick us up and carry us for a while.  And I will always carry you.  Always. 

Dean, along with Heavenly Father, carried me during my darkest hours.  I love him for an infinite amount of reasons, but that is one of the big ones.  I know he’ll always be there for me.  I don’t doubt our marriage one iota.  He supports me unconditionally, and I do the same for him.  We have created OUR OWN beautiful marriage, partnership, and friendship.  

As therapy progressed, and I learned so much more about letting go, about who I was, who Dean was, who we were together, and who we had the potential of becoming together, Dean and I became even more amazed with who we were as a couple, even more in love, and we prayerfully decided that we definitely wanted to and should be married and sealed to one another for time and all eternity in the Seattle Temple.  

So we worked toward that goal. We loved each other unconditionally, supported one another in everything we did, and spent every spare second that we could with one another. Dean and I both kept working, and we decided that we wanted to go into marriage with absolutely no debt.  I hesitantly moved back in with my Mom for a few months before we got married so that I could devote the $800 that I was paying for my apartment plus utilities towards paying off debt. Dean and I devoted almost every single extra cent we had towards paying off my remaining credit card balance and also my car.  We paid off almost $6,000 of debt in just a few months, and we remained debt free up until we got married then we accumulated a bit in student loans but that’s a different story. 

We were that couple who was so in lovey dovey la-la land that we didn’t care about planning our dream wedding, we just wanted to be together, to be married and sealed to one another.  We were also so concerned about having every extra cent in our bank account that we could because we going to be moving out to Iowa for Dean to go to chiropractic school right after we got married, and we needed money to be sustained out there.  So we went as cheap as we could on almost every single thing for our wedding and reception.  Looking back we’d do it differently, but it is what it is and we’re ok with it.  

Finally came October 8, 2005.  I still remember the look of complete amazement on Dean’s face when he saw me for the first time in my wedding dress.  I still remember the look of reverent joyful anticipation on his face as he held my hand as we were walking towards the room where we would be married and sealed.  I still remember seeing him as we knelt across the alter from one another in that sacred sealing room in the Seattle Temple.  I saw him there and knew that I had made the right choice in a husband and eternal companion.  When the temple sealer was performing the sealing I literally don’t remember anyone else being in that room even though every seat was full, it was just Dean and I to me.  I only saw him.  He and I were all that mattered at that moment.  

Our reception was chaos since we threw everything together at the last second, but Dean and I had the time of our lives.  I literally ate 1 strawberry the entire night because Dean and I were so busy going around talking to all of our guests.  We had a much bigger turnout than we expected which means there weren’t enough tables set up to accommodate everyone so people ended up grabbing chairs and sitting in the hall to eat their food.  We had such a great time dancing when the time came, and we felt so incredibly loved by everyone there.

Two of our friends gave us a gift of a hotel room in a very nice hotel up in Bellevue for our wedding night, and everything about it was perfect.  The next day we drove out to Leavenworth and stayed at an amazing bed and breakfast for one night and walked all around downtown, never letting go of one another’s hand.  But a 2 day honeymoon was all we had.  We had to get back to Covington where we were going to be staying at Dean’s Mom’s house for the next 4 days.  We had to open up all of our wedding presents, take back or exchange wedding presents, we went on a Spirit of Washington Dinner train excursion one night because it was a bridal shower gift Dean’s Mom gave me and the dinner was amazing, we had to do moving paperwork, and then we had to finally pack our moving truck.  Six days after we got married we closed and locked the back door on our Budget rental truck, hitched up my car, and nervously but even more so excitedly drove 2,000 miles eastward to Davenport, Iowa as husband and wife.  

We always say that moving to Iowa right after we got married was the best way to start our marriage because it truly did make us rely on only each other because we were all one another had out there.  We would completely do the same thing again.  

I’ve never ever regretted marrying Dean.  

He’s never ever regretted marrying me.  

He’s made me happier than I ever thought it was possible to be happy, and our hearts still know how to talk silently to each other.  We truly do have a love to be envied.  

I see Heavenly Father’s timing starting from the moment Dean looked at me from behind that pulpit. 

He’s the priesthood holder in our home. 

He’s the father of my children.   

He’s my husband. 

He’s my absolute best friend. 

I love him unconditionally, and I always will. 

Together he and I will make it home hand in hand to live with Heavenly Father for eternity. 

            

Our Story, Part 5...

This is Part 5 of Our Story.  To get the complete story, read in order starting with OUR STORY PART 1, OUR STORY PART 2, OUR STORY PART 3, and OUR STORY PART 4.

I've been feeling for a while that I need to write down Dean's and my story for our family history books, for our children and grandchildren to know and understand how their parents/grandparents ended up together.  But I realized that I needed to give some back story because there are some key people along the way that set me on some necessary paths to get to Dean that will help you to understand who I am, how I've changed over the years, and why Dean is the best man I've ever met and how he's perfect for me.  I didn't want to write a short love story "We met at church, dated, married, had a baby 3 years later....", that's too vague for my tastes.  I want my posterity to know WHY I love Dean, and why we go perfectly together.

Our Story, Part 5

***This installment of Our Story took me a while to write.  Much longer than the other installments.  I was able to write the first couple paragraphs with no problem, but then I would just stare at the screen with the cursor blinking in the same spot day after day, unable to adequately organize my thoughts into proper sentences.  The thoughts were there, I just had to do them justice in structuring them because this is the integral part of Our Story for me, and I’ve never attempted to put them down on paper before.  This is a glimpse into a period of my life that very few people know about what really went on, but I want my posterity to know.  You’ll see.***

So our first date was a bust.  I happily went back to my homeostatic life and absolved myself from how I acted on our date.  After all, wasn’t he the one who was corny and invaded my personal space? Couldn’t he read my mind during it to know that I was annoyed and bored?  I had fulfilled my part of the pity date so I had every right to wash my hands of him now.  I’d just have to make sure that I gave him a quick courtesy smile when we passed each other in the halls at church and I was good to go.

However, Dean thought our date was the greatest!  He was bummed he didn’t get to kiss me, but he wanted that night to go on forever.  I infiltrated almost every thought of his for days after he dropped me off that night.  He was infatuated with me.  He wanted to see me again so badly even if it was just at a church social function or activity.  It killed him that we were only living a few miles apart and yet we were in 2 separate worlds.

Our paths did cross.  I did give him that quick courtesy smile at church in the halls.  We ended up being at some of the same church functions 2 or 3 times after our date, but I always made sure to be talking to someone else whenever he came near me, and I refused to look over and acknowledge him standing there because I was afraid he’d ask me out again if I gave him 2 seconds of my time. Very ladylike of me.  

I finally stopped being callous and decided that if he asked me out again that I’d just say no and he could deal.  I acknowledged him at social gatherings and eventually started making small talk with him again, and it turns out we had some pretty fun conversations.  I noticed that he was so incredibly friendly to everyone that he met and the man smiled all.the.time.   We had common friends, and none of them had anything bad to say about him.  They all knew how much he liked me, but they also knew I wasn’t digging on him. 

One night we were some of the last stragglers after a church function and we ended up having our own little conversation for a while about who knows what.  Ok, so I guess this guy isn’t so bad.  He’s cracked out happy all the time, he’s actually pretty fun to talk to, he’s not a narcissist who only wants to talk about himself, and he’s not as weird as he was on our first date.

Alright, I guess I can be friends with him.  We just won’t ever ever EVER be an item, and he’s a weirdo on a first date.  He’s harmless and he probably won’t try to kidnap me and keep me chained to a chair in his attic and pretend that I’m his wife.  

We made plans to hang out after the get together just he and I because I truly liked talking to him, but he had to run somewhere first really quickly so we said that we’d meet in the Top Foods parking lot at a certain time.  So I made it there on time, waited at least 10 minutes past our agreed upon meeting time, and then I got annoyed that he was late.  So I drove away.  I get a phone call a couple of minutes later.  “Hi Michelle! It’s Dean.  Where are you?”  “I’m on my way to Puyallup.  I have to give my Mom her insulin shot before she goes into diabetic shock and dies.”  “Oh wow, that sounds serious.  I’m so sorry.” “Oh, it’s ok.  It happens. “  We then chitty chatted on the phone about who knows what, I told him I gave my Mom her insulin shot and saved her life in the knick of time, and then I headed back to Top Foods to meet up with Dean.

I didn’t go to my Mom’s house.  My Mom wasn’t insulin dependent diabetic. But I did drive all the way out to the South Hill Mall exit from Federal Way, about a 20 minute drive each direction, took the exit, took a left to go over the bridge, and then immediately got back on the onramp heading back towards Federal Way.  

Why the lie and the wasted money on gas to leave Dean waiting there in the Top Foods parking lot for 40 minutes while I gave my Mom a facetious insulin shot?  I wasn’t going to let him think that it’s ok to make me wait while he’s late for who knows for whatever reason.  If he wanted to be my friend, but of course I knew he wanted to be more, I would be the one to be late.  Being late wasn’t an option in my book.  Silly shallow shallow Michelle.  

We changed our plans to meet up at the Red Robin parking lot. I felt vindicated that I had made him wait, and then we went in and talked and talked over endless fries refills.  Dean was just so easy to talk to.  We honestly had the best give and take conversation I’d ever had with a guy, and Dean intrigued me, and he was intrigued by me.  Over the course of the next 2 weeks we met up 2 more times and drove to Snoqualmie Falls on one of those meetups, and the hours flew by feeling like mere minutes.  

He still had this bit of nerdiness that became cute and yet annoying at the same time.  I didn’t find him unattractive anymore, but I also didn’t find him as this dashingly handsome Don Juan that I wanted to sweep me off my feet.  I was getting to know who Dean really was, and I was having an inner struggle with that because I was happy with us just being friends, nothing more, but I could tell the tides were slowly turning.

Dean was starting to morph in my eyes.  No, he wasn’t a 6’3 chiseled athlete like I had hoped would fall head over heels for me.  He didn’t have his college degree yet.  He worked as a fix-it guy at a company that his family members were able to hook him up with a job at as soon as he got back from his mission.  He had no money.  He drove a 1993 Ford Escort.  The man wore Hawaiian shirts for heaven’s sake!  

But he was intriguing. He had big aspirations.  He knew how to work.  He was spiritual.  He was smart.  He was funny.  He knew how to truly invest in a conversation. He loved his family.  He loved Heavenly Father.  He loved Jesus Christ.  He had always been faithful in the Gospel.  Every cell in his body was composed of pure kindness.  

One night he and I were just hanging out at his house down in the basement talking and watching movies, and next thing we know it’s almost midnight, and I suddenly wanted him to kiss me.  Lo and behold, we end up making out for hours and hours because when you’re 22 years old you can do that sort of thing and not even blink an eye.  As callous as it sounds, that make out session was more to satisfy my carnal cravings than it was as an expression of true affection for him.  Dean was safe, I knew he was still head over heels crazy for me, and I knew I could easily make the relationship go one way or another.  It’s difficult to separate feelings and emotions when there’s physicality involved, and I fought my slowly changing feelings for him with every mite of energy that I had.  I told my friends that I didn’t like him and that I was just making out with him to have someone to make out with over the next few times that we hung out and we ended up kissing.  I put a halt to the physical part of our friendship/relationship/whatever you want to call it, and I tried to convince myself that I didn’t like him and that I wasn’t drawn to him.  

But deep down I knew that wasn’t true. 

 

My heart and mind were telling me that this guy was different from all the rest and that I needed to just give in and let the relationship happen. 

I did.

And it was wonderful.

He was wonderful.

We were wonderful.

As soon as I let my walls down, truly let Dean in, I let run free the silly and fun loving yet serious and slowly spiritually growing girl that I knew was in there, we fell fast and we fell hard.  There were so many stories to tell him, I didn’t hold back anything, he knew every detail of every heartbreak, every victory, every miracle, every dream, every fear I had.  He had already let me in, but he was completely amazed and enamoured to the n^th degree when I let him in.  

I’ve always explained it like this: Dean wasn’t what I wanted, but he’s what I needed, which turns out is what I wanted, I just didn’t know it at the time. 

I did need him.  I craved him like I’d never craved anything in my life.  There was something that he settled in my soul whenever I was around him or on the phone with him or just even thought of him. He made me giddy and calm all in the same breath.  He galvanized every atom in my body just by holding my hand. 

The infancy of our relationship was beautiful.  We were a perfect match, and I knew that we were destined to be spectacular together.  We spent every possible second together while I was house sitting a lady’s house on the waterfront of Lake Tapps.  We flew to Washington D.C. and stayed with Dean’s aunt there, and we saw some of the most amazing structures and pieces of American history as we stood there hand in hand.  We drove up to the mountains just to lay outside on the hood of my car to watch shooting stars on a cloudless night in the freezing cold.  We would go on drives to nowhere deep into the middle of the night just so we could talk and talk and talk.  We would just sit on his couch with his arm around me and my head on his shoulder and be content that the world was quiet. 

 I was in love with this man that I never thought I’d ever love, the man who would never ever get a second date from me.  He loved me just as fiercely in return. 

We had our fun times together with family and friends, but there were some bumps in the road along the way.  I was living with my best friend and her parents at the time so that I could pay off some credit card debt quickly, and they didn’t take too kindly to him for some ridiculous reason.  I decided I needed to get out of that living situation quickly so I got my own apartment where I didn’t feel like Big Brother was watching any time Dean was over.  And a few of Dean’s family members weren’t so accepting of me either at first.  His family thought that I was changing him, and in a way that was true.  He was coming into more of himself as an individual, and we were growing as a couple instead of him only having his family for his social outlet every night.  Things eventually were smoothed over, thankfully.

Dean started going to Highline Community College to work on fulfilling his prerequisite requirements for chiropractic school, and he did homework at my apartment every night.  He worked as much as he could so that he could pay his way through community college, and I kept on working at my full time job that I loved in an eye surgery center.  We ate out too much, saw a ton of movies in the theater, but I was still chipping away at that credit card debt that was hanging over my head.  By this point we had been dating for almost 6 months and had started to talk about marriage and dreams of our future together.    

I invested myself completely in Dean, and he did the same.  We were insanely happy together, and we were all one another could talk, think, and dream about.  We were truly equals. Life was moving in nowhere but a positive direction together….

And then my arms started tingling.

I vividly remember one day being at work at my desk all alone, and my arms felt like there were a million tiny electric shocks pulsing up and down them and it wouldn’t stop.  I wasn’t cold so putting on a sweater didn’t help.  I rubbed my arms like you do when you’re cold to try to get blood flowing through them in hopes that the tingling would subside, but it didn’t.  It lasted for a little while, and eventually it went away.  Hmm, that was weird, I’ve never had that happen before.

It happened again the next day, just for a longer period of time.  Then the tingling would happen in intervals over the following weeks.  

Then the shortness of breath started.  I felt like I just could never quite get a full breath of air in my lungs.  Then accompanying the shortness of breath came the anxiety.  Unexplained anxiety.  Anxiety that made my chest feel like I was having a heart attack at random times during the day.  My mind was always going going going, racing to the next thought before I could even finish the one I was on.  I couldn’t sleep at night.  I couldn’t ever seem to get my heart to quit feeling like it was trying to explode in my chest even though my pulse rate was normal.  And eventually when I finally did embrace sleep in the early hours just before dawn, it was nigh impossible to wake up.  I didn’t want to wake up because I knew that my body would go back to the fighting the anxiety, shortness of breath, and the tingling.  It was draining, and I dreaded every new morning.  I felt nothing and yet I felt everything at the same time.

    

I didn’t understand what was going on with my body.  I had always been healthy.  I was in this amazing relationship with Dean, and I knew I was safe with him.  I knew it. So why was I suddenly so skittish in almost every aspect of my life?  It was like a switch had been flipped when the tingling in my arms started.

My heart knew I was safe with Dean, but my mind didn’t.

After weeks and weeks of battling those horrendous symptoms and crying uncontrollably by myself, to Dean, on the phone to my sister, and talking through what I was feeling and not feeling, I finally started to uncover what was going on.

I was clinically depressed. 

I had never been depressed before in my life.  Why in the world would I be depressed when I had the most wonderful man that I would ever meet madly in love with me, and I was madly in love with him?  We were talking about getting married and starting our life together so how could I make sense of these intense feelings of despair and angst that plagued me from the second I woke up until I finally drifted off to sleep every night through gut wrenching sobs? 

My unconscious was trying to sabotage our relationship. It was pulling out every last stop it could to make me think that Dean wasn’t who he said he was.  And eventually the thoughts started creeping into my conscious that Dean wasn’t who he said he was.  No man could be this kind and trustworthy and faithful.  No man could truly be this dedicated to a woman and not have wandering eyes.  No man could be this dedicated to the Gospel.  No man this wonderful could ever want me.  I had a million other sabotaging thoughts run rampant through my mind, and I didn’t know how to fend them off.

I didn’t know how to make sense of the 2 different worlds I was in.  I would look at Dean and see him, I knew that he embodied the essence of good, I knew that he was faithful to me, I knew that he and I were supposed to get married and sealed for time and all eternity in the temple.  But in the next thought I’d think that he wasn’t looking at me, I’d think he was looking through me searching for the next best thing.  I’d think that he wouldn’t want to be with this girl who was an emotional disaster all of a sudden when she’d been so fun and full of life for the previous 6 months.  Why would he want to stay with someone who didn’t completely trust him even though he hadn’t done anything to betray my trust?

But thankfully Dean knew me.   He knew that this wasn’t the Michelle that he fell in love with.  He knew that whatever demon I was battling was temporary, and he held my hand through every single tear I shed, and he never once doubted that we wouldn’t make it.  When I would cry to him asking him how would I ever know that he wouldn’t cheat on me or one day down the road start belittling me, he would just hold me and softly reassure me that he wouldn’t because you don’t do that to people that you love.   

I have tears cascading down my face as I’m typing this because I am eternally grateful that Dean is such a good and pure soul to have been able to see me throughout those couple of months.  He could have easily walked away a hundred times.  I had my moments of being mean to him because I was so full of doubt and angst and needed constant reassurance that this kind and gentle Dean wasn’t a façade, and that he wouldn’t ever change into someone else.  I knew that I loved him and trusted him, but I just couldn’t feel it for a while. 

Even though we talked through every fear and paranoia a million times over, the symptoms were still there, and I was still obviously depressed.  Life was just unbelievably hard.  I eventually went to my primary care physician and told him all my symptoms, he asked me a bunch of questions, and he definitely said I was depressed.  He wrote me a prescription for an anti-depressant right then and there.  I filled it, and both Dean and I noticed a marked improvement within the next 2 weeks.  My anxiety eventually went away, my heart palpitations stopped, I could finally sleep soundly.  My irrational fears involving Dean went away.  I felt back to my old self.  It was glorious, and we went back to our insanely happy and yet content selves.    

Well, happiness is unfortunately short lived sometimes. 

After about 6-8 weeks I started to have the same symptoms reappear.  I was still taking my anti-depressant religiously so I absolutely didn’t understand what was going on.  I figured I’d just keep taking them, and surely this had to be a little blip in my system for some reason, that it’d go away as long as I kept taking my prescription.   I could deal with anxiety and shortness of breath and irrational thoughts for a little bit.

They didn’t go away.  They came back with a vengeance.  A wicked vengeance.  I fought it and cried and tried to pray the depression away, but sometimes you can’t pray physical ailments away.  I got so bad that I would miss at least 1 day of work per week due to everything feeling so overwhelming, but thankfully I had the most tenderhearted boss in the world.  I would love to find her and tell her thank you for being so understanding during the most difficult time in my life.  I got to the point that the smallest decisions, whether or not to do laundry, eat, shower, clean, go grocery shopping, they all became such heavy weights on my chest that I needed Dean’s support in almost everything I did.

It’s hard to put depression into words unless you’ve experienced it firsthand because I never ever thought it would be as bad as it was until I went through it.  It’s the absolute worst and most despairing feeling/non-feeling in the world, and you truly don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. 

 

My anxiety, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, lack of sleep, and thought processes were becoming too much.  The anti-depressant I was on definitely wasn’t doing what it was supposed to even though it had for a little while.  I got to the point that I didn’t want to be around anyone at all, and I would only be around those who I absolutely had to for work purposes, but I still wanted to be around Dean despite my irrational thoughts that had come back because like I said, my heart trusted him but my mind wasn’t quite so sure.  

I felt like a prisoner in my own body, and I knew that this healthy minded Michelle was in there somewhere, but I had no idea how to access her.  Over the course of just a few weeks the depression became so intense and overwhelming, and sleep had eluded me for days.  I could only sneak in a quick 20 or 30 minute nap once or twice throughout the day, and I was up all night because I couldn’t ever get my mind and symptoms to subside.  I felt like I wanted and deserved a new body, a better body because this one was failing me, and I didn’t do anything wrong to deserve this. 

My mind started to take a different direction.

One morning I couldn’t muster up enough emotional energy to go to work, and I was at a new low of lows.  Dean called my boss for me to tell her that I wasn’t doing so well, and that I was going to stay home that day.  She lovingly said she hoped that tomorrow would be a better day and for him to take care of me.  Dean called his work and told them that he couldn’t come in, and even though they were mad he didn’t care because he knew that I was in a different place that day, and that he needed to be by me taking care of me. 

I was so mentally and physically exhausted from fighting this debilitating depression for months on end now with only a few weeks of reprieve.  I started vocalizing that I truly felt like I was trapped inside this body that had become this disease’s and not mine anymore, and I didn’t know how I could live the next 60 years in this body as a prisoner to this disease that wasn’t relenting.  I hadn’t felt happy in months.  My mind wasn’t my own anymore.  I was sobbing and sobbing from my very core and just laid on the couch with Dean crying next to me trying to hug me as hard as he could.  Looking back now I think he was sacrificing himself and trying to squeeze the depression out of me and into him because he would have taken any ailment of mine in a heartbeat and have him suffer through it instead of me.  I am sobbing now typing this. It’s so difficult to try to put this experience into words.

I finally said out loud what I’d been thinking for a few days.  I didn’t know how much longer I could do this.  I didn’t know how much longer I could live like this.  I didn’t know how much longer I wanted to live like this.  I told him that I knew he was wonderful and that I was sorry that I couldn’t heal myself, that medication couldn’t heal me, and that apparently Heavenly Father didn’t love me enough to take this away, and that I understand how people can start to have the thought process of wanting to end their lives because I was beginning to think that way.  I just couldn’t see a way to exist living how I was with the weight of the world feeling like it was pressing on my chest and on my mind every second of every waking minute.  

I was truly in my own personal hell. 

Once I said that, Dean got up and grabbed the phone and made the most important phone call of our lives….  

Our Story, Part 4...

This is Part 4 of Our Story.  To get the complete story, read in order starting with OUR STORY PART 1, OUR STORY PART 2, OUR STORY PART 3.

I've been feeling for a while that I need to write down Dean's and my story for our family history books, for our children and grandchildren to know and understand how their parents/grandparents ended up together.  But I realized that I needed to give some back story because there are some key people along the way that set me on some necessary paths to get to Dean that will help you to understand who I am, how I've changed over the years, and why Dean is the best man I've ever met and how he's perfect for me.  I didn't want to write a short love story "We met at church, dated, married, had a baby 3 years later....", that's too vague for my tastes.  I want my posterity to know WHY I love Dean, and why we go perfectly together.

Our Story, Part 4

I don’t remember exactly what time we agreed to meet at wheelchair friend’s house for our first date Wednesday evening, but meet there we did, but not until I decided to purposely be a couple minutes late from dragging my feet.  I gave myself kudos just for showing up.  We went in to say hi to her and laughed and talked a bit, and then I could tell Dean was so eager to go so we went outside to head to dinner. He was sure to be a gentleman and opened the car door for me, and I hesitantly got in his parents car that he had borrowed.  

I asked him where we were going and he said Claim Jumper in Tukwila.  I’d never been there but I’d heard it had pretty good food.  Sounds good to me!  On the way up we did the usual first date questions: When’s your birthday? Where were you born? How many kids are in your family?  What do you like to do?  Tell me more about your mission to Switzerland.  Tell me about what you were up to while I was in Switzerland.  The conversation actually flowed with ease on the drive up there and we found out we both came from families of 6 children. Our parents were divorced.  We’d been Washington residents most of our lives. We only lived a couple miles apart but our paths never crossed because we always went to different schools and were in different congregations at church growing up.  We eventually figured out that we were both at the same baseball game when High School Boyfriend was playing Dean’s high school baseball team and Dean was also at the game. 

 

Even though I knew and recognized Dean at church on the day that he gave his homecoming talk, I didn’t and still don’t have any concrete memories of him before his mission.  I can’t look back and say, “Hey, remember when we were at that get together at so and so’s house?”  Nope. I even have our very first picture we were ever in together.  We were at wheelchair friend’s house for her missionary farewell.  Dean was there, but I don’t remember him being there, but I have a group picture to prove we were both there, even with me and my blonde hair and way too dark of roots showing. I knew Dean but he hadn’t made enough of an impression on me for me to be able to pin point get togethers where we were the common denominator.  Plus, I was dating Mistake Boyfriend before Dean left on his mission so I was too wrapped up in all that drama to really give notice to what else and who else was going on around me. I don’t say these things to be rude, I wish I could remember him, but I simply can’t. 

We arrived at Claim Jumper and put our names on the list since there was a little bit of a wait.  We took a pager that would let us know when our table was ready and headed outside and sat next to one another on a bench outside.  We talked a little bit about who knows what and the conversation died off for just a few seconds.  It was sunset and the evening sun was shining right on my face directly in my eyes.  Dean leaned over so that he could take a closer look at my face but more specifically, my eyes, as the sunset was shining in them.  “Wow, you have really beautiful eyes.”  I immediately gave a mocking smile and rolled my eyes and turned away from him thinking, “Good gracious, is he going to be cheesy like this all night? Kill me now.  Can this date just be over please?”  I wasn’t one that likes to be smothered with cliché lines like that one a first date.  He got the hint that he was being cheesy and backed away and shied away for a little bit. And yes, I in fact do have beautiful eyes.  As our relationship progressed he commented on them dozens of times and would just stare and stare at them and the rainbow of colors that make them up.  Someone would pay big money to have an iris transplant from me. 

Our pager buzzed and we made our way inside towards the back of the restaurant to a little table for 2.  I was starving, but I still couldn’t show this guy that I wasn’t even wanting to be out on a date with that I could probably out eat him!  “Soup and salad for me, please.”  Dean had no shame and ordered something hearty. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I remember looking at it and wishing he would go to the bathroom so that I could steal a bite or two of it.  And not wanting to seem like a pig, I didn’t finish my soup and salad, but I sure drank a lot of water.  Dumb, dumb girl.

The conversation at dinner was nonstop and Dean was a little different than other guys I’d gone out with, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was.  There was something about him that I thought was sweet, but all my other annoyances with him and just general lack of attraction to him completely overshadowed what I thought was sweet about him.  I had already made up my mind about him before the date even began.  He was a pro at asking me questions about myself, always ready to fire the next question, and he was eating up all of my answers with enthusiasm, like they were their own fulfilling meal themselves.   We had a pretty easy give and take, conversation-wise. 

 

We finished up dinner, I took one last swig of water, Dean paid, and we headed out to his car.  He opened my door again, I got in, and then he got in.  “Well, where do you want to go now, Michelle?”  Uhhh, he didn’t have anything else planned? Who was this guy?!  “I don’t care.”  Secretly I wanted to go to McDonald’s and get a Big Mac but I was too proud to say that.  “Hmmm, ok, I have an idea.  How about Alki Beach?”  “Ok, fine.” 

We drove over to Costco to put some gas in the car and then we headed north in I-5 and across the bridge to Alki.  We parked, got out of the car, and then Dean walked back to the trunk, opened it, and pulled out a big blanket.  I then started to laugh to myself because I was putting the pieces together.  “You planned on coming up here all along, huh? That’s why you had the blanket in the trunk.”  Sheepishly, “Yeah.”  Good gravy.  This newly returned missionary thought he was going to make out with me on Alki Beach. That’s strike 2 and a half, buddy. I’d sooner eat rocks and die than do that with him.

We started to walk across the grass and over to the beach when we spot a couple a little ways away.  She was sitting on a bench and he got down one on knee in front of her and we could tell he was proposing.  Dean then thought he would be hilarious and mockingly get down and one knee in front of me and pretend like he was opening up an imaginary engagement box.  I could have kicked him in the gut right then and there.  Annnnnnd there’s strike 3.  I just sighed, rolled my eyes, and walked around him towards the water.  Dude, who was this guy?!?!?

He hurriedly got up from his fake proposal stance, ran after me, and then picked a spot to lay down his hopeful loooooooove blanket.  We sat down side by side but not touching and talked and talked about any and everything.  Again, as much as I wasn’t digging on him, for the most part I did enjoy talking to him.  He listened, I listened.  

After a while my back and bum were hurting from sitting in the same position for so long so I laid down on the blanket.  And of course Dean took that as permission that he could lay down next to me, but I made sure that he wasn’t touching me at all.  We continued chatting for a while and then I suddenly got bored and didn’t want to talk anymore.  Well, what better way to insult to injury than getting bored and falling asleep on your first date?   I was out cold within a matter of seconds.  Dean tells me that he just laid there on his side with his head propped up in his hand and he just stared at me and tried to memorize every feature of mine that he could see illuminated between the light of the moon and the light from the street lamp by his car.  Meanwhile I dozed, and apparently at one point I moved, grabbed my sandal that I had taken off when we first sat down, and I stuck it under my head as makeshift pillow.  Comfy.

Dean observed that I was out cold so he took that opportunity to edge a little closer to me, still not touching though.  Eventually he put his face close enough to the top of my forehead to smell my hair, hello creep wad, and he gave me the tiniest of kisses on the top of my forehead.  There’s strike 4.  I stirred a little bit not knowing completely what was going on.  I sensed my personal space had just been invaded.  Did I just imagine him kissing my forehead or was that for real?  I’m so tired. I’ll deal with that later. I’m going back to sleep.  

Eventually I woke up at about 1:30 a.m. and there was Dean, still gazing at me.  Despite my snottiness towards him, there was something about me that he was mesmerized by.  I told him we needed to get going.   I had to be to work by 7 the next morning and we still had to drive back to Federal Way to pick up my car at wheelchair friend’s house.

I grabbed my sandals, he grabbed the blanket, and we were off.  We continued talking on the way home, well, I mostly kept talking so that I could stay awake.  We ended up discussing dreams and Dean mentioned to me like it was no big deal that I was in a dream of his on his mission.  Strike 5.  “Ummm, what?  You were dreaming about me on your mission?  What kind of dreams?”  “Uhhhh, uhhhh, no, you were just IN a dream I had. I don’t remember what it was. I just remember you were in it.”  Yikes.  That’s just something you don’t tell a girl on your first date.  It creeped me out big time for some reason and I all but encouraged his to speed to get back to my car.

Once we did get to my car, I said an obligatory “thanks” and I quickly hopped out of his car and headed towards mine.  But he was quick, and had hopped out at the same time and met me at the front of his car.  I could tell he suddenly got very nervous and he said, “Soooo, uhhh, I want to do something I haven’t done in a long time since before my mission.”  I looked and him and sharply said, “No.  Nope.  I don’t kiss on the first date.”  Heck yeah I kiss on the first date!  I’d kiss someone even if we weren’t on a date.  But I had absolutely negative desire to kiss Dean.  “Ummm, no, no, I mean, uhhh, I wanted to give you a hug.”  Nice recovery, Dean.  “Ok, fine.”  I then gave him a halfhearted one armed hug just to get the heck outta there and all but sprinted to my car. He later told me that he was so bummed out because he really thought I was going to kiss him goodnight.  I don’t know what part of the date he thought went so well that I would kiss him goodnight.  The multiple eye rolls?  The fact that I fell asleep for almost 2 hours on the beach from boredom?  The fact that he told me he’d had a dream about me?  Silly silly man.  No kiss for you.

I drove away, so tired and yet so relieved that the pity date was done.  I made it home, went to bed, and went to work the next morning, and life resumed back to normal. 

So how in the world did pity date Dean and snotty Michelle end up getting married 16 months later? 

Dean saved me.  He literally saved me. 

Oh, and I had to drive out to Puyallup to give my Mom her insulin shot because she was going to go into diabetic shock and die.