Sunday, September 23, 2012

My life on Wisteria Lane

Today a friend posted a face book status about Desperate Housewives, how she has started watching the show and how it makes her wonder whats really going on in her friends homes and it got me thinking... I was a desperate housewife... For years I suffered in silence, doing everything I could to keep Josh's illness a secret just like the women on the show...

For those of you who don't want it, the show isn't what you think its not about lonely housewives its about secrets and lies and murder and the fact that you never "really" know whats going on in your neighbors home, even when that neighbor is your best friend... and its true.

When Josh was at his worst noone knew. Not my friends, not my family, not our neighbors, not the military. Noone. We lived a double life on the outside to anyone who looked at us we were happy as could be... We were the happy newlyweds with the tiny apartment and mismatched furniture who were just getting started and didn't need anything but eachother, we were the happy couple who moved into the nice house with the beautiful backyard on post, didn't really talk to our neighbors caused no problems and kept to ourselves,We were a nice normal couple who just bought the beautiful house in a quiet town in VA...

But on the inside, it was a whole other story... Our lives were quietly falling apart behind the walls of our home... It took everything we had to keep up appearances outside so once we got home it all fell apart 

When we first got to Ft Myer I did everything I could to keep what was going on in our home a secret and I was DAMN good at it... I made up excuses for why we couldn't go out, I kept the windows covered so noone could look in and see him curled up in the middle of our living room having a panic attack, I kept the TV just loud enough that noone could hear us fighting... As much as I hate to admit this lying because easy and natural for me and for a while there I got so good at lying that I was even fooling myself..

During the PCS I truly believed my lies but as soon as we got into our home and started living a normal life again with the daily stress of work and keeping the house up and school work I realized how bad I was fooling myself and how desperate I was to believe that my life could one day be normal... But it wasn't and it isn't... and I'm not sure it ever will be...

I don't live on Wisteria Lane anymore... Just like the women in the show sooner or later my secret was bound to get too big to keep and it did... This time last year my friends were shocked and horrified to find out Josh had been hospitalized because of a suicide attempt... As crazy as this sounds even after he was hospitalized I tried SO hard to keep it a secret I honestly tried even harder to keep it a secret for fear he would be judged... But it was too much and I broke down and told my best friend and all she kept saying back to me was why didn't you tell me you didn't have to do this alone but I couldn't I couldn't tell anyone and I'll never be able to explain why...

Everyone has secrets, Everyone lies, Don't judge your neighbors or friends too harshly for the choices they make because you never know whats really going on in their homes... I know my friends sure didn't... 

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