Waking up from A dream and stepping into A nightmare

[mfwic1982]

February 1st 2023, when I awoke the sun was barely peeking out from the drawn shades of my bedroom where I used to sleep so comfortably with my two sons who were 5 and 4 on a pillow top king size bed. It was cozy and after a long day, our favorite place to talk about it.
I don't remember falling asleep but the routine was and had always been my youngest in the nook of my right arm, my oldest in the nook of my left. Only this time when I awoke I found my self on my belly, my arms and hands searching for my sons. I heard a shuffle, it sounded like clothes or a blanket and the jingle of a belt then silence. I saw a shadow in the mirror of the bedframe reflecting a sillowett of a man who disappeared with the shuffle.
My left hand quickly found my youngest who was sleeping soundly. My right hand couldn't find my oldest, I turned my head to assist my hands with my eyes, and there he laid, he was naked on his belly with his bottom and legs hanging off of the bed.
With tears in my eyes, I uttered the words "Collin why are you naked" he replied "I'm not. Will you cover me up". I then scooped him up into my arms and moved to the head of the bed where I scooped up my youngest as well.
With my gut saying "I told you so", with a stern voice I shouted "Austin, GET OUT", Austin replied, "why, what happened" in a tone as if to mask that he wasn't really sleeping. I then repeated "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE", he rose to his feet as I heard once again the sound of shuffle and jingle of a belt. He thrust open the door and stomped his way out of the bedroom I was unsure if he had actually left because I didn't hear the door slam but still I immediately got up and locked the bedroom door. I sat with my sons for more than an hour, I was crying and all I could say was "I am sorry, this isn't your fault".

I met Austin in high school. We never dated or "hooked up" we were just friends, and although he was charming handsome and popular I simply wasn't attracted to him.
It wasn't until nearly 15 years later, after we had both graduated high school and left our hometown to start our lives that fate would have us meet again. Both of us had just ended respective relationships, his resulted in 2 daughters, I was told I could never have children at age 13. Both of us back in our hometown for the 4th of July celebrations 2014.
We , or at least I was drunk. A one night stand if you will that in no time convinced me that he was what I had been waiting for my entire life. He charmed the socks right off me, I fell hard and I fell fast. Within a month we had rented our first house together. By June of 2016 we had our oldest son. (Guess who could have children after all). Our youngest son came shy of 2 years later.

 

[mfwic1982]

I'm not sure how this works. So I am simply telling my truths of a sequence of events that has led me to where I am. Unsure, afraid, desperate, single mother of 2 of the strongest and bravest boys.

 

[mfwic1982]

Also, I wasn't sure if I should have continued, as I am trying to respectively break my story down into their trauma categories? Any suggestions or "how to" would be greatly appreciated, thank you

 

[mfwic1982]

My Gut Part 1
My mom wasn't around much when I was growing up, she was always working which left my twin brother and myself in the care of my grandparents. They were God fearing Christians and good people. But I longed for my mom, I always felt "less than" without her, like my life would be perfect if she could just be there.

Austin and I were living in a three bedroom house when our oldest son was born. He was my miracle baby, he quickly got the nick name "Gerber baby" from family and friends, because he was just so darn handsome. He had his daddy's baby blues.

It began immediately, from the very first night we brought him home, I would rock him to sleep in the nursery, lay him in his bassinet and then scurry off back to bed with the baby monitor turned up, I would lay and try to sleep. Only every time I got into bed, I heard him crying. So I would get up go to the nursery only to find that he was fast asleep. This went on every night all night for about 6 weeks.
Sleep deprived and scared, I finally decided to make an appointment with mental health.
I was diagnosed with psychosis. They put me on medication that made it hard for me to swallow, let alone take care of an infant. But "super dad" to the rescue, Austin took care of everything so effortlessly.

By November 2016 my oldest was nearly 5 months old. I don't remember much from this point forward for about a month. I was "living in my make believe happy land where nothing could ever go wrong" .
I remember the phone obsessively ringing and I remember that it was around 9pm when there was a knock at the front door. I remember Austin standing in the doorway of our bedroom urging to take me to my grandparents who lived 5 miles away. Red and blue lights flashing all-around us as we passed county line road. I still don't remember finding out what happened until 3 weeks later, Austin had brought me to a friend of my twin brother's. I remember his eyes, and hearing his voice saying " Jason is not fishing, he is dead". It was then that I learned that my twin had died in a horrific car accident 2 miles away from his home on county line road 3 weeks before. I guess I had been telling people that he was "gone fishing".

By this time my "psychosis" had grown into an unimaginable fear of absolutely everything. I was afraid of a table if it was too close or too far from a wall. Everyday tasks that I had been medicating myself thru had now become terrors. Crawling out of my skin with the feeling of danger lurking around every single corner of my existence. Fear that I could not control or understand, within no time it had consumed everything I believed in.

 

[mfwic1982]

My Gut Part 2
The sequence of events that follow happened very fast, like a domino affect if you will. One after another until it all just came crashing down.

The loss of my brother... My brother Jason was and will always be the better part of me. I was lost without him. I could not find the light of life in anything not even my Son's eyes. I fell into a deep depression, a place that I became accustomed to and depended on.

By the time I had come "around" to everything that had come to pass, Austin had moved us into my grandparents home. My mother lived around the corner of the block.
Things were smooth at first, falling into the new routine of life.
Looking back now, as I thumb thru diary entries.... I just wish I could have seen it then, the truth of it all... But as they say "everything happens for a reason" it must right?
I was being warn out and torn down by the man I loved. He would disappear for days on end, I stopped taking my meds to care for the baby, and just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, he would show back up "super dad" to the rescue.
It got to the point that I was convinced that I had no clue how to be a mother. I was afraid that everything I did in the name of motherhood was wrong and I simply could not manage my life without Austin.
Rite along side of me admitting to myself that I was a shitty mother, Austin was busy convincing my family that I had gone absolutely mental. He turned my own family against me and somehow convinced me that it was all my fault. No, he did not tell me it was my fault, he convinced me to believe on my own that it was my fault. Insuring that He was the only person I could count on, the only person that understood me, he was "super dad".

Around the time that our second son was born April 2018, I had been the one working while he stayed at home. This continued up until "reason" ran into me at work one day.. "reason" was a friend of ours who long ago had previously employed Austin for about 2 weeks before firing him. Which came as a shock to me as I was lead to believe they worked together for nearly a year...
Our conversation uncovered a shocking revelation that to this very day, still makes me wonder if it was all planned. I mean what better way would there be than to plan something so devastating to begin with, then break the foundation in which it held its truths and then make it not real? in the first place? Something that would drive the nail a little deeper, serving it's purpose as every inch broke a piece of my reality away.
Psychosis, or so I thought was actually a downloaded app on a phone that made sounds like a baby was crying.
I don't remember feeling angry. I don't remember putting it all in order to make since. All I remember is feeling scared. I was absolutely terrified of myself. How could I not have known the difference between an apartment and the cries of my own son?
When I confronted Austin about it... He laughed it off as if it were a joke, convincing me even further that I take things to seriously. That it is just my mental state that was making me so upset about it.
A week later we moved 21 miles away from my family to the larger of "small" towns within a 50 mile radius.