I love my children

CW NSFW, self death, child death, mental illness due to trauma,

I watched them dotingly as they played at my feet. They just wanted to be close. Aiden, my oldest, a boy of 10, was sitting criss-crossed with a chapter book in his lap while his two sisters, Isabelle, who was 5, and Lillian, who was 3, played with their dolls, playing mom and baby. Their blonde hair flowed and glistened against the harsh light of the sun, and their green-eyed stare was one that put a sleek smile across your lips, for their universe inside their gaze was one of innocence and beauty.

I loved them with everything I was. Every atom. Every ounce of blood. Every beat coming from my heart and every breath that came from my lungs were for them. When I looked at their still-growing figures, my soul felt warm, and knowing they had bright futures made my life worth living. I had the entire world.

My husband was estranged from me, and my love began to wither like a rose, for I felt like the detachment went deeper than just a loss of affection. I watched his movement. I watched as his love for me diminished, and I watched it go to someone else. But I still loved him. I didn't want to let him go. Not yet.

My devotion was to my family and had been since the day I became a mother. I am the housewife. My family is my reason for living. As I do the laundry, I can smell a perfume that is not mine on my husband’s button-up shirt, and my heart cracks just a little bit more. I look outside and see my children playing tag, and my being is lightened by the burden of a heavy, broken bond, but watching my dears is like watching heaven play before me.

I know things have been harder than usual. I still take my medication, but it seems to be weary as of late, as episodes poke out every now and again, and the harsh words exchanged between the man who was supposed to be my best friend and me would break through. I know my children can hear us, and it's my fault. I wish it weren't. But my brain is broken from a life of trauma, and sometimes it's hard to live with.

I don't blame my husband for falling into someone else's arms. I'm distant and quiet. He used to love me unconditionally until my physical affection diminished, and it got to the point where I didn't even greet him when he came home from work. God, but did I love my children! I would kill for my children, and I would die for them.

My husband is a strong man, and he withheld his wrath as I would beat on him with my whole strength. His 300lb body and 6’5 frame overtook my 100 pound body and 5’0 frame, and to him, which really made me mad, it was easy for him to control my outbursts of violence. He would hold me as I fell apart, and never did he waver from his dedication to me.

But I think I've gone too far. For now, he fights back. His shouts are like knives through my heart, for he had never raised his voice to me in the past. He leaves now as I lose my mind in tears, and I try to fight back with my fury. I don't know where he goes. He comes home just in time to get ready for work, and then he leaves again without even having a cup of coffee.

I turn my radio all the way up as I drive my children to school, and they would sing along and dance to the different beats that came on. They only saw the happiness sometimes and didn't understand the times in between when times were darker than usual. They didn't understand why mom would disappear into her room for days at a time while dad slept in his study.

I would stay home alone all day and make sure my house was impeccable, with everything polished and in order. I often rearranged furniture and put my kitchen and personal bathroom under demolition again and again as I re-finished each room every few months. My children loved the changes in their rooms almost every year as I updated them to suit their personalities as they grew.

Music was my escape and my podcasts. I would get lost in murder mysteries and Rob Zombie. I couldn't take the silence. If all time were too much and I had nothing left to do, I would bake. I baked all kinds of sourdough sweets, made all sorts of bread, and made my own butter. When I was alone, I was calm. Then my husband would come home, and the annoyance would come immediately, as if a switch had suddenly flipped.

Honestly, I was just happy he came home for dinner, as my heart was becoming softer for him, as I felt empathetic to his suffering that I had caused. I prayed for my sanity as I wanted to be better for him, for my children. I put on a smile while I started to die on the inside, watching the man I still loved lose interest in me. I tried to change, but I think it was too late.

I watch my children as they play around me. Just wanting to be close. They loved me, and I knew that, just like I felt I also knew, I felt like they wouldn't know what to do without me. I couldn't fathom being parted from what I had manifested into this world. They were truly mine. I really had no other accomplishments in life, and only half an education, but my children were better than any achievement I could ever have had.

I began to talk more frequently with my doctor, explaining my mood swings and depression, and he mailed me more medication, bringing up my dosages and adding a couple more things to help with the nervous and psychotic episodes. I think back on my past a lot, and a large amount of wrong and hurt was done to me since an early age. It started the day I was born. The day I was entered into a cult through my family.

I was generational in our religion of damnation and the end of the world prophecy. I burned with passion for it as I grew older and couldn't comprehend what the real world was like, for I had been segregated at school for my attire and the length of my uncut hair. I really didn't even stand a chance the day I was born.

But through my children, it was much different. I give them a love that I never received as a child, and I allow them a freedom that I was never given. But through other trauma done to me. The grooming. The next level of attraction from such an older man against a teenager, not even close to being of age. I couldn't be close to my husband like he wanted me to be.

It was hard as flashes of my Marine Corps career flashed before me, and the assault continued. I couldn't feel like that for anyone anymore, not even the man I loved the most in the world. I would give him anything, but my brain won't let him have certain parts of my heart. I've begun to pay more attention. I've begun to query around his days, and my sensuality caught him off guard, and he didn't know how to respond to me.

I began to let my husband into parts of me that had been off-limits for so long, and long, late-night talks between us took time over his time, over time in his office. Things were beginning to change as the fights ended, and I saw my husband at every dinner. My children noticed his attendance as well and were happy to get to know him better, just like I had to do all over again.

Yells were replaced with laughter, and movie night took priority over overnight trips out of town. I felt like my family was being knitted together and things were steady for the first time in what felt like a lifetime within 15 years. Almost two decades later, with three kids and somehow through all of my horror, my husband decided to stand with me. He tried to make me better. He tried to fix all the broken parts.

My husband was finally beginning to understand the way my mind worked, and he looked into my sickness and treaded around the things that would trigger me into a bad mood. Before I knew it, my husband was back to his carefree, lose attitude, where my frustration meant nothing and only love mattered. He was starting to love me again.

“Mama, what does this say?”

Isabelle looked down at her boots, which had little icons and cursive writing on the fold. I loved her voice. She was so quiet and joyful. Her sensitivity really came out when it came to playing with her siblings.

“Well, that one says love.” I pointed out one of the words stitched into her boots, then pointed to a word next to a smiley face. “This word says peace.”

My daughter smiled, then had a full conversation with me about people at school and what her friends were like. She smiled and laughed as she told me everything she learned in class. She did this for an hour before she got distracted, and suddenly, my youngest was outside.

“Mama. I went potty in the toilet.”

Lilly was so cheerful as she exclaimed her accomplishment. She was my bomb. She was the youngest and she acted the toughest. She wouldnt allow any of her siblings to bully her around. I loved the way she sparked like a firecracker as she ran outside with an over sized T shirt and panties around her ankles.

“Good job, baby.”

I clapped my hands for her and laughed before just smiling widely, sharing in her success. My heart swelled as another milestone had been achieved and i couldnt believe just how old my youngest was until she grabbed a book after i got her properly dressed and told me all the parts of it.

“This is the front.” She showed me the cover. “This is the back.” She flipped it over. “This is the spine.” She showed me the side of the book that held all the pages together.

Then Isabelle came back out, and my two daughters began to play with one another as if I wasn't there, and I watched them just being a ghost in the background. Aiden then found his way outside with his switch, and he began to show me all of his Pokémon.

“I got this one just for you and named it Belinda. He is a Pidgeot, and once he is fully evolved, he will be a Mega Pidgeot. Isn’t that so cool?”

He beamed at me as he showed off his crooked smile that i knew we were going to have to fix over the summer. It was time. He had lost all of his teeth and all his big boy teeth were in. Now it was time to care for them.

“I love it,” I replied, really studying his game to see what he was pointing out.

Before I knew it, all my children were outside with me, just circling me as they did their own activities. Just wanting to be close. I was the gravity in this family, and to have me broken disturbed the entire solar system. I had to be steady. I had to be strong for everyone. My medication had begun to stabilize me, finally, and everything was falling back together.

Then my husband began to act suspicious again, and my paranoia began to rise further than my anxiety. My husband was falling away from me again, and I had no control over what was happening anymore. The ball was all in his court, and he decided to pass it to the other team instead of keeping it. This was a new kind of tragedy I began to face, and the depression I began to feel really took over me.

Then my husband came to me with paperwork, and he said in the end it was for the best and that he couldn't handle the stress of my mental illness any longer. Then he threatened to take my kids. My everything. I had been torn up in a torturous way, and my husband knew exactly what he was doing to me. He had control. Now he was breaking me.

My husband moved out of the family house and rented an apartment downtown while I tried to keep our daily lives going. I didn't want to make it hard on the kids. I woke up one morning alone and went down to make coffee when I made a decision that changed everything. That would change everything.

I got my kids ready for the day, then took them to the car and buckled them in. I sat in the driver's seat for a really long time. My knuckles turned white as I gripped it too tightly. Then I started the car and turned up the music.

“Why aren’t we moving?”

Aiden is such a clever little boy. Of course, he knew something was wrong. He looked at me with a puzzled look ready for the garage door to open and for us to drive to school just like any other day. But this wasn't any other day. This was the beginning of a new chapter that my husband drove me into.

“We are just gonna hang out in here for a while,”

I said, handing him my phone so he could choose the music and I began turning the A/C on full blast so we wouldn't get too hot as the car ran with life.

He was so excited as he took my phone, and I watched as my children slowly grew tired. As I got tired. When my kids fell asleep, I knew it was all over because I was going to sleep too. This was the only way to keep us together. I couldn't lose them. I couldn't let them go with their father. He was going to take them away from me and with my mental history he was going to win all rights and custody no matter what and my children were going to be raised by his mistress. He wasn’t good for them like I was. He was going to ruin them, and I couldn't let that happen.

My eyelids are so droopy as I try to stay conscious as long as I can, looking at my children for the last time. Then I closed my eyes, and I knew that we were all about to go to a better place. A place with no pain. No suffering. No divorce. No mental illness. No crying. No hurt. No abandonment. No seperation. A place where we can all be free to be with each other forever, and I knew and felt relief that my husband would never be able to take my kids away from me.