I’ve been seeing a therapist. For several months. It wasn’t meant to be a secret, but somehow it became one.
I kind of (this being the biggest understatement, like ever) hit a wall, fell apart, slept and cried and refused to get out of my bed for 36 straight hours after admitting to my husband and best friend that I just wanted to die. And had even planned it out. Life came on too quick and too hard for me and decided to throw me a whole 35 year’s worth of curve balls in about 5 months, most of the really tough ones in 3 weeks. My therapist has told me, several times, that she thinks writing my feelings out and getting it off my chest is going to be more healing than anything else. And on a day like today, when I really want to crawl back in my bed and cry, I figured I would give this a shot.
It’s a long story and seeing as you have come here to get the nitty-gritty and why Danyelle is a little off her rocker, I am assuming that you want to hear all about how I ended up in bed crying for 36 hours.
I’m going to take you back to September. The 9th. I know the day because it was my grandmothers 90th birthday. I had been working on a book for the occasion and helping my mom and sisters plan a big celebration for her. It was an exciting day. And to make it more exciting I just so happened to see 2 blue lines on a pregnancy test that morning. Something that I had been hoping for for a couple of months. But it was a secret and too early to tell anyone, so my husband and I just kept it to ourselves. I am one of those people that as soon as I know that there is life within me I need to know when it was expected to arrive. So I jumped online and typed in the dates it needed and a little glowy circle spun on my screen a few times while it calculated and then it gave me the expected due date for my microscopic creation: May 21. My dad’s birthday. Which was awesome and amazing and a warm, especially since he had passed away just 10 months before that and I just knew that he was looking at me in that moment telling me that he loved me. I was elated. But also busy. I had a 90th birthday party to set up and attend. And it was for my very favorite person in the world. We went and celebrated and it was wonderful and it was awkward and my sisters decided to show their ugly side and make things uncomfortable for me. They had a tendency to do this more often than not, sometimes completely innocently and sometimes not. Today was half and half. But this was one of those rare occasions that I
had my guy in my corner to back me up. Kevin tended to stay away from my family functions. He hated the way that all of us sisters treated each other, hated to go and act like everything was a-okay when things were most defiantly not. So he stayed home and on the few occasions that I actually did go to a family function I fought it out myself. We made it through the party and my grandmother thanked as a hundred times over for such a great time and for all the effort that went into it. And we went home with loads of party food leftovers. Crashed and called it good
Enter September 10th: I get an email from my baby sister’s ex-husband asking if I had any information about where she had moved to. He told me that she had moved, pulled their son out of school and changed her phone number and did not tell him anything and he was concerned about his son. I thought he was genuine and he had never given me reason to believe that he was lying or using any information that I gave him for a horrible cause, so I told him what little information I had, which was only a guess as to where she had moved and a phone number that I had been accidently included in on a mass text. That’s it. Told him I was sorry for not being able to help more and I hoped things worked out the best for their son. I was acting in what I thought was the best thing for their son, who I loved, and was also trying to dig my sister out of what could be potential kidnapping charges. It happens.
A few days pass and I hear nothing about anything. Then all the sudden Baby Sister opens the gates of fury. It wasn’t the first time that she flung open those doors, she was like a soap opera star at starting drama. In a matter of minutes I am getting phone calls from every one of my sisters (there are 5 of them, mind you) and they are taking turns screaming at me, my other line is beeping over and over and they are screaming and hanging up on me and I can barely get a story out of them all I know is they
are pissed and Baby Sister got them all riled up. Finally I get one of the more level headed ones on the phone and she explains to me that Baby Sister has told all of them that I have been in cahoots with her ex and I have promised to testify against her so that she will lose custody of their son and I have also promised that one of my close friends would do the same and we were plotting to ruin her life.
Let me just pause here a moment and say that I do not find this at all therapeutic. I, in fact, am finding that this is bringing up all those feelings of pain and anger and hurt back to the surface. I really badly want to throw a chair through a window. What kind
of quack therapist do I have?! But I will push through for the sake of a good story…where was I….
So sisters are mad, I am furious that once again Baby Sister has gotten me involved in her latest plot and once again the army of angry sisters is marching with pitch forks and flaming whatever-they’re-called and they are on the attack. It was a common scene in my family. I stood out. I was the fish against water. For a period of time I had what they wanted and they hated me for
that. I was used to being attacked and I was used to sisters jumping on whatever bandwagon they could to get at me. But this time it was different. This time baby Sister had an agenda. Well, she had an agenda every time, but this time she made her agenda known. She wasn’t stopping at the army of sisters, she was recruiting more. She called her other ex-husband, she called her ex #2’s family she called her friends, she was relentless. Anyone who was anyone was under the impression that I was the devil in jeans and I needed to be shamed. She all but stopped at posting it on a billboard. I got phone calls and emails and Facebook messages and things were said to me that I would expect to hear from a murder victim’s family confronting the killer. One message in particular had such vulgarity about me, my children and my husband that I threw up after reading it. For someone to let their tongue get the better of them in a heated argument is one thing; but for someone to seek you out, find a way to contact you, write such vulgarities out and actually press send takes a special kind of person. This was my reality for about a week. I would stand in the shower for the better part of an hour and cry and think of the hurtful things that I could do so she could feel just a little bit of what she had done to me. I never didany of them, but I had a million of them ready to go if my conscience would just let me. Instead I just took it. I was her punching bag. All the horrible lies that she said about me and my kids and my husband and my friends were shattering me. And I did nothing. I took the higher ground. Alone. Because every person that he two of us mutually knew together was holding a pitchfork. I had a husband, a few good friends and my little minions to comfort me.
The hatred slowed and I came out bruised and broken, but I made it through the battle. I hadn’t talked to any of my sister, except the level headed one a few times, for about a month. They told me I was dead to them. I just went on living.
Then October 6th came. It was a good day, conference weekend. And on top of that we got a surprise visit from my very favorite brother in law and his awesome wife. We all decided to see a movie, Hotel Transylvania. I remember because when life throws you a flaming curve ball, you remember things in detail. I turned the ringer on my phone to silent but left the vibrate feature on. We had popcorn and licorice and lemonade and we were sitting on the very top row of the theater. The movie was just getting started; we hadn’t even made it through all the previews yet and my pocket starts vibrating where I had my phone. I snuck a peek at the screen to see who it was. Big Sister. I was not getting into this again, they just need to leave me alone.
What else can she possibly be starting up now? Denied the call. A few minutes pass, pocket vibrates. Sneak a peek, same sister…deny. Three or four more times before the movie even starts. I get tired of looking and just let my pocket vibrate away and can only imagine the voicemails I will be receiving. I try to ignore it and have a good time with my family watching this movie.
About ¾ of the way through the movie I start to get a sick feeling. A feeling like I need to go and answer my phone. A feeling like something is not right. So I get up and walk out of the theater to see what is going on. I look at my phone, 17 missed calls, from a number of sisters. Great,
here we go again. I scroll through and call back the one that is going to be the
most level headed and hopefully not scream at me right off the bat.
She answers and her voice is pretty shaky. “What’s going on? Why are all
of you calling me over and over?” I demand. “Alissa is dead.”
I kind of (this being the biggest understatement, like ever) hit a wall, fell apart, slept and cried and refused to get out of my bed for 36 straight hours after admitting to my husband and best friend that I just wanted to die. And had even planned it out. Life came on too quick and too hard for me and decided to throw me a whole 35 year’s worth of curve balls in about 5 months, most of the really tough ones in 3 weeks. My therapist has told me, several times, that she thinks writing my feelings out and getting it off my chest is going to be more healing than anything else. And on a day like today, when I really want to crawl back in my bed and cry, I figured I would give this a shot.
It’s a long story and seeing as you have come here to get the nitty-gritty and why Danyelle is a little off her rocker, I am assuming that you want to hear all about how I ended up in bed crying for 36 hours.
I’m going to take you back to September. The 9th. I know the day because it was my grandmothers 90th birthday. I had been working on a book for the occasion and helping my mom and sisters plan a big celebration for her. It was an exciting day. And to make it more exciting I just so happened to see 2 blue lines on a pregnancy test that morning. Something that I had been hoping for for a couple of months. But it was a secret and too early to tell anyone, so my husband and I just kept it to ourselves. I am one of those people that as soon as I know that there is life within me I need to know when it was expected to arrive. So I jumped online and typed in the dates it needed and a little glowy circle spun on my screen a few times while it calculated and then it gave me the expected due date for my microscopic creation: May 21. My dad’s birthday. Which was awesome and amazing and a warm, especially since he had passed away just 10 months before that and I just knew that he was looking at me in that moment telling me that he loved me. I was elated. But also busy. I had a 90th birthday party to set up and attend. And it was for my very favorite person in the world. We went and celebrated and it was wonderful and it was awkward and my sisters decided to show their ugly side and make things uncomfortable for me. They had a tendency to do this more often than not, sometimes completely innocently and sometimes not. Today was half and half. But this was one of those rare occasions that I
had my guy in my corner to back me up. Kevin tended to stay away from my family functions. He hated the way that all of us sisters treated each other, hated to go and act like everything was a-okay when things were most defiantly not. So he stayed home and on the few occasions that I actually did go to a family function I fought it out myself. We made it through the party and my grandmother thanked as a hundred times over for such a great time and for all the effort that went into it. And we went home with loads of party food leftovers. Crashed and called it good
Enter September 10th: I get an email from my baby sister’s ex-husband asking if I had any information about where she had moved to. He told me that she had moved, pulled their son out of school and changed her phone number and did not tell him anything and he was concerned about his son. I thought he was genuine and he had never given me reason to believe that he was lying or using any information that I gave him for a horrible cause, so I told him what little information I had, which was only a guess as to where she had moved and a phone number that I had been accidently included in on a mass text. That’s it. Told him I was sorry for not being able to help more and I hoped things worked out the best for their son. I was acting in what I thought was the best thing for their son, who I loved, and was also trying to dig my sister out of what could be potential kidnapping charges. It happens.
A few days pass and I hear nothing about anything. Then all the sudden Baby Sister opens the gates of fury. It wasn’t the first time that she flung open those doors, she was like a soap opera star at starting drama. In a matter of minutes I am getting phone calls from every one of my sisters (there are 5 of them, mind you) and they are taking turns screaming at me, my other line is beeping over and over and they are screaming and hanging up on me and I can barely get a story out of them all I know is they
are pissed and Baby Sister got them all riled up. Finally I get one of the more level headed ones on the phone and she explains to me that Baby Sister has told all of them that I have been in cahoots with her ex and I have promised to testify against her so that she will lose custody of their son and I have also promised that one of my close friends would do the same and we were plotting to ruin her life.
Let me just pause here a moment and say that I do not find this at all therapeutic. I, in fact, am finding that this is bringing up all those feelings of pain and anger and hurt back to the surface. I really badly want to throw a chair through a window. What kind
of quack therapist do I have?! But I will push through for the sake of a good story…where was I….
So sisters are mad, I am furious that once again Baby Sister has gotten me involved in her latest plot and once again the army of angry sisters is marching with pitch forks and flaming whatever-they’re-called and they are on the attack. It was a common scene in my family. I stood out. I was the fish against water. For a period of time I had what they wanted and they hated me for
that. I was used to being attacked and I was used to sisters jumping on whatever bandwagon they could to get at me. But this time it was different. This time baby Sister had an agenda. Well, she had an agenda every time, but this time she made her agenda known. She wasn’t stopping at the army of sisters, she was recruiting more. She called her other ex-husband, she called her ex #2’s family she called her friends, she was relentless. Anyone who was anyone was under the impression that I was the devil in jeans and I needed to be shamed. She all but stopped at posting it on a billboard. I got phone calls and emails and Facebook messages and things were said to me that I would expect to hear from a murder victim’s family confronting the killer. One message in particular had such vulgarity about me, my children and my husband that I threw up after reading it. For someone to let their tongue get the better of them in a heated argument is one thing; but for someone to seek you out, find a way to contact you, write such vulgarities out and actually press send takes a special kind of person. This was my reality for about a week. I would stand in the shower for the better part of an hour and cry and think of the hurtful things that I could do so she could feel just a little bit of what she had done to me. I never didany of them, but I had a million of them ready to go if my conscience would just let me. Instead I just took it. I was her punching bag. All the horrible lies that she said about me and my kids and my husband and my friends were shattering me. And I did nothing. I took the higher ground. Alone. Because every person that he two of us mutually knew together was holding a pitchfork. I had a husband, a few good friends and my little minions to comfort me.
The hatred slowed and I came out bruised and broken, but I made it through the battle. I hadn’t talked to any of my sister, except the level headed one a few times, for about a month. They told me I was dead to them. I just went on living.
Then October 6th came. It was a good day, conference weekend. And on top of that we got a surprise visit from my very favorite brother in law and his awesome wife. We all decided to see a movie, Hotel Transylvania. I remember because when life throws you a flaming curve ball, you remember things in detail. I turned the ringer on my phone to silent but left the vibrate feature on. We had popcorn and licorice and lemonade and we were sitting on the very top row of the theater. The movie was just getting started; we hadn’t even made it through all the previews yet and my pocket starts vibrating where I had my phone. I snuck a peek at the screen to see who it was. Big Sister. I was not getting into this again, they just need to leave me alone.
What else can she possibly be starting up now? Denied the call. A few minutes pass, pocket vibrates. Sneak a peek, same sister…deny. Three or four more times before the movie even starts. I get tired of looking and just let my pocket vibrate away and can only imagine the voicemails I will be receiving. I try to ignore it and have a good time with my family watching this movie.
About ¾ of the way through the movie I start to get a sick feeling. A feeling like I need to go and answer my phone. A feeling like something is not right. So I get up and walk out of the theater to see what is going on. I look at my phone, 17 missed calls, from a number of sisters. Great,
here we go again. I scroll through and call back the one that is going to be the
most level headed and hopefully not scream at me right off the bat.
She answers and her voice is pretty shaky. “What’s going on? Why are all
of you calling me over and over?” I demand. “Alissa is dead.”
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