I like your attitude! Anyone who cannot stop looking back will never enjoy life going forward! There is life after conviction....

Boy, did I really need to hear this today!! Thanks

I a gree 100 percent go story

thank you so much for those words. i really needed to hear that. My mind keeps flashing back and i keep wondering if i will ever trust him again, i do love him and want to trust him again.

Your insight is like Alan Watts. Very well spoken. It's so hard to do though. I can't bring myself to stop looking back, constantly. I look back to the days weeks months before this nightmare happened. I barely recognize the person i see in the mirror. I miss my old self. I miss living for myself, I feel like I only am here to support others and help them find the strength to get through this.

I was looking at pictures I found on my old phone the other day. They were pictures I had taken with friends in the same year my brother got arrested, in the months leading up to it. Eyelash extensions...lmao I had eye lash extensions. I woke up every morning looking forward to the day. Days were exciting, people were here.
Now I look forward to sleeping, waking up is ok but as the mornings wear on the anxiety gets worse and worse. There be no trigger for my anxiety anymore,,it's just there, in the bottom of my stomach. Burning. Lol I sometimes it feels like I am just waiting around until I die.

I can't believe their was a time in my life I had eyelash extensions. I could care less if I even shower on a daily basis now..eeeww , I know

@amynmesa, What you wrote is how I feel. I seems to be in the constant battle between that dark place and the positive attitude that Effle has. There are times that I will have to knock my self out of that place and force myself to think to focus on the present moment. When I think about future, I feel like there is no point of making any plan, because it is nothing there. But i don't want to be in constant depression, so I allowed myself to block out the depressed future, focus only on the present. If I love doing my nails, I go and do them. Even though it only gives me maybe a day of happiness. I do not know how to make it, but one step a time, if i don't give in, i might be able to make it there. Hang in there, and take a good nice shower everyday.:)

Learned looking back my past .of everything .i only will make myself ill.and depressed more .cant focus on that .it ruins what you have today .you cant take away past .but you can look back enough only to gain wisdom .and learn from past mistakes .we live and learn and .press on .there is hope for everyone ..believe me my mother lost most her life living in past.pain from her past life. And it did nothing for her .wasted years .and covering up the pain thru .30yrs of alcoholism .not one drink or social .she did it to cover the pain.so sad ..anyways .please move forward .dont give up no matter what .we all here for one another and going to make it .i always tell my hub im sorry every week you have to be reminde of the past at group .but not to dwell on it .live for the now hes changed and not the same person .that old man is no more .and thats what hes got to think on .people say people cant change ..They can and do !.smile .and let the past stay the past .live love and be blessed with everything .

Hugs

It's extremely difficult some days not to reminisce on the pain. It's how we justify the reason we are depressed. However, on days when I'm feeling low, thinking about the past just stirs old feelings up and makes it worse.

I'd like to say that everyday I'm strong and optimistic...that's not the case. I have so many things that I have to look and consider with my future. I'm falling in love with a registered sex offender. I don't look at him for what he did in the past. I don't have the pain and betrayal of knowing him before all of this and having to deal with him in prison. My pain is different.

My pain is looking at my beautiful family knowing that, should I choose to follow my heart, I may very well lose the connections with family that I have clung to for so long. With a history of sexual abuse in my family I don't know how some of them will feel about this man.

I don't know how it will play out, but I don't understand why God would send me this man who is everything I needed in my life right now knowing I would have to deal with his past staining our future.

I know that I can be strong for him and I know that I can show him the beautiful, strong, independent, hard working man he truly is. He deserves his family, he deserves to be loved! He deserves everything that he wants.

Not everybody will see it that way...many people believe that you should forever suffer the consequences for the actions that you have done in your past. However, the whole world gets to move on from mistakes that they can bury under the rug... he can't. I refuse to be another stone hurled at him.

Those are very wise words and I really needed to hear them. I know it has been 8 years since my husbands incarceration. In the beginning there was not a day that went by that I did not play the "what if" game. I often go over his conviction and I blame myself some. I don't blame myself as much these days but sometimes I still do think of it. It makes me sad and I feel as if no one understands, not even him so your words really helped more than you will ever know. THANK YOU! I know this will never be over once he is released from prison because he will have to register but that is in the future and his conviction was the past.so I have learned to live in the present and stop mopping around. get up and enjoy your life. by you dwelling on this is not going to change the outcome. deal with it when the time comes.

EffieSteffie, you are right, looking back can be very toxic. I try to not look back to when this nightmare started, I just get angry at my son for doing this to all of us, and my husband for a bad decision he made at one point. However, for me looking to the future is not good either. When my son gets out (if he gets out, due to medical issues, I'm not sure he will be alive in 10 years) he will most likely have to come live with me If I am still alive, which will most likely cost me my marriage. My husband will not be willing to remove his guns from the house, and I don't think my son will be allowed to be in a house where there are weapons.
So I have learned to live in the now, concentrate on the present, and take things one day at a time.