At the end of the rope with nowhere to fall

If you have been an reader of our blog, you realize that our slow demise mentally & physically is an ongoing up to this point.  Now it's beginning to hit a climatic breaking point.   Jennifer's health continued to deteriorate.   She experienced stomach issues and had to have her gallbladder removed   She's tired and beginning to show signs of depression.  The younger girls, Heidi & Emi, have illnesses on a daily basis.  Despite constantly going to the doctor they have no answers on why they are sick or what could be causing it.  They prescribe antibiotics & other medicines but those only seem to slow it down but not cure it.  Chloe has become distant and less involved with the family.   We are slowly being torn apart, one thread at a time.    Bad days far out number good days now.

Our only recourse now seems to be to try to distant ourselves from the activity.   We feel we have a good idea of the hot spots so we make them off limits.   The back bedroom is now vacant.   No one is allowed in the basement.  Jennifer sleeps with the girls in the living room.  I sleep with Maya in what is now an open bedroom.  Everyone knows where everyone else is at all times.  Finally, under no circumstances is anyone allowed to stay home alone.

The holidays arrive but it means nothing to us.  Everything seemed to pile on top of us pushing us down.  It was a feeling that someone was slowly eating away at us; keeping us under their control. Nothing brought us happiness regardless of what we tried.  Compounding our problem was a strain of Canine parvovirus that ran through our kennel.  It killed 16 puppies in less than 10 days.  The virus was planted in our home but a careless individual who dropped off her sick dog in our kennel area in the middle of the night without telling us.  This does nothing but adds to Jennifer depression and makes her more vulnerable to attacks.  I feel as if she is slowly drifting away.

We started asking for things to be returned if they've been taken.   Sometimes things come back and sometimes they don't.   Case in point, it was our anniversary and Jennifer had laid an envelope full of cash on the bar for us to use on our night out.   It was in plain site and I remember seeing it setting there.   As we about to walk out the door, she goes to get it and it's gone.  We searched everywhere but it's nowhere to be found.   Finally Jennifer says, "It's our anniversary, please give my money back so we can celebrate."  Within in minutes it appears back on the bar like it had never been touched.

Things continue to happen despite our efforts to contain it.   Doors open and close, we hear voices, things disappear, and the screaming man and woman seem to be screaming at each other now with us being caught in the middle.  The smell of pipe and cigarette smoke continues to fill our house.   It's difficult for us to decipher what's good versus what has harmful intentions so we treat everything as hostile.  We have stopped talking to others about our issues because we feel it's counterproductive and doesn't serve a purpose but to make us some sort of novelty; like a freak show at a carnival.   We've become withdrawn and only venture out out of necessity.  We too tired to fight at this point.  We're helpless, lost, and have no one & nowhere to turn.  We're at the end of our rope but there's nowhere safe to fall.