Stress Paper

Stress Paper

I decided to do my paper on one of the handouts you gave out in class. It's the article called, "Suppress your stress." I decided to pick this article because everything that I read reminded me of what I went through and am still going through.

Back a year and a half ago, I was in a relationship that lasted about 9 long, terrible years. During this relationship, I had most of these warning signs that the article mentioned. Emotionally, I was sad, angry and had frequent mood swings. Physically, I had chronic fatigue and sweaty palms. For behavioral warning signs, I over-reacted to situations, acted on impulse, used alcohol and drugs. These were all terrible signs but of course I didn't realize what I was going through.

I came to the point where my chest hurt terribly and I guess I had what people call a "panic attack." So finally I went to the doctor, they gave me some pills for depression called Paxil and some relaxers to help me calm down. The relaxers, I took 4 times a day, so of course I was even more tired.

All this time I lived with my boyfriend and my son Johnathan. My boyfriend and I argued all the time. I was the only one in the household that had a job. I guess my boyfriend also had a job, he was a drug dealer. He sold Marijuana and Crystal Meth. I was always stressing that he was going to get caught and then he wouldn't be with us anymore. I felt like I loved him so much. He had already been caught dealing drugs and got his green card taken away, so it was scary. The first time they caught him and sent him back to Mexico, they told him that if he was to come back within 5 years and get in trouble again, he would never be able to be here legally, again. Of course that scared me to death because I would never go live in Mexico. This whole time I'm living with this fear of getting caught. He had a whole different identity and all but yet still I was living with my childs father. I have no idea what I was thinking.

But then again, I wasn't well. When we first got together, we were only together for about 6 months and he went to jail for 2 years. So I waited for him because I was having his child and I was in love. The whole time he was away, he thought I was out partying and being a whore. So when he got out, I never heard the end of it.

We used to get into these arguments and I would always flip out as well. And our arguments would get physical. And of course, then he would apologize and I would love him again. Then I had to worry and get his help to cover up my bruises.

In order to make him happy and I guess to try to forget, I also used drugs. I was only smoking weed up until about the last 2 years we were together. Then he got me to try Cocaine and then Crystal. I really did not like how the Crystal made him act but I kept doing it with him, scared he would do it somewhere else when I wasn't around. And the way he acted on it, I could not let that happen. I had no trust. He started wanted other girls and he started to ask me to have sexual relations with other people as well. Just talking about it all the time, broke my heart over and over and over again. It got so bad he went nuts and started thinking everyone was after him including his family, his son and myself. We were all out ot get him. I always kept thinking he would be okay and things would change.

He abused my in every possible way you can think of. He abused me emotionally, mentally, physically and sexually. I can't believe I dealt with it for so long. I finally got out but it took me quite a while to get out. He kept bothering until finally I put him in jail which was about a year and a half ago.

He has hurt me so much, I still live with the fear that he is coming back. I have two protection orders in force, a gun permit and a gun,