The Middle

The Middle

A Survivor’s Story

By: E.A. Wolfsfeld

Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

Epigraph

Dedication

Everything Happens for a reason

Limited Options

Until the Day I wasn’t

Life has a way of dealing you a hand that you know how to play with, that you don’t expect

How many times can fate strike and is it like lightning

Always trust your gut

Is it harder to live, to die, or to tell the story of how you survived

Take it for what it is worth

“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.”

Anne Frank

Dedication:

This is dedicated to the most wonderful man I know who absolutely stole my heart. He has been there by my side even when times were the hardest. He saved me and didn’t even know it.

This is also dedicated to all of the survivors who found a way through, and to all the families of those that didn’t. We may not have all the answers and we may never have them, but we have the very best memories of those who walked beside us.

Let those memories never fade and remind us of why it is so very important to live.

Always- E.A. 

Prologue…….

We all have a story. We all have a beginning. We typically don’t remember our beginning when we come into this world but we are often told how wonderful and joyous it was. The beginning is one of life’s greatest gifts.

Then we have the middle, this is the part where we experience all of our growth. We find out what makes us unique. The middle begins around early adult hood, seventeen and eighteen. Just as we are beginning to uncover ourselves from our parents and move on to who we are as individuals. We move on and upwards into the cruel world and begin our own paths, stepping one foot in front of the other. We begin to see life isn’t as easy as we once thought, we find that we often wish to go back to happier, simpler times when we were children. Yet, we manage to find the strength and resolved to push us through.

Eventually we ourselves make new beginnings, a new job, a new relationship, a new everything and then one day a new beginning turns into a bundle of joy and we are holding onto a little pink or blue bundle of baby. The middle is the time in our lives where we decide what we make of ourselves and who we become. We never stop learning even when we get into the elder years, we are forever morphing into something better, looking to the future, looking ahead.

Finally, we all have an end. The end isn’t so bad, you just have to think of it like an explosion, it happens so quickly and then all goes quiet and we cease to have existed. We leave behind the precious bits of ourselves preserved in mementos and memories. During our time in the middle we passed along our values, our traditions, we gave people something to hold on to, to fall back upon. Our end is inevitable, it is what gives us a reason to live, and it is what makes us the most human. It must happen to all of us, the end.

My story, the one I want to tell you doesn’t happen at my beginning, nor does it happen at the end. It happens in the middle right where it should have. So often we hear stories from a person’s beginning or end and they never had a chance to change it, they never had a chance to make it better or to give it the good old college try. My story is different, I get to tell you my trials, my tribulations and I get to tell you what almost caused me to have an early and untimely end. I get to tell you about the middle.

I will warn you, the middle isn’t always pretty, and in this particular case it is not. After all many of our heroes and heroines must go through very gruesome trials before they succeed and can walk in the light. It will be told as real and as raw as I experienced it.

Everything Happens for a Reason…….

How often we hear this, everything happens for a reason, is it a cause and effect reason? Is it the reason of divine intervention, is it just because like mother always says? Too often we hear this and shrug our shoulders and accept that it happens for a reason, we must accept what we cannot change. Are there yet still enough dreamers in the world that are scoffing at the very thought that we cannot change the unchangeable thing called fate? If you are reading this and you are one of those dreamers, good, keep thinking that anything is possible, will power, confidence, strength and perseverance make you who you are.

Fate is something we have the power to change, we can change the outcome of fate if we make sound choices and actions within our lives. Or perhaps I am speaking fairy tale nonsense and our fate was already predetermined and it is written on a stone tablet somewhere or in the stars. That isn’t for me to decide now is it?

With all of that being said I think it is time to begin, not at the beginning, but in the middle.

September, I am beginning to panic a little, I am bleeding again, but this time it is worse. I am tired of bleeding for two weeks at a time, the bloating, the cramps, the bull shit. I guess it is time to revisit the doctor for what seems like the millionth time. I make the appointment and wait patiently for the day to come. Bleeding has stopped and I finally feel somewhat human again. My doctor’s appointment is coming up and I am anxious to find out what they are going to say. I want to hear something good for once. I seem to have so many issues with blood clots and blood thinners and just bleeding over all, I am such a weirdo.

The day of my appointment finally arrives and I go in, guns loaded with a plethora of information to give. We spoke for a while and we talked about some options and the best option was not necessarily an option I was fully considering, I knew it was there on the table but now the option is here in my face and I am unsure of what to do and my brain is rambling and hyper focusing on this. Why, why does it have to be that option, why is that the best one? “Ma’am, did you hear what I said?” “Oh shit, I have to come back to planet Earth,” she is still talking. We continued to have our discussion about our options.

Limited options…….

I go home feeling numb, I am tired, I am checked out and I don’t want to deal with anything at the moment. My doctor had essentially told me that the best option for me truly would be to get a total hysterectomy. That would mean the possibility of more children would be non-existent. But to help save and to prolong my life it was the absolute best choice, I couldn’t be on birth control, I couldn’t be on hormones. There were so many things I couldn’t do and only one thing I really could do, unless I chose to keep bleeding for two weeks out of every month. So what do I do?

The problem was I had this really really amazing person in my life and I really really wanted to have a baby with him. I was in love with him and remained in love with him. One of the things that I wanted most in life I wouldn’t be able to have. I prayed for it to be, let fate change for me this time, let me give the miracle of life one more time. Time passed and no miracles fell from Heaven, no baby grew and I grew more and more nervous about surgery. Surgery was set for the day after Christmas, hell of a day for surgery. It got closer and closer, and the closer that it got the more and more I began to spiral downward. I was trying to keep calm on the surface while the wicked storm churned the water deep within.

Surgery, it was to happen, I didn’t really have a choice, and sometimes the hardest choices are made for you. You have to live, you have to be safe you have to just do the tough things in life to make it through and keep prolonging life. I continued to spiral, all the way until the surgery date. Surgery went well, no complications, the only true complication that I had was I couldn’t use the restroom to save my life. My bladder did not want to cooperate after waking up from anesthesia. It was the mental part that I wasn’t ready for. My appetite diminished and I was eating very little. I pushed away people who cared about me and pushed away the person who really cared about me, I pushed away the person I wanted in my life more than anyone else.

I was a loose cannon, emotions were everywhere, I was broken. Sometimes it takes being broken to find ways to fix yourself. I began to seek out the help that I needed, slowly I began to rebuild. I was doing okay, I was doing better.

Until the day I wasn’t…….

Six weeks to the day after surgery, I was involved in a terrible accident. I was in the worst car accident I have ever been in, it was my first day back to work and I just needed to stop by the doctor’s office and pick up a note that would release me back to work. It was a normal day. I left work early, went down and picked up my note, and was getting ready to pull out. I never saw the car. I don’t remember much honestly. I remember waking up and looking around, an eerie silence filled my ears. I was bleeding and could taste the blood.

Airbag dust was everywhere, my body was absolutely killing me, and my seat belt was a boa constrictor on my body. I started to panic, I couldn’t open my door, it was crunched closed. I took my seat belt off and found my cell phone. The first number I pulled up was his, I wanted to hear his voice, to know that I was okay and alive. Before I could hit send, an officer walked up to my window and assessed my condition. He kept talking to me. I still wanted to hear his voice but chaos was happening around me. I didn’t want him to worry or to be as scared as I was.

EMT’s, firemen and rescue were now showing up. I couldn’t find my glasses, so I couldn’t see very well which is making everything worse. Luckily someone found my glasses, they had been knocked off my face into the middle of the road. I got those back, they loaded me up and took me to the ER. By some miracle I survived and only a few bumps and bruises.

I had been spared from death. Every nurse, every doctor who saw me that day commented how lucky I was to be alive. Somehow I didn’t feel so lucky. To live through something like that with only minor scrapes and bruises. Why? Why had I been lucky enough to be spared? I began therapy again, and started physical therapy. It was tough, I didn’t want to drive, I didn’t want to do anything. I still had to be strong, I still had things that I had to do in order to live and allow things to run smoothly.

Life has a way of dealing you a hand that you don’t know how to play with, that you don’t expect…….

Roughly three weeks after the accident, I received more bad news. My husband had been cheating on me for four years, and now that I could no longer bear children I was no longer attractive to him. He couldn’t deal with the accident, he couldn’t deal with me in general. I was just too much. There is nothing worse than hearing that you are too much for someone, especially when you feel like you have tried and given them what you could. At this point I was numb. Struggling from everything, surgery, car accident, husband. Everything. Life had me stuck in this place of depth and darkness.

In a reflection of a moment, I am proud of myself for handling it the way I did. I simply took a deep breath and wished him well and let him know the separation and eventual divorce would now be inevitable. This is where it started, taking the steps backwards. I reverted, I was upset, depressed and appetite dwindled, I pushed everyone away. I spent months being down, questioning my existence.

One day it changed.

How many times can fate strike and is it like lightning?

As fate would have it, I would yet again survive the seemingly un-survivable. I had been spending a lot of time away from everyone, by myself. I was simply existing as a human, getting by. People were going on about their daily life around me. I just allowed myself to be disconnected from them. I watched people come and go, I was losing family members, I was just struggling internally. I only spoke to one person, the only person I could trust. I couldn’t hide from him. One Friday afternoon after working a long day I wanted to come home and relax. Unfortunately that didn’t happen and arguments ensued and filled much of the night. I was at a point I was hanging on by a thread that was starting to become more and more thread bear, threatening to snap at any moment.

I couldn’t take the arguments anymore. I loaded up and left. I had to get out, had to breathe. I drove all night. I went out to the only place I knew that I would find peace, the woods. I grew up there and it was where I could find peace. Anyone who knows me knows that I always carry a handgun with me when I am alone for safety. I parked my truck and got my pack and just walked. I walked as far as I could, to get away from everyone. I kept replaying everything that had happened in the past few months in my mind. The surgery, the inability to have any more children, the separation, the accident, the losses, the hurt.

Overthinking and walking I was beginning to get more upset and finally decided it was time to find a place to sit and drop my pack. I couldn’t help but sit there and cry. I was over everything, absolutely everything. I was over being the girl in love with a guy who would never be available. Over losing people, over being the girl who couldn’t have children, over being the girl who kept surviving. I was over life.

I pulled my handgun out and stared at it, debating……

Then I just put the handgun up to my temple, closed my eyes, took a deep breath and squeezed. I heard the metallic click of the trigger. I was frozen in the moment, I opened my eyes and saw the same scene in front of me, no white gates, and no fiery depths. The same beautiful, peaceful woods that I had come for. My arm felt like dead weight, I brought my arm down and rested it on my knee holding the handgun in front of me, just looking at it.

Anger flooded through me, “ I can’t even die right! Why, why won’t you let me do this one thing right?!” I just yelled out, the anger giving way to tears. I cleared the round that had failed to do my will and watched it come out of the chamber into the dirt. I just stared at it, not knowing what to do. I released my magazine from the well and checked the other rounds, no issues.

I slid the magazine back in the well and loaded another round into the chamber and for what I hoped was the final time put it to my head. I closed my eyes and before I could take a deep breath, BEEP BEEP BEEP, shattered all silence making me jump. I sighed, rolling my eyes, who is texting me right now? Why do I even have service out here? Why don’t people understand what they are interrupting, I am trying to let go.

Always trust your Gut…….

I almost didn’t check my phone- but something deep inside my gut told me to at least check and find out who it was. I put the handgun down and fished around in my pack for my phone, when I unlocked my phone and saw who it was, fresh tears ensued. The only thing I could do was look up at that moment and ask, “Is this it? Is this my sign?” I looked back at my phone, it was him, the man I pushed away for so long, checking in on me, simply because he hadn’t heard from me in a few days. I loved him more than he could ever know and not the infatuation type, the type of love that is real with passion and fire. When your heart melts every time you see them. Here he was unknowingly on the day my life was about the end, checking in on me.

He had no idea that less than five minutes before his message I had tried to end my own life by the pull of a trigger and had failed. He had not seen my anguish and anger, he had not seen me re-chamber another round and put the gun to my head. I just kept looking at his message, the tears kept flowing. I closed my phone and looked at the handgun, and I held it.

At that moment it was the heaviest thing I had ever held. I stared at it, and then looked to the round that had initially failed to take my life. I just didn’t want to die anymore. I wanted to live for me, for my daughter, for those who loved me. I wanted to live for every piece that made me, me, that made me unique. I holstered the pistol and picked up the round that failed and held it tightly for just a moment before I slipped it into my pocket. I picked up my pack and decided it was time for me to head off the mountain.

What’s harder, living, dying or talking about how you survived?

I read a quote once, it has always stuck with me, “Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.” Anne Frank. The thing I can’t help but wonder even to this day, even through all my therapy and even through all my healing is what would have happened that day had I succeeded? Who would be putting flowers on my grave because of regret, because they couldn’t have saved me, because they just simply did not know. The weight of those questions haunts me more than the act itself. To inflict pain out of pain.

While living is hard and we fall into uncertain times and we often have no idea where we are going, we can never give up, we can rise above what causes pain, we can rise above our challenges. I survived and so have many others. I can’t tell you if it’s hard to die, I have been given more opportunities to live than I ever should have been given. For that I am humbled. The universe or whatever is out there has decided three times that it was not yet my time. This is my story. My story continues today, and I continue to seek the help that I need, and I do the things I love, and I tell the people who are important to me that I love them, no matter how many times they might roll their eyes, or if they don’t believe it.

I tell them because I believe it, because I will never know when my day is coming, I will never know when the last time they will hear my voice say those words. I have also found courage, comfort and above all else self-love. I found courage to speak my mind, to say what I am really thinking, to be comfortable in my skin, in who I am and who I want to be. I found my self-love, my self-love is where everything starts, and that is simply taking care of myself even in the smallest of ways, doing the things that I love and ensuring that I put my best foot forward at all times. I can tell you that my story is not an easy one to tell, my story brings back the anger, the anguish and sadness that I felt then, but it also brings me peace.

If this story helps one person, if it saves one person out there from hurting themselves or others then that is the true blessing. When we share our own stories, people will know that they are not alone in this wide wild world. Read my story, let my words and my lessons teach you that ending your life or the life of another is not the answer. We all have dark and light within us, we always will and it is up to us how we show our light and how we show our darkness, it is up to us how we control it.  

Take it for what it is worth…….

Take it from the girl who was tired of the world and pulled that trigger and survived.

It will be okay, there are people who love you and think that you are the greatest thing since gummy bears, fruit loops, chocolate, dresses with pockets and all other things great.

Take it from the girl who still holds onto the bullet that should have ended her life.

Nothing is worth losing yourself- Nothing, give yourself a break and love yourself more than you love anyone else. Because you are the glue that holds you together, everyone else is just a bonus layer.

Take it from the girl who is finally living.

Don’t take anything for granted, because life is shorter than we can ever fathom and we only have one shot. Make mistakes, ask the hard questions, love hard, eat good, and above all else do what you love and what makes you happy.

Wait on no one, seize the moment and seize the day.

You are not alone, you are loved, you are smart, you are everything.

A Survivor’s Story