Three Choices

I remember when it first happened I was given three choices. I instinctively knew I would have three choices. The first choice started the night before rehab. I already believed, I think, that everyone knew everything- all of my secrets. They had spilled out of me, ugly truths, realizations. My husband took my son camping, and I was confused, panic rose out of me. Before he left he looked at me and said “Michelle choose me. I will protect you. And as he had done before I thought, yes, he will. He will protect me.” He left and that night I began texting both my husband and my affair partner. I was trying to sort it out in my mind, I was frantic, perhaps the lack of sleep and drugs as they both sent me pictures of themselves and kids, near simultaneously, I was receiving pictures from them. My affair partner and the only picture that existed of us, then pictures of his children. Then of my husband, and a picture of him and our son. My son. My only baby on this earth, there he was. But, I wasn't seeing properly, I wasn't seeing him or my child. Not the way i should have been, not as a wife and mother. I was too consumed with myself, with my sins, and trying to find “my truth.”

I wrote a letter. A letter that I initially intended to send to my coworkers but at the moment that I was writing it my brother called me and said “what are you doing doing?” I told him I was disclosing everything. He said “Michelle, now is not the time for that. Now is the time for truth!” So, instead I sent the letter to my affair partner and to my husband.

Of everything I had done to this moment, that feels to most painful. I struggle to understand a myriad of actions, but this one, this one was an unnecessary knife memorialized in my husbands inbox. I was trying to do “the right thing” in honesty, but had no idea what the right thing was anymore. I had fallen so far off the path of righteousness and purity, that I couldn't even determine what was right anymore.

Was it “right” to be 100% honest? Or to be kind? In that moment I chose my truth, at least the truth I believed in this dark moment but it was definitely not kind.

That night while I scrambled back and forth trying to sort through the wake of pain I had created, focusing on these two men and what truth meant to me, all while not seeing or focusing on the only thing that actually matters, that ever mattered- my son.

That night my affair partner said to me, “Michelle, dont betray me.” Betray him? I had betrayed myself, my family, and everything i knew and loved up and to that point in my life. Why wouldn't I betray him, but in that moment, I thought and said “I have betrayed all for you. Why would I now betray you?”

I dont think I slept, I dont recall. The next day my husband sent pictures of my Son fishing. They were next to a lake at sunrise, it looked like heaven. There was my child, the true meaning of love and innocence, standing in a screne landscape landscape with a big smile, holding a fishing pole too big for him… heaven. But, I was still so wrapped in darkness, selfishness, and all the evil I had been doing or casting casting around me and I still didn't focus on him.

Instead my husband had now received an email that can never be retracted. An email with cruel words and truth, at least as my lense considered it in that moment and he called and said “so, you love him then?” And, almost without thought or consideration, no real emotion for my family, for all that I had know and loved for almost a decade I said “yes.” And my phone died.

I knew instantly that was the first decision. Fuck.

My first choice was “do you love your husband?” And my answer, with no forethought in the name of “truth” was yes? Michelle you are an idiot. Every charger in the house was missing. I was frantic to undo what had just been done, but I couldn't charge my phone to talk to him. I couldn't undo it. He was camping with my son, and a letter full of stinging words, and my answer to the first choice “I did not love him.” But, that was not the choice I wanted to make. I did not want to lose him. How could I have done this? How could I have sent this letter? How could I have said those words and made that choice?

I refused to leave for rehab until I could speak with him. My mother was crying, a very rare act, and she said “I dont want to watch my daughter lose her life..” everything, everything was focused on that, with those words, “my life.” My coworkers had been mentioning it over and over, one claiming I had saved her “life.” Like this game and I was losing out. My sister crying crying told me “I'm doing this for Quinten. How can you sit here focused on these men, there is a child in the mix.

I went outside and looked at my sister and said “I made the wrong choice?” and she looked at me and said “yes, why couldn't you just choose your family?” The night before the texts the pictures coming through, I was being shown two worlds and I chose the affair and his children which I barely knew? Fuck.

I finally got a hold of my husband. I tried to undo the wreckage of a year long affair, a letter, and my choice. He told me to go to rehab. That he didn't want to discuss any further right now. I didn't ask to speak to my son. He could have been my light through all of it, but my job, my love life, and my sins overshadowed it.

After I told my husband, after the initial waves of pain and suffering shook through my house AGAIN. I started to have visions of my husband screaming at me, “Michelle you were raped. You were raped. You are acting this way because you were raped. You are not this person, you are a good person, you did not do these things. You were raped, you were raped. Rape causes so much trauma, so much devastation, everything after the first time, everything you've done. It was because you were raped. You were traumatized. You are not that person.”

Only it felt negative, it felt very intrinsically wrong, to my soul it felt evil. “You are not that person.” I remember in my honesty mission protesting a bit. I dont think I was raped? It didn't feel like rape, and he said “you dont want to do that to yourself trust me. And i thought, yes, you will protect me. Yes, I must have been raped. I can wash all these sins away. I never said yes… I expressed that I did not want to. By definition perhaps this is rape? If it is not an enthusiastic yes then it is a no. I am not a betrayer of my family. I am a good person. If I was raped I can lay down, and erase my shadows.

Rape. It feels so evil and wrong. Everything feels so evil. I had invited evil into my life, my home, my heart and i felt it now. To say this felt the ultimate evil. My husband, my husband who had always been so sweet, kind, and sensitive with me, he says “of course it feels evil. Rape is evil.” He did this all to you, made you do these evils that aren't you.

You are not that person.

Looking at the wreckage of my life, the suffering I caused, the anger and drama I had been involved in at work. The incessant search for STDs and blood tests. It did look like rape. Why would I do all of this? Why would I behave this way? Truth be told I think it was shame to the highest degree. My shame ran so deep i could feel it through my body.

Shame. The ultimate disconnecter of humans.

My husband said to me, “you are being given a once in a lifetime opportunity.” And, I thought, yes, I can undo all of it. Looking back i am almost certain the opportunity was actually to stand tall in God's light, trust his love and grace, to know that I am of him and only he can wash my sins. To tell the truth, not just to others but to myself and to trust the light that had been cast over my world.

I chose rape.

I started to have all these thoughts about what rape meant. Rape is evil, rape is terrible, if i was raped than it meant people thought I was hurting my child. If I was raped than I was skitzophrenic. If I was raped it had made me do evils acts and it made people believe I had done these evils acts.

This may have been God's way of shouting at me to stop, not go this way, but we have free will and as such I was freely allowed this choice.

I went to rehab terrified. My paranoia had heighten to unbelievable peaks, I was in a state of such paranoid delusions that I refused to put my family down as emergency contacts. I think they made me put one name and instead of my husband I put my brother-in-law, Brian, a pilot for Delta who had called around and found me this rehab.

My brother-in-law who has a brother named Matt Anderson who in the past struggled with his own addiction issues and had also went to rehab. The same name I had been given for the medical director on staff. That name was meant to stick in my mind, he was who I needed to speak to, he was important.

I checked in and they took me to my room. I started to believe that they were going to harm me, I started to believe it was an unlicensed facility and they were going to do torchorous experiments on me. Why would they do this to an innocent young woman checking into rehab? Well, because I believed people thought i was hurting my child. The sweet epitome of innocence, my 4 year-old son. And, if I had done what I was afraid they thought I had done, than, yes why wouldn't such harm come to me?

They drug tested me, no Adderall. How was that possible when I had been taking it leading up to this day? I had been afraid they would label me skitzophrentic instead of “on drugs.” So, I made certain the Adderall was in my system, I had been sure to take it. At least what I believed was Adderall.

I couldn't sleep. They were drugging the room.. I switched beds. I stood up and stared out the window. How were they drugging me? I noticed the heater was blowing, is that how they were drugging me? They put something in the vent that was being released in the air? I covered my face with a pillow but I still couldn't sleep. I knew on arrival there were no drugs in my system. Why couldn't I sleep.. they were drugging me.

I asked to smoke, the employee had to unlock the door for me. I stood there looking at the fence thinking “i can jump this. I can leave.” I went back inside and took the cash I had gotten, and nothing else. I went to the back door and it had been locked again. I was not going to be torchored here, I had not done what they thought, I was terrified.

So, with my $300 dollars and nothing else I just walked out the front door. A young man working there asked where I was going. I said I needed to leave and could I have my phone. He said I could leave but he couldn't release my phone and belongings. I said, “okay” and walked out the door. He followed and asked “where are you going to go?” and I had no idea. I replied “to my dads.” And walked down the street. I knew I couldn't go home, my family wanted me in rehab.

I walked down the street. I could really only go to my dad. And so I went until I realized I had absolutely no idea where I was. Where had they taken me? There were industrial type buildings around me, shipping containers and such, I believe. Was I in the sticks? Was I still in the valley? Had I been driven outside city limits to the skirting towns where they would preform horrible experiments on me? So, i kept walking and it didn't take long for me to become lost, very lost.

I became thirsty. I had with me the clothes I was wearing, $300 in my pocket, and nothing else. Just me. And, so I walked, I walked with no direction and no way to go back. It was the middle of the night, maybe 2 or 3am and the only cars patrolling the streets were police and I thought “They're looking for me. They will take me back to rehab and the rehab will say that I no longer have agency to come and go at will - as I am clearly mentally unwell.” And so, I turned my face and tightened my arms around me, and there a saw a hospital.

I thought to myself I will go there check myself in, my family will get what they want, I will be in a nice state licensed facility where they could not test on me. I went to the hospital, and every door was locked. I suppose the emergency center was located on the other side. But, I was thirsty, so thirsty, and there was a gas station up ahead so I walked there.

I still had no idea where I was. I called every number that I could remember off the top of my head, my sister, her husband, my mom, my husband. No one answered. I called my dad, wrong number. What was my dad's number? I bought water and left. I noticed the gas station attendee was texting someone. Everything seemed about me, I was the internet joke afterall.

I continued walking. I still didn't know where I was… so I just kept walking. I went under a freeway underpass, there were no houses or buildings around. Just streets in the middle of nowhere.

I started to think about all that I had done. My behavior. I started to think about family, my family. I liked to play into the work culture of “we are a small family.” I had been there so long, knew my coworkers, felt value from them and often referred to them as family. “Hey family, I'll plan the work Christmas party.” “Hey family, I know we have to stay late and pull together.” When my sons clothes got to small for him I offered them to my favorite co-worker, Kurtis, the CEO. The CEO who had plenty of cash to buy his children new clothes, but that's what you did with family. They were not my family and to let this thought flourish in my mind for so long, that these people, these remote coworkers who i had met in person under a dozen times were “family” contributed to my downfall. That was the true dullision - MWI was not my family. Meanwhile, I had a niece who had a child at a young age and money was more than scarce, why hadn't I offered my sons clothes to her? My actual family and someone who needed the help. Not the CEO of MWI.

My priorities were backwards. I had been putting my priorities in this order: work, my love life, my child. Michelle you are so stupid.

The priority is: child, husband, work. And i felt, i am going to lose it all. But, in the true priority, my son, my husband and then fucking work.