Long Time No Blog

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

I apologize for taking a few days off from the blog without an explanation why. Things have been interesting, discouraging, and thought provoking over the last few days.

My original purpose for starting this blog was to give me an outlet for my emotions, mostly so I would not express them inappropriately. That purpose sort of evolved more into using the blog as an outlet for me and putting myself out there for other people to see and know that they are not alone in their depression.

The blog has been helping me. I like being able to have a place to put my thoughts and feelings. I have enjoyed the feedback I have been getting from people in my email. Working on this blog has become a very enjoyable thing for me to do everyday.

However, recently I was told that by blogging about myself it showed how selfish and self-absorbed I am and that putting myself out there with my thoughts, feelings and struggles I am really just whining about things. This really made me feel quite bad.

I needed to take a few days and reassess my motives and ambitions with regards to the blog. What I have decided is that if something made me feel good, and gave me more self-confidence and was a positive outlet for me then it is something that I should continue to do.

In fact, even though my husband does not write in my blog, he likes to see what I have written and offer suggestions. There is also what my daughter gets out of her picture of the day section. She and my husband are both now on constant look out for the perfect picture of the day. In a way, my blog has become a family affair.

Maybe the person who gave me the negative feedback was having a bad day and that is what they felt after they read my blog, or it could be their honest every day feeling about these types of blogs. The positive thing that came out of their negative comments is that it forced me to re-evaluate my motives for the blog. There is nothing wrong with taking a good look at yourself to keep yourself on track.

Communication

I am learning that just like in any part of life, when a person is in the process of recovering from depression, communication is so very important.

My natural instinct is to keep my honest and real feelings to myself and put on a “mask” of fake feelings and not properly communicate my wants or needs. Most of the time, if I feel like I have to express something personal, I will only hit the surface, just enough to satisfy another person.

On the flip-side, I expect people to communicate fully with me, even when I do not do it in return. That is not very nice of me to do.

A few days ago, my husband and I got irritated with each other over a lack of communication. I thought he was not communicating properly with me and he thought I was not communicating properly with him. The thing we were NOT communicating about was a stupid grocery list. I wanted more input from him, and he wanted more input from me, so that both of what we wanted would be represented on the grocery list. Like most small things people argue about, it turned into a bigger thing than it should have.

The reason it spiraled down into an argument is that both of us were too busy worrying about what the other wanted to properly communicate our own wants. For some reason, both of us perceived that in that situation if we had communicated what we wanted, it would have been selfish. The reality of what happened is that he got irritated and I got irritated and the list never got done.

Later on that evening, he and I talked. I expressed to him that it felt like he wanted me to read his mind and figure out what he wanted and he expressed feeling something similar. We both felt frustrated.   We both realized that if we had spoken up and communicated our wants then the whole mess would have been avoided. Not to mention, we both connected a few dots and realized that there have been other occasions where frustrations and irritations could have been avoided if we had spoken up.

On a more personal level, I see that by putting a “mask”on and hiding what I truly want, need or feel, I am setting up a situation that is bound for failure. People cannot read my mind to know how I am doing on any given day. That leads them to worry about what my emotional mind set is for the day. If I communicated my feelings more, good or bad, then it would cause them less worry because they would not be trying to guess about what is going on in my head. If things were bad, then they could share the burden or help with solutions, if they were going good then we could feel good together. Also, the reality of wearing a “mask” to hide my feelings is very tiring work.

I also realized that many of my own personal stress, and aggravation comes from not communicating with other people. I end up doing something I really do not want to do (but never communicated that fact), then stressing because I feel like I am stuck doing something I never wanted to do in the first place. Worrying because of feeling like I am not doing an adequate job, since I do not want to be doing it in the first place. Which often leads to me feeling so anxious that I cannot leave the house, which leads to more guilt, worry and stress, and then more anxiousness.

To take care of myself, to “be all I can be”, I need to expend some serious mental effort and communicate properly. Keeping things inside is no longer acceptable. Keeping things inside will eventually lead to me ending up in the hospital again.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

I had an appointment with my counselor yesterday. It lasted longer than usual, because she was running late, so she had my session run over to make up for the time. She was running late because she had to see a lot o people. It always tends to be a little busier on Tuesdays and Thursdays but today was much busier than normal.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are intake days at the counseling center I go to. Basically that means that whoever may have tried to hurt themselves or some one else or has a substance abuse problem and has encountered staff members at the local hospital, or sheriff’s department, or encountered anyone who is considered a mandatory reporter is ordered to be seen at that practice at least once. Because my counselor feels that to some extent I am still high risk, she likes to see me at least once a week. Often she does not have anything available so I am given appointments on intake days.

Because she was running late, I had to sit longer than usual in the waiting room. It was a little difficult for me to sit there, with all the people I became very anxious. I adopted my usual body language, arms crossed and no smile to discourage anyone from trying to talk to me. I began to look around to see who all was in the waiting room with me. There was a group on the far side of the waiting room, where people wait when they are there to see the doctor. Everyone in that group seemed to know each other and were having a very animated conversation. On my side of the waiting room there was a lady who was around my age. She was talking to one of the interns. She looked like she felt awful. I could not help but over hear some of what she was saying to the intern. I realized that she had very similar issues to me. Even her body language was similar to mine.

There was something about her that stuck with me, because after my appointment I was still thinking about her. Finally, I realized what it was about her that had stuck with me. She reminded me of how I was at the end of May, when I first started going there. From how awful she looked, to her body language and how she was describing her anxiety and depression symptoms to the intern. It truly was like looking in a mirror. For the first time, I was able to see what I looked and acted like when things were at their very worst.

My family was caring and gentle enough to not tell me the truth about how bad I looked. However, the nurse that I see at the counseling center, told me that when I saw him for the first time I looked awful and he was very worried about me. I can see why now. The woman looked like she was walking on a very fine edge and was quickly becoming unbalanced. She looked sad, worried and tired, very very tired.

I have been frustrated at times by the extra checking up on me that people, especially my husband, have been doing. At times I have felt like I was being treated like a little kid. However, after having had the opportunity to look into a mirror and see what I was like, I understand now why people have felt compelled to do those things. They did not do them to intentionally make me feel as if I were a little child, but they did them out of love and concern because they could truly see on the outside what I had been like on the inside for a long time.

I am sure there have been other women in there who probably looked the way this woman did, but everything happens when it happens and how it happens for a reason. Most likely the reason I did not see this in anyone else before is because I was not ready. It certainly is a very heavy feeling to see yourself the way I saw myself yesterday.

I guess when I looked in a real mirror, I had blinders on. I could see the bags under my eyes, and that I looked pale, but not really see what I actually looked like. It is more than just what I saw in her face. Her body too just had that sad, worried and tired look. She walked like every inch of her was sore. I am sure everyone has seen those commercials where the main line is “depression hurts”. I have to tell you it does. It seemed like I had an ever present ache in my whole body. It never dawned on me that it would be visible to other people.

I am still trying to figure out what all I can take away from this experience. At the very least, I think it gives me more of an understanding about why my husband is still very concerned about me. I guess there are times when I am not having a good mental health day, that I probably look similar to that. I think he knows when I am not having a good mental health day just by looking at my body and how I carry myself. That explains to me why some days he seems very clingy. Maybe what I need to take away from this, is that just like I am asking everyone to be patient with me, that I need to be patient with everyone else as well.

Look Forward

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Look forward. For me those two words have several meanings. A person can “look forward” to an exciting upcoming event. Someone can “look forward”, as in have their eyes/mind looking toward their future. Or for me personally, when I “looked forward”, it was often to think about my death, and how I had nothing hopeful to look forward to.

In all that time that I was checked out from the world, not only was death on my mind, but I also experienced little to no personal growth. Now that I have woken up, the process can begin again. It needs to begin again. If it does not, then I know that I will be in the same shape, or even worse than I was in not too long ago. In a stuck place, where I was barely functioning and barely living.

I do see a dilemma. While it is a positive step for me to look forward and think about and even make plans, I need to be careful about how far I look, how much I plan. It will cause me to stress out, worry, and have all sorts of bad thoughts if I take too much on. For the most part my life still needs to measured out in day to day kind of way.

The biggest and most worrisome thing for me was what kind of person am I going to be when when I get on the other side of this recovery process. I have already decided that I do not want to be the person I was before the depression started, but there are some qualities of that former self that I do want. I certainly do not want to be who I was when I was “checked out”. It becomes hard to predict who I will turn out to be.

I began to think about it in a new light. This is can be a very interesting opportunity for me. To some extent I will be able to pick and choose what qualities I want, and how I want to be. There are not many adults who are in a position to be able to do that. This is very exiting! The way I keep thinking about it in my head when I think about what I will be like in a few years is “When I grow up I will….”. because that is how it feels like to me.

I will grow up one day at a time. I will work hard to leave behind the things that cause me to feel bad about myself and hold on tight to the things that build me up. When I grow up, the foundation of who I am, will be built on a solid foundation. I will have confidence in myself. I will be happy with myself. I will LOVE myself. I will learn how to take problems and challenges in stride. I will learn how to do these things one day at a time, facing each new day with confidence and an attitude that is open to learning, and not worry about what the next day will throw at me. I will LOVE myself.

I look forward to what I will learn today. Today I do LOVE myself.

Neither In Or Out

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

I have blogged more than once about my anxiety and how it can and has prevented me from leaving the house on a frequent basis. For example, today my husband had to work, and my daughter wanted me to take her to youth group, but the time of day we needed to go and where we were going caused my anxiety levels to increase dramatically. In the end I had to tell her “No”. She was very disappointed with me, and I was very sad because I had disappointed her. So you can see how the anxiety I have can really get in the way of life, and not just mine.

There is another aspect to my anxiety that I have not blogged about. It is not bad enough that I have horrible anxiety and panic attacks that prevent me from leaving the house often, but I also have a similar reaction when people come to my house. Now isn’t that a kicker?

If I know someone is coming to my house a day or two before they are due to come, I start feeling anxious. Even though the house is clean, I will go through and reclean it and turn into a horrible, mean, nag towards my husband and daughter so they will help and make things my image of “perfect”. We all know how easy it is to reach perfection. By the time my husband convinces me the house cannot get any cleaner, I am so stressed that I am miserable and have made everyone around me just as miserable.

If someone just shows up to my house, well then “it ain’t purty”. As soon as they leave, I have to go to bed. I stay in bed until the next day and hope that the stress of an unexpected visit will go away.

I know why I have such a reaction when people come over. My house is my safety zone. It is and also represents the one place where I am “free to be me”. I do not have to act like I am comfortable, because I already am. I do not have to pretend like I want to talk to people, because I do not have to here. I do not have to wear makeup and if it is a bad mental health day, I can stay in my pajamas all day. Or I can have naked laundry day. Having to leave it sometimes is bad, but to have people invade, and it feels like an invasion to me, my safety zone it is almost more than I can bear.

When I first started seeing my counselor, she did some kind of assessment on me to see what sort of services I qualified for from their practice. I qualified for everything. I am considered a high risk patient because of the suicide attempts. One of the things I qualified for was some kind of extra service where these social workers would come to my house on the weekends or during the week, basically whenever I did not have an appointment and sort of provide me with extra support. I liked the idea until my counselor let me know about the whole having to come to my house thing. Then I had sort of melt down in her office. I had not been seeing her long, so she did not know about the whole panic attack when people come over to my house thing. She decided, after witnessing my panic attack, that it would do more harm than good to have the social workers show up to my house.

I look at this and I can see how dramatically it affects me and my life, the unfortunate thing is that it affects my husband and daughter as well. She cannot have friends spend the night over because of me not being able to handle people in the house and the noise they make (that is a story for another day). My husband cannot have his guy friends over. Depression and anxiety are diseases that take a toll on the whole family.

My hope is that one day I can feel less anxious about going places and way less anxious about my house being invaded by other people. Sometimes it seems like this whole recovery process is taking so long. I often have to remind myself that it does take a long time, and I have not been in treatment all that long.

Looking Back

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

In the few short months that I have been in recovery for my major depression and an anxiety disorder, I can see a big difference in my life already. I know that I still have a long way to go, but the process does not seem as daunting as it used to be. At least for the moment.

In the beginning of my recovery process, I used to tell my counselor that I wanted to go back to the person I used to be before the depression. I had that “old me” on a pedestal. It represented everything that I had lost because of the depression, asthma, diabetes and the anxiety. I was convinced that if I got that “old me” back, then I would be healed and my recovery process would be over.

I began to look back at who I used to be. I was a mom who was running children all over the place for hours every afternoon. The mom and wife who always made sure that supper was ready for the family, even with all that running around. I was the mom and wife who cleaned and maintained the whole house, and was always available for the family to come to and talk with. I was the mom who home schooled a child. I was the mom and wife who……..Do you see a theme here? I was everything that the family needed, but I was never anything for myself.

Even then I was unhappy. I would never have acknowledged that I was unhappy and dis-satisfied, but I was. All, I had been looking at was the fact that I could accomplish so much in a day, not the reality of who I was. Who I really was, was woman who had no voice, and no identity of her own. I was not appreciated for who I was, but for the things I could do for others. It is not my family’s fault that they could not appreciate me for who I was. There was no way they could since so much of who I was , revolved around and was wrapped up in doing things for them.

Then suddenly, like a toy who has wound down, I was stuck. Stuck in a life where I could do nothing for anyone, including myself. When I finally, got “unstuck”, the world had moved on, and had passed me by. It was hard to think of my child as a teenager, when I still thought of her as that little girl from three years before. In many ways, I still did not have an identity to call my own. So I grasped onto that “old me” thinking that was my goal.

Once I started feeling better, and could semi-function I started trying to fit into that old mold of me. It did not last for long, my medication quit working and I became overwhelmed with depression very quickly. Looking back again, I started to see a pattern. The pattern I saw was that I always seemed to wrap part or all of me up in what I could do for other people. Most of the time my family, but at times it was other people too. At some point, I would always become frustrated and unhappy, and it always led to a depressed state. Or if for whatever reason the relationships with the other people ended, and I could no longer get at least part of my identity from them, it would leave me at a loss and also sad and depressed.

I began to think about the things I could see about myself when I was looking back. I realized that I was not the “strong” person that I had thought I was. I was someone whose whole world and identity were based on what I could do for others and not based on my own skills and accomplishments. Looking back has made me rethink that goal of being the person I was before the depression got so bad that I “checked” out.

Things To Say To A Depressed Person

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

It can be difficult to find the right thing to say to a friend or loved one who is suffering from depression. You do not want to say the wrong thing that might upset them, at the same time you want to offer them heart felt and sincere support. You also want whatever you say to acknowledge that they have the right to their feelings and not to minimize their depression.

1 I love you
While they may not respond with an “I love you” back, they do hear this and it helps, it counter acts some of that self hating dialogue they have in their head

2 I care
Again it helps counter act some of the self hating dialoge they have in their head

3 You are not alone in this
This lets the depressed person know they have a support system.

4 Do you want a hug?
Always ask. Sometimes a depressed person wants a hug and it helps them feel better for a bit. However, some depressed people do not want to be touched. I know when I am having a bad day and the depression seems to be in control, I do not want anyone touching me. A hug would just push me over the edge

5 I am not going to leave or abandon you
It is very important that the depressed person hear this. They know they are not being the best parent,spouse, friend but they cannot do anything about it. However, this lets them know that no matter how badly they are at those things for now, you will be there for them. Shortly after I started my recovery process I had a massive panic attack because I was convinced my husband was going to leave me because of how difficult the depression made our lives. He had never even hinted that he would leave me but I built it up in my mind that he would. When I finally told him what I had been thinking, he was able to reassure me by telling me he was not going anywhere.

6 Would you like to hold my hand and we can talk about it?
Depending on how each depressed person feels, holding a hand may be beneficial to them, or they may not want to. Either way, the depressed person knows you are willing to sit down with them and listen.

7 I can’t fully understand what you are feeling, but I can offer my compassion.
The depressed person can see that you are trying to support them even if you do not understand what is going on. with them

8 You are important to me
This lets the depressed person know that they have an important place in your heart and will help them feel loved.

As you can see all of these phrases have something in common. They are positive statements, that are meant to validate and encourage the depressed loved one.

Even when using these positive statements, it can be very frustrating when communicating with a depressed loved one. It is very important that you maintain a healthy detachment and take care of your own emotional needs so that you can continue to be a comforting force in your depressed loved one’s life.

Things To Never Say To A Depressed Person

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Ever since I have been more open about having major depression, various people have felt the need to share their personal thoughts with me about depression, people with depression, and causes of depression. There is no doubt in my mind that some people meant well, and just chose their words poorly. However, with some people I have to wonder what they were thinking when they said what they did. Maybe they thought they had the perfect advice that would “heal me” of my depression. Here is a list I have made of a few of the things that people have said to me over the months.

1.   I guess if you really want to kill yourself you might as well, there is nothing anyone can do about it
Obviously, this is not what you should say to a depressed person with suicidal thoughts

2.   depression is not a real illness, it is just an excuse to be lazy
As if I enjoy feeling so bad that even taking a shower is too much work for me.

3.   the only thing that cures depression is going to church
I am not one to knock Christianity or the value that some people find in going to church, but this    statement seems to minimize depression

4. all you need to do is just get out of the house more often
A family member thinks my cure is to not be at home, then I cannot concentrate on the things making me depressed. Again, mininizes depression, and how bad it truly makes a person feel.

5. you are taking medicine, you should not be depressed
Some people think that immediately upon taking anti-depression medication that I should no longer have depression symptoms.

6. you are talking too much medicine, no wonder you are depressed
Medicine that I need

7. depression is a state of mind
I laugh in part to this one, because while they mean I need to get a positive attitude, they do not know that depression , to some extent, comes from the messed up chemicals in your brain.

8. all you need to do is think positive and you will get over it
Yes, I was positive I wanted to die, death would be one way of getting over it.

9. You are too smart to want to kill yourself
sadly, this one came from my husband. I know he meant well when he said it, he just did not understand how depression works at the time he said it. I felt he was implying that I was stupid because I had tried to commit suicide.

10. get on your knees and pray, prayer is the only cure for depression
Again, not to knock Christianity, prayer is helpful, for some it can ease their troubles, especially if it is situational depression, but for major depression, medication and counseling also have to be in the solution.This made me feel as if they thought I was not as good of a Christian as they are, because praying was not working for me.

11. There are people worse off than you, you have nothing to be depressed about
Believe it or not the doctor I saw in the state run psychiatric hospital said this too me. He should know better than anyone what the cause of major depression is. I really wanted to let him have it for that statement, but I wanted to get out of the hospital even more.

12. you are only a little sad, it will go away eventually
Again, someone who had no idea what depression is really like

13. Take the following vitamins and I guarantee that you will be cured of your depression in a month
I wish it was as easy as that to cure depression.

14. you need to drink more water
Apparently, my brain was dehydrated and that was the cause of all my problems.

15 you are just feeling sorry for yourself
Yes, there were/are times when I do feel sorry for myself, but that is not the cause of major depression

16 you are only depressed because you want to be
You are right! I enjoy feeling bad in every inch of my body, and not being able to concentrate long enough to read a page in a book. I enjoy not sleeping, and feeling like I am a burden to my family because I cannot even manage a load of laundry

17 depression really means that you are being selfish
Please see above

18 you are only thinking of yourself
Please see above

19 just get over it
I wish! I tried snapping my fingers to “just get over it” but it did not work.

20 you just want people to feel sorry for you
Not really, I felt more like a burden when people pitied me

21 A hobby will fix you right up
I cannot even concentrate to read and yet you think I could concentrate enough to manage a hobby?

22 use your will power, and you can get over it
What will power? Mine seems to have disappeared.

23 I was depressed once, I went to the herb store and got all these great herbs and I got over it
Ha! Depressed once!?

24 So?
Obviously, they do not care

25 There is no such thing as depression, it is an illness made up by doctors an drug companies to get more money.
This person sounds as if they need their own type of psychiatric medication.

Remission?

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Today it was time for my weekly appointment with my counselor. While I was having my session with her, I learned that there is an actual goal that all of my therapy and depression medication is supposed to help me achieve. I know that sounds funny to say, because you would think the goal off all of this was pretty obvious, to keep me from getting so depressed I try to kill myself again. That is one of the goals of depression treatment, but it is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to achieve a state of remission.

What that means is that if I can go a certain period of time without any depression symptoms, can fully function inside and outside the home, and I can have positive social interactions then I will be considered to be in remission. Because of the length of time I went without any treatment for my depression, the severity of it, and my other health issues, it could take a few years to achieve remission.

Because I have been feeling so good for the last week or so my counselor wanted to warn me that when I had a bad day it was going to feel pretty bad. If I had more than a couple of bad days in a row, then I would need to take some emergency steps. So she gave me some home work. I have to create a list of ten things I can do if I have a bad day. None of them can include staying in bed all day, like I want to do when I have a bad day. My counselor told me that if all I can do is get dressed and spend the day in the living room, then I would still be more productive than if I had spent the whole day in bed. The other part of the home work is to have a list of people I can call in an emergency if I have two bad days in a row. She explained to me that making these plans and implementing them would help me on the road to achieving remission.

Why is remission so important? It is so important because unless someone with major depression achieves full remission, they are at high risk for having a relapse and doing poorly in the long term. The problem with relapsing is that each relapse is worse than the one before it, and the length of time it takes for the depression symptoms to become severe is shortened.

The part that I do not like about this whole remission thing, is the length of time it could take to achieve it. I am always looking for the quick and easy solution in this recovery process and once again I am reminded that I have spent most of my life working up to being so sick with major depression, and that there can be no easy or quick solution. If I sit and think about how long this whole process can take then I know my anxiety disorder will kick into high gear.

I guess the best thing I can do for myself is to remember that tackling one day at a time is the best thing for me. I will do the home work, and set up my emergency plans and then promptly forget about them until I need them. I see no sense in allowing my emergency plans to get in the way of taking on life one day at a time.

So for today, I am going to celebrate the healing I have already done.

Beginnings – Part III

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

The little town in Spain that we lived in was great from a child’s perspective. There was sort of a pack of us kids that wandered around and had fun together. We were good kids, the biggest trouble we got into was when we stepped on the grass in the park. The grounds keeper was very protective of his grass. Most of our weekends were spent hanging out at the ice skating rink, where the boys practiced their hockey and their girls practiced their figure skating. When we were not skating we were getting topas off of the topa bar and playing video games. Even our school bus was fantastic compared to the school buses we have here, it was a tourist bus, nice soft seats, a bathroom, and was very big. We could walk to the movie theaters on our own, they did not sell refreshments at the movie theater so we would stop at the corner candy store and load up. I saw real gypsies in the court yard of the local church. For the most part, I have good memories of living there.

Next to the park we used to play at, there was an old abandoned mansion that the kids loved to hang out in. There was a huge flag pole that had a long rope hanging down. It had been tied in a loop at the bottom, and we would sit inside the loop and swing, each of us taking turns pushing each other. Sometimes a few of the mothers would get together and all of us kids with the mother’s would go to the park together. On one of these a outings, as usual we all decided to head over to the mansion and swing and hang out. When we got there we saw an older man near where we liked to swing. As much as I had traveled, I was a very naive girl in a lot of ways. Nothing about the scene appeared the least little bit wrong to me.

The older man started talking to all of us kids, we talked back, he seemed very nice. He offered to push us as we swung. I must have been the first or one of the first kids to go. When he pushed me, he started touching me in places that adults should never touch children. I knew that was wrong, so I got off of the rope, tried to get the other kids to leave with me, only my brother did and went to where my mother was. I can remember not really knowing what words to use to express to my mother what happened to me, but I finally was able to tell her. She did not believe me. She flat did not believe what I told her happened was true. I was more devastated by that than some strange old guy touching me inappropriately. It was not until another child came and told his mother that the same thing happened to him that she realized I was telling the truth. I was never upset that no police were called, or that nothing happened to the old guy. We were living in a foreign country, in a place that had an active terrorist group, none of us were fluent in the language, and even though being felt up by an old guy is completely wrong, it really could have been worse. I strongly believe that my mother not believing me when I told her about what happened was sort of a turning point for me. I felt betrayed. Things in my mind and behavior started to go downhill from there.

I remember it being the first time I got in trouble for my school work not being the best I could do. This was when I also started staying by myself during recess and reading instead of playing with the other kids. This is when I remember the self isolating behavior started.

At some point the terrorist group, ETA, got a little upset with the Americans being over there. The situation became dangerous for us there. When we came back to the states and was staying at my grandparents house for Christmas break, my parents made the decision that only my father would go back to Spain, and my mother and me and my brother would stay in the States. This was a very stressful time for me. I am sure it was for my brother and mother as well. I was worried about my father going back to some place that was not safe, I was worried about starting school in the middle of the year, I was missing my friends, and I was missing living in Spain.

Because we did not have a house when the decision was made for us to stay in Georgia, we stayed with my grandparents. They lived in a very small house. My grandfather’s personality made things tense while we were there. I think the stress of everything got to my mother a great deal. She was very harsh during that time. By the time school started, I think my parents had found a house, but we could not move in right away because the people we were buying the house from still had to move out. That meant my mother had to drive us to and from school everyday. My grades were awful, I do not recall caring about my school work much. Some days those car rides were a living hell. My mother would yell, scream and insult me the whole time we were in the car, and that would be punctuated by the periodic slap across the face. Once or twice she told me not to say anything to my grandparents. It was about this time in my life when I developed extremely low self esteem and began to fill as if I was very stupid, beliefs that have stayed with me.

The kids in school were tough. Because of living over seas, we wore clothes that were not the fashion in the States, yet. About six months after we got back to the States the clothes were “in”. The kids were cruel, and I am sure that with all I had going on at home I did not have the best attitude towards other people. There were days where it felt like I was surrounded by cruel and mean people, both at school, and at my grandparents house, when my mother was around. I felt that I had no one I could go to. The self isolating behavior continued.

To be continued…

Beginnings – Part III will come out tomorrow

Beginnings – Part II

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

In many ways the frequent moves were wonderful experiences that most children do not get. In other ways each and every move and adapting to new people, new locations, and new situations was filled with so much stress and uncertainty that I felt miserable. I do believe my mother and father did the best they knew how in trying to keep each move from causing as little instability as possible. Most of the time we moved when school was out for the summer. However, the draw back to that is most of the time my father had to head to the new place we were living weeks or months before we could join him. Sometimes we did not have a house to live in when we got there. There were times when we spent weeks and weeks in a hotel while we waited for my parents to find us a place to live. I can remember always feeling a bit of anxiousness because things often seemed so uncertain when we moved.

I cannot be sure, but I would think that uncertainty probably caused my mother a great deal of stress as well. It seemed that the more stress she was experiencing, the more difficult she was to be around. She would anger more easily, say cruel things more often, and if her stress was very bad, there would be some physical abuse as well.

Since I knew that we would be moving soon, I never really made friends. There were kids I did things with, and played with but even from a young age, I never made a friend that I would miss when we moved again. I learned the art of self isolation at a very young age. Any time I had to walk into a class room as the new kid, it was so hard. I never knew if the kids in the class were going to like me, or what the teacher would be like, if I was going to know as much as the other kids did, and would I be able to find a way to fit in. I felt this constant internal pressure. Pressure to fit in (once again) in a new place, pressure to do well in school, a huge pressure from my parents (mostly from my mother) to adapt well to my new surroundings, and a constant pressure to not upset my mother.

Despite the fact that I spent the majority of my early childhood in “fight or flight” mode, I did manage to adapt (most of the time) each time we moved. This is how I learned the very valuable tool of hiding what you were really feeling, and make it look like everything was OK, even when on the inside you knew it was not. From the time I turned nine and on it became harder and harder as each year passed to adapt to my surroundings and to fake that everything was OK.

I cannot point to one thing that led to my spiraling down emotionally. Instead I think it was a combination of some pretty drastic and stressful events that, as a child, I did not have the skills to express. Instead what I did is intensify my self isolating behavior, no longer bothered to try and get along with my peers, and stopped trying to adapt to my surroundings and situation. I spent more and more of my time and energy in a “fight or flight” mode.

Around about the time I turned nine, we moved to Spain. This was a difficult move for me even before the actual move took place. When we found out that we were moving to Spain, we were living in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I remember when we first got to Mississippi, I had asked my father if we were going to stay there “forever”, and he had told me that we would. So when the news came that we were moving and where we were moving to, in many ways I was devastated. My brother and I were sent to stay with my grandparents for at least a month, while my parents went through all of our belongings and decided what would go into storage here in the States and what they would have shipped (by boat) to Spain. If I remember correctly, the company my father was working for would pay the shipping costs up to a certain weight, and so the whole family was limited on what could be sent to Spain.

By this point in my childhood, I was nervous all the time. I was constantly worried, stressed and anxious about what would upset my mother and those feelings were carried over to almost any situation I encountered. The uncertainties in my life also caused me to be very anxious most of the time. Sometimes those feelings would make themselves known to other people in the most unexpected ways.

Once my parents got things sorted out with our belongings it was time for me and my brother to get some vaccinations or have some blood drawn. Either way it was something that involved needles. I do not recall being all that upset in the past about needles, but I think because of the stress of all that was going on, I become over anxious, extra worried, and even more stressed out than usual. About the time the nurse was going to stick me with the needle, I screamed. My brother must have been experiencing some of the same feelings I had been and my scream was a little more than his poor, little kid nerves could take. The next thing we all knew, he was running down the hall, to get away from my mother and the nurses. They were chasing him as fast as they could go. However, even at a young age my brother was a very fast runner. He probably would have made a clean get away but the elevator door was not open on our floor.

That is a funny tale about my brother, but when I look at it from my perspective now, I can see that he too, might have been experiencing a great deal of stress at an early age. In fact if the researchers and their studies are correct, that means starting at an early time in our childhoods, our brain chemistry was being permanently altered.

Once we arrived in Spain we spent several months in a hotel, because it took a while for our furniture to get there. My brother and I had the run of the hotel. The staff let us get away with entirely too much, but some of my best childhood memories are from when we stayed in that hotel.

We lived in the Basque area of Spain. There was terrorism there, there were civil police standing on street corners with machine guns. It was very different from life in the States, but up until something happened to me, I enjoyed living there a great deal.

To be continued….

Beginnings – Part III will come out tomorrow.

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