Category Archives: Mental Health

Super Cool Mom!

Posted on by
9

Olive Garden Feast - salad, mussels, crab stuffed mushrooms, calamari, 5 cheese fondant

I had a Super Cool Saturday with my mom! My mom treated me to a day of shopping and feasting. However, as much as I really appreciated my mom treating me, that is not what made it so much fun. What made it fun for me is that this is the first time, in a very long time, that my mother and I had an outing that did not involve doctor’s appointments and other people.

One of the things that dawned on me yesterday, is that my Mom is probably one of the most thoughtful people I know. She simply gives of herself, and the impression I get is that she does not expect anything in return, except maybe some appreciation. Yesterday was a great example of that. Mom had set aside some money for me to go shopping with. She did not make a big deal about it, she just handed me some folded up bills and told me to do some shopping too. Mom knows without me having to say anything, that I just do not get to shop for clothes as much as I would like. She also knows that I am slowly trying replace my wardrobe. Being depressed for several years and not interested in wearing anything other than pajamas and worn out clothes, means many of my clothes are not decent to wear out in public. As much as I appreciated the money, and believe me I do, the fact that she was that thoughtful, trying to make sure I enjoyed myself and was able to purchase things that made me feel good, means more than any amount of money she could have given me.

Our conversations during the day meandered around from the serious, to the silly.  We talked about my depression and how much better things are going, to what my life is like with a thirteen year old and what her life is like with a sixty-five year old, who is talking about retiring (my dad).   There were also times of comfortable silence. It is evident to me that my mother is trying very hard to understand my depression, and how it affects me and my thinking.  She really listens without judging.

It makes me feel good that I cause her less worry, at least I think I do.  She has noticed the change in me and comments about it often.  She even told me she thought I was wise.  It made me feel proud when my mother said that.  Me wise? That is probably a word I never would have applied to myself.

The highlight of the day for me was when I made her laugh out loud, a very loud honking laugh.  We had gone to Petsmart and bought a couple of toys for the dogs. I said something about giving the toy to Anna when we got back home and telling her that I went shopping and brought her back a dog toy.  As soon as I said that mom honked out a very loud “HA!”  It was great!

The picture of our Olive Garden feast is in the thumbnail.  We had salad, bread sticks, calamari, crab stuffed mushrooms, a really terrific oven baked cheese dish (it had five different cheeses in it), and mussels.  An all appetizer lunch.  The waitress even said that she was going to have to do that sometime.

It was a wonderful day.  Not because of the clothes that were bought, and the wonderful meal we had, but because of the special time I was able to have with my mother.  I am truly blessed we repaired our relationship, and that I have this time with her.

These are pictures of most of the shirts I bought yesterday.  I am wearing one of them.

Detours

Posted on by
22

In the few days that have passed since I have seen the counselor, I have been wallowing in self pity.  I have been more than a little disappointed about the fact that my depression recovery is not going as well as it had been.  On an intellectual level, I always knew that there was a chance that could happen, but on an emotional level I was not as prepared as I thought I would be.

I probably would have kept feeling sorry for myself, except for some wise words I received from a couple of people.  The words of wisdom I received has allowed me to see what is going on with my depression recovery in a very different light.

This morning as I was doing my daily blog reading, I ran across the perfect quote on Mental Health Humor:

“A mental illness relapse is nothing more then a period of time that just didn’t go right. It’s nothing more to worry about, nothing more then a detour on the road to recovery.  All we need to do… is get back on our road and nothing more.” – By Chato B. Stewart

Mr. Stewart’s quote is an awesome reminder to me that this detour in my recovery road does not have to be a big deal. In fact, I would be better served if I would just reset my focus, and get back to being proactive in my recovery.

My mom unexpectedly came into town for the weekend and she and I had a chance to talk this morning.  She made me aware of something that has really helped me  feel so much better about what is going on.  She pointed out that once I realized that things were not quite right in my recovery, I took the appropriate action, letting my counselor and my support system know that I needed some extra help.  She also pointed out, that now I know that I will do what needs to be done to get things going in the proper direction.  Something that I would not have known if it were not for what is going on now.

I have decided that instead of looking at my little recovery detour as a bad thing, I will look at it for what it really is.  Just a normal part of the recovery process, no big deal and a great lesson for me to see that I really do know what to do when things like this happen and I will do them.


The complete blog post that goes with Chato B. Stewart’s quote can be found here Mental Health Humor


Emotional Stuffing

Posted on by
17

Warning:  This is emotional spewing.  It is not pretty and it is not nice.  However it is honest and an accurate representation of how I am feeling at this moment.

It is also part of the home work that my counselor gave me to see if we can get my downward spiral turned around without a medication increase. In addition, I am using it to fulfill  a writing assignment from Writing Workshop where I am to write about something “with all of  the richest, imaginative sensory description I can muster”.

Once again I have been reminded that stuffing my emotions away, like a turkey being stuffed at Thanksgiving,  is not healthy.  This time stuffing things away created an open invitation for depression to walk right in and make itself at home in my favorite easy chair.  Once the depression had gotten itself comfortable and had taken a leading role in my life, its favorite pass time became rubbing salt into my almost healed emotional wounds.

I am as mad as a hornet and sort of sad.  I thought stuffing my emotions away and pretending that everything was okay would be enough to keep my eye on the prize.  Instead it has been like being on the downhill slope of a roller coaster ride.  Managing my emotions has turned out to be the hardest part of my depression recovery. Sometimes it feels like I am trying to herd cats.

The extreme anger I currently have, feels like I am being eaten alive by a colony of fire ants, probably because I have kept stuffing it away.  What makes it worse is that the person I am so angry with is my own son.  This is one of those times when you say you love your child but absolutely hate their behavior.  Over the last two years, he has been so disrespectful to his family, that sometimes it is as if I have no idea who he is.  It is almost like his brain was invaded by an alien, who instead of wanting to take over the world, has instead decided that his main mission is to destroy relationships.

Most of the time, the only reason he has contact with his family anymore is when he wants something. He thinks he is being as sly as a fox when he beats around the bush and tries to ask us for something, and the sad thing is he believes he has pulled the wool over our eyes and do not recognize what he is doing.  When people have tried to keep him up-to-date when I have been sick and in the hospital, he has on more than one occasion acted as if or said that he did not care.

I am so angry pissed off about how he lies constantly to his family and his wife.  Around Christmas, he and his wife decided to change their wedding date from late spring/early summer to right then and there.  He told his wife and her family that his family had no desire to meet any of them, so his wife and her family agreed to the marriage right then, instead of waiting until the time we all had planned to go to the wedding date they told us about.  Why in the world he would say that?  I am not sure but I have a few guesses.  There are many things he has said and done that I believe he does not want his wife and in-laws to know about, and I believe he lives in fear that if we were all to get together, we would spill the beans.

He does not speak to people respectfully, including his own wife.  I recently found out about a weekend trip they took, during which he spoke to her as if she were garbage, because he was not getting his own way.  In one incident around Christmas, when I was in the hospital, he got mad at me because I told my mother about their marriage plans, which he had posted on Facebook.  What he texted me was pure bile.  It was an obscenity laced message, telling me off about saying anything about their marriage plans, despite the fact that his posting it on Facebook made it public knowledge. In that message he also said that his family did not want him to be happy, because we were not super excited about his marriage, only because we were excluded from it.  He thinks the answer to that is to have another wedding so that everyone can come, I will be there for it, but you cannot un-ring a bell that has already been rung.

I am so beyond hurt by the fact that he keeps changing his adopted name to his biological father’s name on any given day.  The biological father that left before he was born, and gave me NO money to get ready for the birth until his commanding officer was contacted.  The same biological father never once paid for a plane ticket to see him, other people did.  Or sent money when my son needed surgery on his ears to preserve his hearing.  The man who told him I left the marriage because I could not handle the military life, and my son believes it.  It does not matter that I did not divorce him until he was released from the military BEFORE his contract was up, or that up until the time he left California, I told him he was more than welcome to come stay with me and his son.

I am heart broken that my grandmother writes my son every day, and as far as I know he has only responded once, and that was because I mentioned it to his wife.  Of all the people in the family, his disrespect of her, his great grandmother, is probably the worst.  She is his defender, and will not let anyone say one negative thing about him, even when it is true, and he refuses to acknowledge that every day she sits down and hand writes him a letter.

As much as I want to be happy about becoming a grandmother, I cannot find that happy place about it in me.  He and his wife chose to try and have a baby, even though their marriage is in serious trouble already.  Their own personal lives are a mess, she is just now entering treatment for depression and my son among other things lies like a rug,  and also treats her and others badly.  They pay money for tattoos, rather than save that money for a new vehicle, the one they have now is unreliable.  I get the impression that they think that a baby will make their marriage so much better.

I suppose I could continue with the spewing but I think I am all spewed out for now, although there are still a multitude of things I could say.  Life has a tendency to come back and bite us in the butt when we continue to make poor decisions, it is unfortunate that his choices are going to affect more than just him.

This Is Not A Set Back

Posted on by
15

My counseling appointment did not go quite like I had planned.  I am now back to once a week sessions, with some discussion about the possibility of raising the dosage of my depression medications.

A few weeks ago, I knew something was not quite right.  I even blogged about it a little bit.  I was feeling down, for a variety of reasons, and I knew that I needed to do something to turn it around.  I thought that I had done what I could to get things going in the right direction. Including an old favorite of pretending like everything was just fine. It appears that I was not successful.  Who would have thought that stuffing your emotions and faking it would not work?

My issue is that I am feeling an extreme emotional response to something, that emotional response is in the form of extreme anger, sadness and disappointment.  Since I have been really doing well with my Depression Recovery, that would be since September, I have had a few times where I have had to face extreme emotional responses to something, but I always managed to get through those.  This time however, for whatever reason, I got bogged down by my emotions and have not been able to pull out of it properly.

One of the first things I said to the counselor today, was that my memory problems were back to being as bad as when I first started seeing her, back when my depression was in full swing.  I also told her that all I wanted to do was to sleep.  I was fighting it, not going back to bed, but I fall asleep sitting up on the couch, in the middle of working on my blog, or even when I am talking to someone.  We discussed if I was having distracted thoughts, and while I am not having the racing thoughts that I did last year, my ability to concentrate is not as god as it should be.

My counselor brought up the topic of what has been on my mind of late and let me know that she thought that I was on a downward spiral towards a depressive episode. She gave me some homework to do.  We are going to see if spending extra time with her and the home work will be enough to get things going in the right direction again.  If not, there is always the option of increasing my doses of Effexor and Welbutrin.  I am on a very low does of Effexor, which is supposed to work on two chemicals in the brain.  My psychiatric doctor told me one time that sometimes, when Effexor is given in low doses it only ends up working on one of those brain chemicals, and it needs to be increased to work better.

I do want to point some positive things though.

  • Even though I may be in a depressive episode, it is not even close to making me feel as sick as I did last year.
  • There have been no suicidal thoughts.
  • Even though I was actively stuffing my emotions when my counselor was on her honeymoon, when I did see her, I immediately began discussing it all with her.
  • I shared some of what was going on with a family member.

I do not consider this a set back, it is merely something else I need to learn so I can continue to get better.

Yeah, things did not go as I had planned during my counseling session, but as my family  member pointed out, things rarely go like we plan.  In reality, that is probably a good thing.

Time

Posted on by
13

Time to go; Take time to smell the roses; Time will tell; Time heals all wounds; Running out of time; Spend your time wisely; All in good time; Time is money; Time of your life; Family time; Bed time, Time to wake-up

Have you ever noticed how much time we spend thinking worrying about time? We worry about having enough family time, or if we are spending enough time at work. We worry that we are not managing our time well, and even if we are taking enough time to relax.

Some of us are great at time management, arriving where we need to be at least fifteen minutes early. For other people, good time management is if they can get to where they need to be, no later than ten or fifteen minutes past their appointment time. I have known people who have kept very elaborate day planners, outlining each and every activity and appointment they have for weeks at a time. Then there are the people like me, who are always forgetting what time they are supposed to be somewhere and are always scrambling to even just make it there, much less getting there on time.

What jumps out to me is that the majority of us lack balance when it comes to time.  Often we are so busy that we do not think we can afford to slow down and achieve that balance.  Sometimes our lack of balance is because we do not possess the skills or motivation to manage our time wisely.

If you find that you are not taking enough time to smell the roses there are a few things you can do to take back some of your time. This does not have to mean huge career changes, it can involve small, but significant changes that will help you scale down the frantic to manageable.  Here are a few suggestions:

  1. Take a hard look at your priorities and decide which ones matter the most.
  2. Make a conscious effort to make your life not feel so chaotic.
  3. Save time in your email correspondence by including codes that will streamline things.  NRN = No Reply Needed NTN = No Thanks Needed
  4. Block out time to spend with your family and STICK to it.
  5. Block out time to get enough sleep and exercise and STICK to it.

Time management is not as complicated as many people think it is.  Probably the most difficult part of time management is getting rid of our habit of procrastination, and gaining the appropriate motivation.

To help conquer our habit of procrastination here are a few helpful tips:

  1. Visualize the end result of the activity, rather than the activity itself.
  2. Eliminate distractions.  (For me this will mean, not playing Farmville when I am supposed to be writing.)
  3. Get rid of the clutter.  Clutter can be distracting, giving us access to things that we would rather be doing.

Admittedly, I have bad short term memory.  Keeping track of my appointments in my head, often results in epic fails.  I miss appointments, or I show up late, and even have kept other people waiting.  Knowing that I cannot keep doing this, I have recently been proactive in getting myself more organized.  My computer has a sticky note feature, and I have started writing my upcoming appointments on that, so every time I am on my computer I can see it since it automatically pops up.  Recently I entered and won a blog contest, the prize was this very awesome day planner.  I have written my appointments down in it.

Here are a few time management tips:

  1. Create a to-do list.  Write down deadlines for accomplishing certain tasks.
  2. Tackle difficult projects at the time of day when you are most alert. (in other words, do not do as I do.  Very often I fall asleep while I am writing a blog post.)
  3. Learn to say NO, to non-essential demands on your time.

I do not know about you but all that worrying about time is a real downer.  Not to mention, it makes my stomach feel very upset.  I think it is about time, I eliminated that source of negativity from my life.  That means I have some work ahead of me. I have decided I am going to implement at least some, maybe all of these various tips in my life and see if it helps me with my procrastination problem and my time management skills.  I will update you, and let you know how I am managing.  I am afraid not sleeping and not playing Farmville while I blog will be very difficult habits to break.

When I Lived In The Land Of The Lost…

Posted on by
15

When I lived in the Land Of The Lost I was filled with a darkness that penetrated my soul, leaving me weary, and full of sadness and pain.  I became a shadow of what I once was, and what I could have been. I mourned what I had lost and what was never to be. Loved ones tried to enter the land of the lost and rescue me, but I hid from them.  I believed that I did not belong in a Land Of  Love And Light.  I thought I deserved the suffering that the darkness inside of me caused.  Oh, how I suffered.

There was a voice in that internal darkness.  A voice that eerily sounded like my own.  It whispered cruel and horrible things to me.  It lied and twisted things, and I believed what it was saying to me.  The more I believed the voice, the more power the darkness gained.  As its power grew, so did its cruelties and my pain. Soon, all I could think about was ending the pain.

As I wallowed in my darkness and pain, I began to plan my escape from the Land Of The Lost. There was only one way I thought I could escape.  That was to allow the internal darkness to consume me, bringing about my end.  As I waited to be consumed, I discovered a little light inside me, it had hidden itself from the darkness.  It was strong for such a little light, and it too had a voice.  Instead of saying cruel and horrible things to me, the light comforted me, encouraged me and told me I was worthy.  This little light led me through the Land Of The Lost, to the Land Of Love And Light.

Now, that little light guards me and keeps me from being consumed once again by darkness, it prevents me from hiding myself away in the Land Of The Lost again.  It is my beacon, that keeps me focused on living in the Land Of Love And Light.

A Time To Be Thankful

Posted on by
9

I really enjoy reading Chere Michelle’s Blog.  Her blog is one of the most positive and uplifting I have seen.  Recently she wrote a post called Balance, how precious it is. In it she discusses the things she is thankful for and poses a question to her readers.  Her question simply asks her readers what they are thankful for.  I took some time and thought about the things I am thankful for and thought I would share them.

I am thankful for so many things, which is a new experience for me.  In the past, I was thankful for almost nothing.  I had my mind so focused on the negative that I was incapable of finding anything good about any situation or anyone.  If someone showed me a pretty bird outside, I would be quick to point out where it pooed on the car.  If someone complimented me on something I cooked, I would insist on telling them about the three earlier times I had made that particular recipe and messed up on it.  My inability to be thankful for the simplest things meant I was missing out on the beauty of life and living. Now, I view life differently and I get a great deal more pleasure out of it than I ever thought possible.

  • I am thankful for just for being able to be thankful.
  • The opportunity to rebuild relationships is probably one of the things that I am most thankful for.  It is not often that we get a chance at a do-over when it comes to our relationships with other people, but I was given one
  • Contrary to how I felt this time last year, I am thankful I am alive.
  • I am thankful for my online support system.  To have total strangers rooting for me, gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
  • I am thankful for the people who have helped me get the medical, and psychiatric help I have needed.

The things I am thankful for are way too numerous to list them all here, but this is a good start.  I think it would be fun to post a few more things I am thankful for next week.

Finding the positive in life is a vital part of my depression recovery process.  Exercises like this, are good reminders of that. Writing down the things I am thankful for has allowed me to take stock of how much I have grown and gained in the last year.

My First Blog Contest

Posted on by
8

Last month I entered my first ever blog contest.  The contest was being held at Crystal & Company.  The rules were very simple.  I had to tweet about it, put something on my face book about it and put this button on my site.

Crystal & Co

The prize was a great totally awesome day planner.  I was so excited when it arrived in the mail the other day. Here are a couple of pictures of it.

If you have not already, I recommend visiting Crystal and Company’s blog.  She has some really cool things going on over there.

Giving To Receive

Posted on by
Reply

One thing I have done most of my life has been to find ways to help other people.  I have volunteered at soup kitchens, given random homeless families food, volunteered in nursing homes, and have participated in many other giving activities.  Unfortunately, my reasons for doing all that did not include a real desire to give to  others.  Instead, I did those things because I  craved the high regard people would have for me.

I do not think there is anything wrong with taking pride in the things you do for other people.  What I do believe though, is that if you are only helping others for the accolades you are going to receive, then your motivation and actions are very selfish.  I  also believe that you are missing out on the gifts you might have received as a result of unselfish giving.

My craving for that type of attention was born out of my own lack of self worth.  In this last year, I have worked on my self worth, learning that I am a valuable person and that I do not need someone else’s approval to feel good about myself.  Once I began to value myself, I began to value  other people.  That is when my acts of giving changed from trying to make myself look good, to truly wanting to give what I can to other people.

The unselfish giving of myself to other people has done more to contribute to my happiness and satisfaction than I ever got when I was doing it selfishly.  The ironic thing is when I was engaging in selfish giving, those are the feelings I expected to get as a result of  the accolades of  others, and never did.

I have seen very real examples of how you can receive when you unselfishly give in my own family.  The repairing of mine and my mother’s relationship would not have taken place if we had not been willing to give of ourselves without any expectation of receiving anything in return.  The gifts we received as a result of that type of giving are numerous.  Friendship, support, and peace are just a few.

I would like to encourage each and every one of you to examine your own motivations for giving to others.  This will provide you with reassurance that you are giving from your heart or that maybe you need to change the reasons why you are giving.

Just like Selurus did in his blog post, I shared a little example of how I benefited from giving to someone else.  I would love it if you would share your own example of how you unselfishly gave of yourself to someone and what gift you received as a result.  I would also be interested in hearing if someone engaged in the selfish type of giving that I have in the past, as well as what motivated you to stop doing it.

Five Realistic Goals

Posted on by
10

In the last week or two, I sort of took my eyes off the brass ring and found myself struggling mentally.  Not really a “true” depression, but I believe if I had not re-focused my thoughts it probably would have led me down the road to a full blown depressive episode.

I know the cause of this mental struggle.  May was Mental Health Awareness Month.  I really enjoyed the opportunity to help bring awareness to the  stigma that surrounds people with mental health issues and things we can do to eliminate that stigma.  The best way I found I could do this, was to share my own struggles and challenges.  The problem is I have only been in depression recovery for a year, and the experiences, thoughts and feelings that I shared are much rawer and closer to the surface than I thought they were.  I started concentrating on the negative and that is when I took my eyes off of the prize.

Fortunately, I am blessed by an abundance of people who, without even knowing they are doing it, remind me that life is good, and that I should take stock of my blessings so that I can turn my focus back to the positive.  One way to stay focused on the positive is having realistic goals for mtself, and Chere Michelle’s blog post about Realistic Goals reminded me of that this morning.

My prize, (or brass ring) is a feeling of satisfaction, and feeling good about myself.  I know that sounds incredibly selfish, but without those feelings I am no good to anyone.  Without those feelings, I start concentrating on negative thoughts and feelings, and withdraw from the people who mean the most to me.

What I decided, after reading Chere Michelle’s blog post, is that I would set myself five goals or objectives.  Each of these goals will be obtainable, but at the same time, they will provide me with enough challenge so that I will also learn something. I will be able to use these goals to keep my focus on the positive, and I will have something to feel good about.

One thing I am going to set as a goal is to get to know my parents better, especially my father.  I have been awesomely blessed to be able to create a new and positive relationship with my mother and have started to get to know her better.  It has been beneficial to both of us, because we now have a friendship that never existed before.  We also help each other out in ways we never did in the past.  Since  I have allowed my mother into my life, it feels as if she has become my greatest supporter.  I want to create something similar with my father.

He is getting older and his health is not as good as it used to be. I do not want any regrets when it comes to our relationship, so  it has become important to me to work on it.   That means, I need to start devoting some effort into getting to know him.  Not only will accomplishing this goal make me feel good, I think it would also make my father feel good.

Kicking my anxiety disorder in the butt and not letting it control certain aspects of my life anymore is something I want to accomplish in the next few months.  I really think this is a realistic goal because I have the tools and know what to do to conquer it.  I just have to get the motivation to do what needs to be done.  I have been putting off tackling the anxiety order head on because it makes me feel uncomfortable.  It is time that I choose to be a uncomfortable, so I do not end up being stuck in the house again because of my fears and anxiety.

As difficult as it may be, I want to strive to get at least one paying writing job.  It may take a long while for this to happen, but I am Okay with that.  I really enjoy writing and I would love to be able to start a career that I can do from home. More importantly, being able to make money doing something I enjoy would be a dream come true.

Becoming more proficient at using positive words and phrases when I talk is something  that I want to accomplish.   I have become very aware of how powerful our words can be.  I have noticed that if I cloud what comes out of my mouth with negative or even passive words , then my thinking lines up with that.  My thoughts start heading toward downward spiral.  If I can keep the words that I speak more positive, then my thinking will be more positive and I can ward off a depressed state of mind much easier.

I believe the most difficult goal I have set for myself is accepting that the people I love are going to do what they are going to do, and there is nothing I can do about it.  I just need to accept their decisions, no matter what I think about them, and move on.  I need to stop worrying about other people’s decisions and actions, love the person unconditionally, and be there to support them if the decision they made causes things in their life to go awry.

As I review my list of goals, I see I have some work to do.  That is good.  Putting effort into accomplishing my goals  will allow me to appreciate and take more pride in them than if they were easy to obtain.

I will keep you up-to-date on how I am doing with my goals.

What five goals would you set for yourself?  Why did you pick those particular goals?