Monthly Archives: December 2010

Day 3 – 30 Days Of Truth

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This 30 Days Of Truth exercise is very challenging. Some of the prompts for the day really require you to take a good look at yourself before you answer them. Which leads me to today’s topic…I have to write about something I need to forgive myself for. I can think of so many times when I have messed up badly, and have yet to forgive myself for those mistakes. I will pick the one that is currently on my mind.

After realizing the impact that my very unhealthy marriage has had on my children, I have been feeling some very intense feelings of guilt. I keep thinking of all the things I could have – should have – done years ago that would have spared my children some psychological harm. Logically, I know that I cannot focus on the past, and what I did not do. Not only is there nothing I can do to change the past, I know that if I were to sit and fret about it the likelihood of me experiencing a depressive episode would be very high. As a mother, my heart is telling me something different than my brain is. The mother in me wants to cry, and worry about my children, beating myself up as I do.

I do regret not making the decision to put an end to the verbal abuse in my household sooner. I do regret the impact that it has had on my children. Regret can be a good thing because it helps remind us of past mistakes so that we do not repeat them. It is also good when we use it to express our heartfelt apology to someone. Too much regret can become overwhelming, leading to depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. I have to work on forgiving myself for the part I played in allowing the chaos in my marriage to affect my children, and I will. Allowing guilt to consume me, and putting my mental health at risk will only cause them and me more harm, so forgiving myself needs to be a priority.

Day 11 – Blog Journal

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For today’s blog journal entry I am supposed to tell you what is in my make up bag. That is impossible. I have no make up bag. I have a little bit of make up, which is in a basket, under the sink, in my bathroom. When I was much younger I used to wear more make up. However, with children, husband, taking care of home, and major depression I got out of the habit of it. Now when I look at myself in the mirror, I see too many lines and wrinkles to bother even attempting to cover them up most of the time.

Bottom Line

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At this time, I do not believe that my marriage can – or should – survive. However, after 14 years, and two children I do not believe it should be thrown away without at least some attempt to repair it. With that in mind, I set a bottom line – a deal maker or breaker – for my husband. He must begin – and stick with – individual counseling, and we need to begin – and stick with-marriage counseling. My thought was that since I am already in individual counseling, and if he began individual counseling, it would give us each a place to work on our individual issues. The marriage counseling would make it possible for us to learn some new tools and techniques to use in our marriage. My husband is not willing to participate in individual counseling, only marriage counseling.

I know it may seem stubborn of me to insist that he engage in individual therapy as well as marriage counseling, but I feel very strongly about holding to my bottom line. It is not to punish him, but he has some very real mental health issues that he is contending with, and they are not going to get better on their own.

Although he has apologized, and is doing his best – at this time – to not say anything inappropriate, it is not enough. It is really just the same pattern of behavior that I have been living with for years. There will be a huge explosion on his part, he will realize that he said some very wrong things, and then he goes through a period of what he calls “trying to fix things”. It never lasts. In the past, when he would enter this stage, I would hope – sometimes even believe – that he finally would turn things around for good. I wanted so much for that to happen. Now, I understand that unless he gets some intense counseling, things are not going to change. Part of me believes he wants to do things differently, but I do not think he has the skills to be able to do so.

I think when the same – not appropriate – behavior is repeated over and over again, there comes a time when apologies are simply not enough. They get to the point where they mean absolutely nothing. They are expressed, not out of any true regret, but as a way to “patch things up” for the time being. In my opinion, it is a form of manipulation.

Today, I can say with conviction that “I am okay”. I feel good about my bottom line with my husband. In my parent’s house, I feel safe and loved. My stress levels are drastically decreased. I can say -and believe it – that my choice to no longer tolerate the verbal abuse is the best decision I have made for my Mental Health.

Day 2 – 30 Days Of Truth

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In today’s 30 Days Of  Truth post, I am supposed to talk about something I like about myself. A year or so ago, I would have had a really difficult time with finding anything I like about myself. Now…it was much easier than I anticipated it would be. I like my in intelligence. I am no genius or anything like that, but I am fairly intelligent and I like that about myself. I think it makes my life richer, and more interesting than it would be if I was not that way. Being intelligent allows me to figure things out – learning how to crochet, learning how to blog and etc. – and it also makes it so I can enjoy wide variety of activities. In some ways, I think being intelligent has been beneficial to me while I have been in depression treatment.

If you want to participate in 30 Days Of Truth, you can find more information here . You are also welcome to leave the link to your 30 Days Of Truth in the Linky widget below.

Day 10 – Blog Journal

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Today’s journal entry is supposed to be a picture of my favorite place to eat. I do not have any pictures of my current favorite place to eat, however, I do have one of me eating at my favorite place when I was much younger – around 23. It was a seafood restaurant, and I am eating one of my favorite things – Garlic Crab.

Bad Things Did Happen…

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Last week was tense, eye opening, and freeing all at the same time. I have not experienced anything like it before. Emotionally, I am doing better than I had expected. I have spent a lot of time thinking about all kinds of things. Obviously, a big portion of those thoughts revolved around what is going on in my marriage, as well as my daughter. I also spent some time thinking about the huge knot in my stomach, and how it reminded me of the constant nervous feeling I had before I began depression treatment.

Before depression treatment, all my mornings started out the same. I would wake up feeling like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was always waiting for the next bad thing to happen. It was a feeling that stayed with me all day, every day. I was so convinced that something bad was going to happen that my heart jumped a little every time the phone rang. I hated the mail because of that feeling, but there was no way I could allow it to stay in the mailbox for the same reason. It also made my world smaller. It limited how far I could travel from my house. It created a fear in me that made me think that if I went too far away, or stayed gone for too long that something bad would happen. That feeling gradually lessened, but never entirely went away.

Something occurred to me while I was thinking about that awful nervous feeling. In part, bad things did happen. (Before I go further, I want to clarify that I am in no way implying my husband and his behavior caused the anxiety. I am saying that his behavior and my reaction to it, made the anxiety worse.) In my house, I never knew what kind of mood my husband would be in when he got home. If it was a bad mood, nothing I did would be “good enough”. Even though I rarely went anyplace without him, if I was not home when he got home from work, it really upset him, and he would say some very mean things. Then there were times when he would explode, and I could not figure out a rational reason for his anger. I lived in a house full of tension, and stress, never really knowing when the next explosion was going to come, nor how bad it would be.

With the certainty that bad things would happen – combined with my already existing anxiety – my extreme anxiety makes much more sense to me now. I guess the distance from my husband, and being in an environment that has much less stress, has allowed me to see things more clearly.

Talking And Traveling

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My father is a very interesting man. The amount of historical information he has stored in his head amazes me. He knows an immense amount of American History, and is more than a little familiar with the history of several other countries and cultures. He is also a man who loves his family a great deal. My father said something to me last week that meant a lot to me, and the following little video is my thoughts about it.

Day 1 – 30 Days Of Truth

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For the first day of 30 Days Of Truth, I have to talk about something that I dislike about myself. Narrowing it down to one thing was a little more difficult than I anticipated. However, I believe the thing that I dislike the most about myself, is my tendency to worry – over worry actually – about things. I am significantly better about the needless worry than I used to be, but there are still times when I catch myself spending too much time worrying about something.

I have had this habit of worrying to much for as long as I can remember. It was one of the first things my counselor and I began working on in my therapy. She called me a professional worrier. The first “homework” she gave me was to only worry two times a day. As I have begun to over worry less than I used to, I have not needed to remind myself to only worry during those alloted times – most of the time. Right now there is so much stress in my life that I have had to go back to the basics and remind myself every day to only worry during the times that I have set aside for it.

30 Days Of Truth

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I saw this interesting challenge on Angel Believes and decided to participate in it. The general idea is that for the next 30 days I use one of the given prompts and tell a truth about myself. The prompts are listed below. Please feel free to copy the prompts and use them if you want to participate in this challenge.

Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 → Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 → Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 → Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 → Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 → Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 → Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 → A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 → A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 → Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 → A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 → Your views on Obamacare
Day 19 → What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 → Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 → (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 → Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 → Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 → Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 → What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 → What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 → Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 → A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself