I have had what I think are some interesting thoughts in the last couple of days.  I hope I can put them down here in a manner that can be understood.

The other day, my brother tweeted about some stress he experienced one morning.  The way he described how the stress was affecting him, was just like how it affects me when I am feeling anxious or close to a panic attack.  There are some things I want to ask him about.  I know why I am such an anxious, nervous person.  It is how I have lived most of my life because of feeling that way so much of the time I was growing up.  If he gives me permission, after I talk to him I will let ya’ll know what the questions were and his answers to them.

I am happy to see things still continuing to improve between my daughter and I.  Not that we do not have some days where some old behaviors come out, but at least we are trying to treat each other with respect.

I have come to a more satisfied place in my mind, than I have been in for a long time.  Not happy, definitely not sad, but satisfied.  I have learned to be ok with having this illness of major depression, and learned to be ok with having an anxiety disorder.  My frame of mind has improved greatly in the last few weeks, and I have been able to take stock of things a little bit better.  I fully expect things to improve over the months and years.  However, I have come to the conclusion that I will not be (and I do not want to be) the person I was before the depression affected my life so much, nor will I be the person I have been over the last few years during the depression.  The person I was before was always doing and going and being.  Doing for others, going all over the place hauling kids, and I was always being a person that I really was not meant to be.  My husband had been putting all this pressure on me to be the person I was before.  I was finally able to get him to understand that the person from before the depression will never be coming back and why.  It took him a few days, but he seems to understand it better now and seems ok with it.

My asthma is better than it has been in years, maybe it will stay that way through the winter.  I think I have finally gotten a grip on dealing with the Diabetes and all the things I have to do because of it.  I believe getting the depression and anxiety under control has helped with that.  In many ways, since I started getting treatment for the depression and anxiety, things have been so much better in many different areas of my life.

For the first time in my life, I am not stressing about trying to win my mother’s approval.  I will never have it.  I have also started slowly letting go of my resentment about her lack of contact with me since I was released from the psychiatric hospital.  It has been over a month now and she has not called, or tried to see me.  Just that one unexpected ride to my counselor.

My husband and I talked and we decided that we would not be spending the holidays with either family, for the most part.  Farrol’s mother is a widow, so he said he would like to go over there for a bit when the rest of his family is not around.  As for my family, we are going to see if my brother and sister-in-law want to get together around the holidays and hang out.  We both feel really good about this decision.

I am still not sleeping.  My psychiatrist increased my anti anxiety medication, by a significant amount.  It makes you sleepy so he said he thought this might help.  He is also having me take two in the day time even if I do not have extra anxiety, again to help me get some sleep.  He and I both think that my lack of sleep is a cycle and that if I can get to sleep a few nights in a row, it would probably break the cycle.  If this does not work, then we are going to try something else.  The psychiatrist did not want to do that starting off since I already have so much medication to take.