I thought ya’ll would enjoy this video of my dog wearing her new shoes. She looked pretty funny when she was trying to walk. I bought the shoes for her because she does not like to get her feet wet.
Minnie's New Clothes
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Tag Archives: Mental Health
Day 12 – 30 Day Journal
For this journal entry I am supposed to post a picture or two of my town. It just so happens that I had several pictures that I had taken of Talking Rock – my town. The town I live in is itty bitty. There is not even one traffic light in it. No banks, grocery stores, or a McDonalds. It is made up of old homes, antique stores, a volunteer fire department, and a lovely park.
A Mural on one of the antique stores
One of the antique stores, it also has a little cafe
Talking Rock Creek in Talking Rock Park
Doing The Limbo
Right now I am doing the Limbo, Asthma Limbo. l caught another cold a couple of weeks ago. At first it seemed like I was going to get through it without it triggering an Asthma Flare. Unfortunately, this did not prove to be true. I have been wheezing, and coughing my head off for days. I also have some chest tightness.
Even though this asthma flare has been going on for over a week now, it has not gotten any worse. Nor has it gotten any better. It is as if I am stuck in this stage of the flare, with no steps forward or back. It is making me feel rather useless. The flare is interfering with my breathing just enough to make me tire easily, and sleep more. Which means I am not as helpful around the house as I need to be. I feel a bit guilty about that.
Neither mom or dad have done or said anything to make me feel guilty about not being as helpful as I previously was. I think they know, and understand that the asthma flare is making things more difficult for me. I think some of the guilt I am feeling is a hold over from my marriage. My husband was not very understanding when things like this happened. Sometimes – to me – it felt as if this type of thing really aggravated him. He would then make all sorts of comments about how he was doing everything with no help from me, and of course I would feel guilty. I think that whole pattern of behavior, and feeling has become so ingrained into who I am – that even when I do not feel well – I feel a great deal of guilt about not pulling “my weight”.
I am praying that this flare will end very, very soon. I am getting tired of feeling so tired. I slept most of yesterday away, and feel as if I could do the same today. My feeling right now is that I want it to either get all the way better – instantly – or for it to get worse – then I can get some IV steroids. Either way, at least there would be some type of resolution. At least – with me being here with my parents – I am around people who understand what it is like for me right now, and do not make me feel bad about it. They are also very good about not aggravating me with being overly concerned about everything I do.
Day 3 – 30 Days Of Truth
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
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
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
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
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…
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
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.