A Remarkable Step Forward

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My counseling appointment this past week was on Thursday.  I was very excited about going, because I could share with her all the things that had gone on since the last time I had seen her and tell her about the panic attack Monday and my reaction to it.

I told her about all the emotional ups and down that had started the previous week.  The exciting good stuff like my son coming into town, and @NAMIMass asking me to write something for them.  I let her now how proud I was that @Blogcritics accepted my application.  I told her how good it felt for people to value what I say/write.  We discussed the emotional downs, things like the bad parts of the conversation I had with my son, and the suicide death in my extended family.  I also told her about all the emotions I experienced at the funeral home when my mother and I went to the viewing.

Then it came time to tell the counselor about the panic attack that I had on Monday.  I told her that for about five minutes I was paralyzed, in my head I was yelling at her for being sick on the one day I needed her.  After that five minutes, I got up, went to the grocery store, came home and stayed fairly busy.  Basically, I just kept moving.  The whole time moving to keep myself from getting bogged down in my anxiety.  I also let her know that I could picture someone who had no problems with anxiety or depression having a similar panic attack.  After all, the few days before the panic attack were filled with an extreme amount of emotions.

I saw her begin to write something down.  The timing seemed slightly off to me.  She usually waits until it is about time for our session to be over before she jots some notes down about it.  Suddenly she looks up and tells me that she considers the fact that I was able to function in spite of the panic attack, a “remarkable step forward” in my treatment.  She went on to say that my verbalizing that getting upset in that manner would be something that could happen to anyone in the same set of circumstances, showed that I was able to maintain clear thinking through out the attack as well.  She explained she was writing this progress down in my chart so that the new doctor would be able to see it when I had my appointment with him.

I felt really good when that counseling session was over.  It feels as if things are really clicking for me and that I am doing really well.

Dad Shares His Bounty

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My Dad enjoys going to casinos and gambling. He is fairly responsible when he does gamble. He takes a specific amount of money that he has set aside and from what he says, never spends more than that. Part of the reason I think he enjoys gambling is that he is pretty good at it. He has won decent amounts of money various times over the years. Last Friday, he and my mother went to a casino that is not too far from us. It was Harrah’s in Cherokee, North Carolina. When he and mom returned from that trip he said that he came back with a little more than he went with.

Since my son was in town, my mother wanted all of us to have one meal together while he was here. By all of us, I mean my brother, his wife and daughter, my grandmother, my whole family and mom and dad. What we ended up doing is meeting at Olive Garden at around 11:00 am Sunday morning. Unfortunately, dad was not able to stay with us the whole time we were there, he had a big project that needed to be done by midnight Sunday night, and he had to head back to Augusta to work on it.

Before he left, my mother pulled several of those old time change purses out of her purse and handed started handing them out.  I figured there would be a dollar or some change in it, because that is just how my mother is when she gives out stuff like that.  Sure enough, when I peeked in, I saw a dollar bill.  I got busy talking and giving myself a shot of insulin and etc., mom leaned over and told me to be sure to open up my change purse.  She also said something about it coming from Dad.  When I opened it up and took the money out, there was $500, based on the reactions of the other people, I assumed he had done something similar for them.  Anna and my niece, Madeline, also got money, just not as much.

Apparently, Dad came home with more than just a little bit more than he took.  He won the jackpot on a game he was playing.  I know he could have used to money, but instead of keeping it all for himself, he chose to share it with his family.  I think that was incredibly generous and thoughtful of him to do.

Here are some highlights from our lunch.

Wonderful Wii Weekend

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A few weekends ago we spent some time at my parents house. Farrol did not have to do any more fence building, and we all were able to relax and have some fun together. Most of our fun revolved playing Wii Fit.

Here is a short video of all of us practicing our balancing skills while Ski Jumping.

If for some reason the video does not work for you, here is the link to where it is located on You Tube Wii Weekend

New Feature On Blog

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I am very excited to announce that I have made my blog more cell phone friendly. It should work for any phone that has browsing capabilities, and is not limited to the higher end phones. Feel free to experiment with your phones and let me know if you notice any problems.

Suicide In My Face

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On Sunday morning my mother called me.  She wanted to tell me about a relative of ours who had died by suicide on Friday.  She asked me if I would go to the viewing with her later on in the day.  She thought it would be beneficial for me to go and speak to the family, if the time and situation was right, and assure them that there was nothing they could have done to stop their son from taking his own life.  As she and I both said on the phone, it is one thing to be a mental health activist sitting behind a computer, where I can stay some what disengaged.  It is something completely different to do that work in person.

Even though this person was a relative of mine, I really did not know him.  My extended family is rather large and most of the time we only see each other once a year at the family reunions.  Because of that, not many of my extended family know about my suicide attempt. The opportunity has not presented itself to share something like that.  Which meant telling anyone at the funeral home about my suicide attempt was completely new territory for me.  It made me a little anxious.

As we entered the funeral home, I was introduced to one of my mother’s cousins, who also was the aunt of the person who died.  She was holding it together pretty good under the circumstances.  The mother was not.  She was crying uncontrollably for most of the time that we were there.  The wife was sitting in a chair beside the coffin, and there were pictures of the deceased’s children all over the room.  It was difficult for me to be there.  Seeing how devastated everyone was made me think about my own attempt and how close I had been to causing this much pain to my own family.

After we had said hello to a few people, I went and sat next to one of my mother’s aunts.  She really is a nice person, she has always treated me well, however, she is also like most people, uneducated about how mental health issues can affect people.  She sat there giving me the gossip about the whole situation, part of it involved the marital problems between the deceased and his wife.  Basically, the long and short of it is that the wife is being held responsible for her husband’s death by suicide by some of the members of the family.

That made me angry.  It made me angry because it was NO ONE’S FAULT! Not even the young man who took his own life was at fault.  He was sick.  If his head was full of similar thoughts to my own when I attempted suicide, then he was very sick.  For the first time since my diagnosis, the misunderstanding that people have about mental illness was right in my face, and I did not like it.

My mother and I did have an opportunity to speak to both to both parents.  The father seems to be doing really well under the circumstances.  He really loves God and has placed himself and the situation into the Lord’s hands.  He is not angry, and is not blaming anyone.  When we spoke to him he held my hand and had his other hand on his back the whole time.  It was as if he was giving me comfort in his own time of grief.

The mother was not doing as well.  I shared with her that some parts of my story, tried to help her understand  that her son had been sick, and that there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent what had happened. I think she was too immersed in her grief to really understand what I was trying to say.  The few things she did say, indicated that she was also very angry and blaming the wife.  I wish what I had said could have made more of an impact with her than it did.

As difficult as it was for me to be there,  I think it was good that I went.  It was my first real life exposure to suicide, outside of my attempt, and it gave me an idea of the types of judgments that people form about someone who has taken their own life. I also learned that being an activist in the “real world” is something I can do, I just need some more practice at it.

The Anxiety/Worry Wheel

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When I look back on my anxiety filled days, what I remember most is feeling like I was on something like a hamster wheel. Instead of a hamster wheel, I guess it was really an anxiety wheel. One physical symptom would lead to another, one thought that caused me anxiety would lead to another.  Just over and over again.  Running in circles, never getting anywhere, never finding a solution to my anxiety.

Those of us who experience chronic anxiety and worry have this type of thinking that causes us to spend a great deal of time on that anxiety wheel.  The technical term for that type of thinking is Cognitive Distortions. I prefer simple words that are easy for me to remember, so I call this type of think warped thinking, or my not well thinking.

For me, in order to do away with my not well thinking, I had to recognize what was going on in my head when I was experiencing it.

  • I had an all or nothing mentality – I saw everything as black and white and if something I did was not perfect than I considered it and myself a failure.  I have been known to throw out something I cooked if it did not look as good as the picture in the cookbook.
  • Overgeneralization – I would create an expectation from one single negative experience.  I believed that if it happened one time, it would always happen.
  • The Mental Filter – Focusing on the negatives while filtering out the positives.  I would notice the one or two things that went wrong rather than focus on the all the things that had gone right.
  • Diminishing the positive – I would come up with reasons why the positives did not count.  If I crocheted something and it turned out beautiful, it was not because I was skilled at it, it was just because I lucked out when I read the pattern.
  • Jumping to conclusions – I would know that something terrible would happen, even if I had no evidence.  One of my biggest anxieties was being afraid that something horrible would happen if I left the house.  It usually centered around the house burning down.  I knew that if I left my safety zone, my house would be gone by the time I got home.
  • Catastrophizing – I always expected the worst case scenario.
  • Emotional Reasoning – I had the ability to convince myself that what I was feeling was reality.  I would create something to worry, it usually involved something bad happening to my family, and I could actually convince myself that it was real.  I would cry and everything.
  • Shoulds’ and Should nots’ – There was a whole long list of things I would allow myself to do and things I was not allowed to do.  If I broke any of my own rules, I would beat myself up about it.
  • Labeling – I applied very negative labels to myself.  I was a failure, a loser, a bad parent, a horrible wife, a terrible daughter and so on.
  • Personalization – I assumed responsibility for things that were outside of my control.

Identifying these types of thinking was an important key for me to learn how to not be filled with constant anxiety.  If  caught myself engaging in any of these not well thoughts,  I would instantly try and replace it with something more positive.  Eventually, I was able to move completely away from this not well thinking.  Once I did this, my life on the never ending anxiety wheel came to an end.

Beauty Is…

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“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.”

Sophia Loren

What makes a woman beautiful? Is it strictly her pleasing physical attributes? Or does true beauty involve a woman’s soul, character, and personality? Can you have one without the other?

I have never fit into the mold of being physically beautiful.  Cute, yes.  Pretty, yes.  There have been times when I have felt jealous of the beautiful people.  I felt so inadequate when I compared myself to them.  I have even felt angry at them simply because they were beautiful and I was not.  I hate to admit it, but I was a cheerleader hater, they were all so cute and perky…and beautiful.

In the last few months I have discovered something about myself and why I disliked and was jealous of the beautiful people.   I realized that in addition to being physically beautiful, they had beautiful personalities.   They were beautiful inside and out.  I believe that was what I was jealous of, the beauty they had on the inside.  I wanted that for myself.

In the part of the South Eastern United States that I live in, you will often hear parents telling their children to not “be ugly”.  When they say that, they are referring to their child’s behavior/attitude.  I have had an ugly attitude for most of my life.  I looked at every thing from a negative point of view, I was always the victim, and it showed.  It showed in the expressions on my face, in my posture, in the words I spoke out loud, and how I responded to the actions of other people.  My inside ugliness was marring my outside. Worry lines on my forehead, crows feet around my eyes, and a constant frown on my face. People could see the ugliness that was inside of me on my face, and they avoided me.  I do not blame them. Who wants to hang out with someone who is so negative and angry looking?

Since I began realizing my own self worth, and gaining self confidence I have noticed a change in myself.  I am more positive, happier, and no longer accept the victim role that had been a part of my life for so long.  I feel beautiful on the inside.  My worry lines have disappeared, I smile more, I laugh more and it shows.  It has changed the way people react to me.  Since my face no longer looks so angry, I am more approachable.  People actually want to spend time with me.

I think beauty can include both the physical aspects of a woman and what she is like on the inside.  However, I no longer envy women who possess both.  I feel beautiful in my own way.

Worry Worry Worry

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Worry has the potential to be helpful to us, if it propels us towards taking action. However, if we are preoccupied with worry, what ifs and worst case scenarios, worry can become a problem.  Unrelenting worry can deprive us of our emotional energy, physical energy, raise our anxiety levels to dangerous highs, and interfere with our ability to function on a daily basis.

Have you ever known anyone so filled with worry that it seemed to paralyze them?  Have you ever been so filled with worry that you felt that there were times it interfered with your ability to function?

I have been and not all that long ago.  I was an expert worrier.  I could and would worry about anything and everything.  If I could not find anything real to worry about, I would make up something to obsessively worry about.  Every waking minute of every one of my days was filled with worry.  I would literally wake up in the mornings with a knot in my stomach.

If my husband was late coming home from work, I would worry that he had been in a horrible wreck and died.  If he and the kids were out some where, I would worry that they all had been in a wreck.  These worries, even though made up, seemed so real to me that they would make me cry.  If someone said they needed to talk to me, I would instantly worry that I had offended them in some way.  If I left a certain square mile radius around my house, I would have to call my house constantly, checking to see if it had burnt down.  I knew if it had the phone would give me a fast busy signal. If something actually did happen that I needed to be concerned about, the worry would paralyze me.  I would just sit on the couch, not moving and it would feel as if i was barely breathing.  My brain and body simply could not handle a real worry because they were already so overwhelmed by the fake ones. Constant worry kept me up all night and kept me edgy and cranky.

Being a chronic worrier made it very difficult for me to adjust to changes, or adapt when something did not go according to my plan.  I needed know what was going to happen 100% of the time.  I could not handle doubt or unpredictability.  It was as if my constant worry was a way to prevent bad things from happening.  The problem was that it did not work.  What it did do was get in the way of me enjoying the things that were happening around me right then. For my own sanity and for the sanity of those around me, things needed to change.

  • I had to come to grips with my intolerance of uncertainty.   I had to learn that nothing in life was certain and no amount of planning on my part would change that.
  • I set aside 15 minutes every morning and every evening as worry time.  During my worry time, I could worry about anything I felt the need to.  If something to worry about popped into my head during the day, I wrote it down.  After that, I would go on with my day, saving the worry until it was my worry time.
  • I began to challenge my worries.  I no longer accepted them as fact, instead I would ask myself a series of questions to figure out if something was a realistic worry or not.

1.  What is a more positive way to look at this situation?

2.  What are the chances of this actually coming true?

3.  What is a more likely outcome?

4.  Is the thought helpful?  How will worrying about it help or harm me?

5.  What would I say to a friend who had this worry?

  • I learned how to relax.  My counselor taught me progressive muscle relaxation.  Basically, what this means is that when I feel overwhelmed with anxiety or worry, I tense and then release different muscle groups in my body.  As my body begins to relax so does my mind.
  • I raised my emotional intelligence.  What those fancy words mean is that I try to remain hopeful during trying situations, I work hard to quickly rebound from frustration and disappointment, I ask for help when I need it, and I find positive and creative ways to solve problems.

I can truthfully say that worry no longer consumes my life. I no longer wake up every morning with a knot in my stomach.  I am no longer kept awake all night worry about real and imagined things.  I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.

Thankful Five

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It is Monday and that means it is time for Thankful Five! This is the day that I take time to think of five things I am thankful for. I love doing this because it is a great reminder to appreciate all the little things in life that we sometimes take for granted.

  1. I am thankful for the rain that kept my husband home from work on Friday.
  2. I am thankful for the wisdom that my 14 year old daughter has.
  3. I am thankful that I have learned how to set boundaries/ground rules with my son.
  4. I am thankful that summer is getting closer to being over.
  5. I am thankful for WEGO Health sponsoring Suicide Attempt Survivors on Ning.