Redefining "Good"

Today is Doozer's second birthday.

No, no pictures. No in-depth remembrance of her birth. No party, no presents from her parents, and no cake. Yet.

The children and I are walking to the store later to remedy the cake situation. I was planning on buying a box mix and a can of frosting a la BuggaBoo's third birthday, but I looking at the kitchen with the... *sigh* ...week or two of dirty dishes put a full stop to those plans. I'm purchasing a ready-made cake and some ice cream for the festivities, which will consist of our little family gathering around to watch Doozer open presents from the rest of the family and a promise to try better next year.

So then the Guilt-O-Meter starts ringing bells and letting off steam and so that signaled to me that I needed to realign my perspective.

Is this the best birthday celebration in the world? No, not really, not by "mommy blogger" standards. But, really, what is best for my Doozer at this time? What's going on with me at this time? I'm in a deep part of my funk stage, and energy is just a memory. So I can expend what little energy I have cleaning the kitchen, then baking a cake, frosting it, and probably (certainly) losing it on my kids and myself and being a general horror to be around. Or I can ditch my "what should be" and redefine what good is.

Good is treating my children well. Good is recognizing my weakness and adapting to it. Good is thinking of myself with kindness. Good is buying the damn cake instead of making it, watching my daughter enjoy presents that aren't from me, and giving her a big hug afterwards because she's growing up so fast.

Happy Birthday, Doozer. I'm giving you the best I have right now. I'm giving you good.

New Resolution Brings New Regime (Kinda)

Or something like that.

Since becoming severely depressed our family has been living on a fairly steady diet of junk food. Absolute junk. Surprise surprise, this has really affected our health. I tried doing GAPS a while back and I loved it and it was fabulous and the kids were even getting into it, but then a got a pretty bad bladder infection and had to take antibiotics for it despite trying to fix it myself. Antibiotics are really good at killing your gut flora and I just gave up doing GAPS.

After lots of therapy and working on myself I'm finally at a tipping point. Continuing to eat junk is worse than the pain it will take to change it. And I think the pain will be considerable. All four of us are very addicted to sugar and simple carbohydrates. BuggaBoo has been exhibiting what I'm calling "addict behavior" towards sweets. We will tell him to his face that whatever sweet (usually chocolate) belongs to another family member, but when we turn around he'll steal it and run to his bedroom to hide and consumes it greedily. Not a pretty situation. I already knew that BuggaBoo doesn't respond well to sugar but the stealing is a new thing.

The plan is to get off sweets entirely (written after eating two cookies) and get off grains and, oh, try really hard to eat a Primal diet. Vegetables, meat and fats, eggs, fruits, nuts and seeds, in that order. We'll have dairy sometimes, the kids love their plain yogurt with a bit of jam or honey stirred in. We're hoping it'll help The Hubby with his Type I diabetes, me with my heath issues, and the kids in behavior and health arenas.

On this journey of mine I will not mention weight. Not one bit. I'm not doing this to lose weight, I'm doing this to regain health. I firmly believe in Heath at Every Size. I also experienced too much body policing in my lifetime and I don't want to hate myself for being whatever size. Whatever.

Instead I'm going to try to get rid of: back acne, acid reflux, fatigue, headaches, yeast infections, post nasal drip, stuffy sinuses, brain fog, sore joints, lack of energy, anxiety, irritability, digestive issues, and hormonal imbalances. In my children I'm hoping to see an improvement in their overall health and behavior (although I feel behavior is closely linked to health, 'cause if you don't feel well you don't behave well).

I'm going to do as well as I can but I'm not going to hold myself to a perfect standard. For me I easily fall into a perfection-punishment cycle. I don't want to be perfect, I want to be better. Two different things.

So, I'll blog about this. And I might not keep it up. And I won't beat myself up for it. Sounds like a great resolution to keep.

Urgh

I just had an epic fall. I was getting a blanket from the closet for Doozer so she would stop stealing BuggaBoo's blanket (They've both been throwing up. Merry Christmas!). As I was walking back to the couch I shook out the blanket in front of my face. Wrong move.

The blanket hid the crayon box that was on the floor and I stepped right into it. Hard plastic slips really well on hardwood floors. I fell so hard on my left hip if I was 40+ years older I would have probably broken it. Good times.

I'm okay, just waiting for the awesome bruise I know I'm going to develop tomorrow.

Insights During and After My Latest Therapy Session

Yay for insights that make sense!

I've been to seven or eight sessions of therapy so far. We're still laying down groundwork because I'm still trying to share everything that makes me tick and tic. I'm a pretty complicated person.

So let's visit my first insight, the one I gained during my session. My previous session The Hubby was with me and we were talking about my internet "problem". No, not that, unless what you're thinking about is spending too much time on the computer, and then you're right on the money. I am on the internet Way Too Much. The last two weeks or so I finally figured out that a big reason why I visit InternetLand so much is because it's one way I sooth my anxiety. But during my session I discovered a deeper, if slightly more pathetic, reason why I'm here all the time.To sufficiently understand what I'm about to reveal I need to give a lengthy explanation.

I'm a weird person. I've never felt like I've really fit in anywhere. My personal opinions vary widely from liberal to conservative. But I can't hang out with liberals because I'm conservative on key points, and I can't jive with conservatives because I'm freakishly liberal on others. I'm not moderate because I'm not super lukewarm about anything.

The best way I found how to explain it to my therapist was through outward expression of myself: fashion. One day I'll want to dress completely punk with ripped fishnets and black nail polish, the next I might want to be ultra conservative with a pencil skirt, and blouse, and cardigan. Yet later in the week I might be decked out in my beloved country-western garb complete with heavy turquoise jewelry. I'm sure many people I associate with choose one of those personalities as my main identity and believe the others are costumes I wear to amuse myself. The truth is they are all aspects of me, they are all my true self. But if you focus on just one of them then you'll miss out on most of me.

We then talked about my love for the, um, "out there" stuff. I love crazy hair colors. I think tattoos and body piercings are pretty cool. I can find beauty in all types, I am not wedded to one standard. I told her that I really fit in with the Portland scene and she agrees. But we talked about how I've had to repress a lot of that because it doesn't fit in with my main culture, Mormonism.

Basically I fear making friends because I have been burned often for who I am. I have had some people be very cruel to me, especially women who belong to my religion. I have very few friends I am mostly honest with, perhaps five. Out of the five people that I'm pretty-sure-I-can-trust-but-not-100%-sure-because-they-don't-know-100%-of-me only three live nearby. And I have one person who is not family that knows all of me and accepts me and that is The Hubby.

So this really does all tie into why I'm on the internet all the time. I belong to a lot of different groups online. Some are about natural living, some are about attachment parenting, some have political affiliations, and some are religious based. Not one of them fulfills me entirely. But together, that's a different story. All together these different forums and communities feed every aspect of me. And they are all found on The Internet. And the exact thing I told my therapist was, "I am friends with The Internet. That is so lame."

So, there it is. I'm so socially awkward in real life I turn towards a non-human entity because, A) I don't have many friends in real life because people don't want to be my friend and B) I'm afraid to reach out to real people anymore because I've been hurt so much.

So, if that wasn't enough realization for one day (And it wasn't the only insight I had during that session, just the biggest. Really, therapy is exhausting.) I had another on the bus going home. And, I'm sorry, it also needs an enormous backstory to make any sense.

Like I mentioned earlier The Hubby attended my session previous to the last. I wanted him there because I was doing to start delving into my aversion to housework. A phrase that kept coming from me was, "I just want to be taken care of." This prompted my therapist to ask me to explain my fantasy life. So I started into it.

It began with me sleeping in and not having to take care of the kids in the morning, not making breakfast, not cleaning because all that would be done for me. I said I would like to spend time with my children on my own terms. I started faltering at this point and said, "Man, this is all so selfish." She countered with, "Of course it is, it's your fantasy. Tell me more." So I continued a bit in the same theme.

My therapist then asked, "Do you want to be treated like a child? Is that what you need?" I vehemently countered, "No, I wanted to be respected, I want to be treated like an adult. I want people to respect my intellect and insights and feel like I have something to offer." So she said, "You want to be a queen?" And I said, "Yes, wait, no! I don't want all that responsibility. Well, I do want to take on responsibilities, but I want to choose when I do." And then I cried a lot because everything I want in life is so contradictory and not anything even logical.

I kept carrying on about how selfish and pathetic it all was. After I calmed down a bit my therapist (okay, saying "my therapist" all the time is super clunky, she's going to be Dr. L now) explained that having me truly discover what my fantasy is will help me discover what my deepest hurt is. Basically I think my fantasy life will fix everything, so we can look at it like a prescription. By using that prescription we can find out what the ailment is. Dr. L asked me to think more about my fantasy and see if that leads me to my wound.

So I thought and thought and thought. One thing that stood out to me was the question, "Do you want to be treated like a child?" and my angry response that I wanted to be respected like an adult. But I couldn't ignore that I wanted to be physically taken care of.

Then my first insight came. I tried to remember when I have ever felt like a child. Not in body but soul and mind. And I can't. I have always thought the way I do now. I may not have had the life experience to make 100% adult decisions as a child, but my thought process and logic have always been adult. This is something I've thought a lot about over the years, and every person I have surveyed about it agrees with me. No one has ever thought like a child. We have all been adults our entire lives.

That's what clicked it for me. I DID want to be treated like a child, but I wanted to be treated like a child that was also a person. I wanted to be treated like a child by a person that understood that children don't think like children but you have to care for and guide them like children. I wanted a parent. But why did I want a parent? And now I know why. This is what I wrote down on my bus ride home:

"Growing up in a home and religion where many of my feelings and experiences were invalidated I am now an adult that does not know how to trust and interpret my feelings and experiences. I don't know if my reactions are justified. I don't know if my perceptions are correct. I don't know if my action are right.

By suppressing most of my emotions my parents neglected to teach me which reactive emotions of mine are valid or excessive.

I am confused most of the time. I fear I overreact. I fear I underreact. I sometimes fear both at the same time. I don't know if people treat me well or poorly because I cannot trust my emotional reactions to their actions.

I feel like I need to seek out a wise person to re-parent me. Someone needs to teach me how to categorize my feelings. I don't know how to do it myself."

Basically I cannot trust my own reality. My parents treated most of my emotions as overreatctions. I know deep down that this is a lie, but I know that there is such a thing as overreaction. I never had the guidance to show me what a real overreaction is. The other side of that coin is because I was told most of my emotions were overreactions I don't know what an appropriate emotional response is.

A lot of my internal monologue goes something like this: "How that person treated makes me angry. Well, I don't know, maybe I should be angry about this. Maybe it's not as bad as I'm making it out to be. But what if it is, I'm really angry! I'm probably right, I should be angry about this. Well, maybe I should be more angry. Maybe outrage is the proper response. I don't know, I don't know. I should just drop it because I don't want to offend that person. But if they really did do something to offend me I should set a boundary with them. What if it's the wrong boundary? I just don't know what to do."

And so here is the kicker for me. Since I do not understand my own emotions I HAVE NO REALITY. There is nothing concrete about me, which probably contributes to my chameleon personality, but maybe it doesn't, but how do I know, but but but I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MYSELF. If I can't trust my emotions what I can I trust?

Welcome to the life of a victim of gaslighting. Have you heard of it? Well, here are three good essays explaining the gist of it. I had come across the term months ago and knew it applied to me, but not until two days ago did I realize the extent of the damage. Nor did I realize all of those who have knowingly or unknowingly perpetrated it on me. It is a sobering thought. I'm grateful I set my next session next week instead of two weeks away. With this last revelation I think I'm finally ready to get down to business.

If any part of this post has offended you I direct you towards my disclaimer.

Absence Makes My Heart Grow Heavy

I miss blogging. I miss pouring my soul onto the computer screen and having others share my life. I miss journaling my experiences so I can go back and read them and remember. I miss the sense of community that comes from weaving new friends from all over the world. I miss you guys.

I feel like I'm in a hard place. I have so much bubbling in me that wants to spew forth. I want to shout out my triumphs and terrors. But I am so very, very afraid of offending other people. Which sounds a little weird to me, because I'm really not afraid of speaking my mind, speaking the truth. I'm not afraid of hurting others' feelings.

I'm afraid of the repercussion from going down such a road. I fear that if I speak my mind, if I share my truth, and if it hurts someone, they will rain down judgement and guilt and anger on me. They will do everything in their power to bring me back into line to make their life more comfortable, no matter how it makes me feel. I feel those types of people will want me to suffer so they can stay in their happy place.

I do not believe that everyone who has done this to me knows exactly what they are doing. We are creatures that fear pain, and that fear of pain drives us to fix the situation. But sometimes we forget that change, even positive change, can hurt us. When I was a child I would get the worst cramps in my legs from growing. Growing pains are never fun. But I would never trade my physical growth to avoid that horrible physical pain. And so I think that those in my life that hurt me to end their hurt really don't understand what they do.

But even if they may not consciously realize they are trying to dominate my actions doesn't change the fact that they are doing just that.

I do not live in a fantasy world populated by cupcakes and unicorns. I don't expect everyone to agree with my world view. I don't expect others to never be offended by what I say. I don't expect people to not get angry if what I say angers them. I don't expect to be unchallenged in what I believe. I don't expect to not be called out if I'm being a bitch.

However, I want to say things that may expose a person's wrongdoings, or the wrongdoings of someone they fear. I may speak up for something in my life that has no bearing on another's life except to offend them. I will want to vent, to blow off some of my anxiety and work out my problems on "paper". I would like to be respected in these endeavors. I would like to be treated as someone who is working through major depression and anxiety. I would like to be handled with care. I want to be valued by who I am, not by my accomplishments or lack thereof. I want those that claim to love me to treat me with love.

Sometimes loving someone is not easy. Sometimes you have to hurt a person you love in order to help them grow. In love there is such thing as tact, but there is no such thing as never having conflict. People change, people grow, people rise, people fall. Those that love them see where they are coming from and help them on their journey.

Help me on my journey. Before you judge my future postings please try to see where I am coming from. If I bring you up specifically, please examine your own intents and actions before critiquing mine. When you disagree with or challenge me do so with love, not with the intent to lessen your own pain just because it hurts.

Please, do not smother me anymore. I can't take the silence, it makes my thoughts too loud. They scream at me. I have to let them out before forget who I am.

I'm an Anime Character!

I've always wondered what I would look like as a Japanese cartoon. Now I know.




'Cause you gotta have blue hair.

Thank You and an Update

Wow, thank you everyone for the love, it's just amazing. I'm even feeling it in The Real World; I had some friends/leaders from my church stop by tonight to bring me dinner and as much help as I could want. We're setting up playdates and meals and other such things. It was hard for me because I was embarrassed to be telling Real Live People about my depression and anxiety. I couldn't look them in the face. If you're reading this, Real Live People, I'm sorry. You deserved for me to be more engaged, but I just couldn't do it. Thank you for dinner, it was delicious.

Wednesday I had a session with a therapist from LDS Family Services. I was having mixed feelings about meeting with a Church sponsored therapist. On one hand it's nice to know that I don't have to explain my rather confusing religion to a doctor who may not know about it. Having grown up in the LDS Church has shaped my life immensely. There is really no culture like LDS culture! However, I was worried that I was going to get a religion-happy therapist that would boil my troubles down into Pray! Read your scriptures! Attend church meetings! Be faithful! Those are not the sort of answers I need right now. I was apprehensive (to say the least) about this initial interview.

My therapist is a splendid lady! And so professional, it was delightful. She had me fill out a questionnaire about my symptoms. There were some questions on the form about drug use, I replaced that with eating and junk food, since I have been soothing myself with food. The scoring scale is from 0-180. My total score was 136. A score over 63 is said to have "clinical significance." The doctor said that was the highest score she's ever seen, and she's been counseling for 15 years. I laughed when she told me that because I was relieved to know that a professional thought I was as crazy as I thought I was.

We quickly skimmed over my history to get a feel for what might be causing my funk. It is a many layered problem involving my childhood, past relationships, church indoctrination, personal expectations, extreme stress, and chemical imbalances. When the topic of religion came up my therapist was, hmm, I guess the best word is "aloof". She didn't start talking to me in a church member-to-church member way. It was very professional. I was very relieved.

Talking about my personal expectations was hard for me. It's was hard to admit that I don't necessarily find staying at home with the children to be rainbows and unicorn farts. It's hard to admit that I have dreams I want to actively pursue but feel from heavy outside and inside pressure to give them up because it's incompatible with being a 100% stay-at-home-mom. It's hard for me to say that the stress of dealing with kids is wearing for me, that I would be a happier person being a part-time-mom rather than full-time. Because a mother's place is in the home. And daycare is evil. And if I'm not with my kids all the time then how am I even a parent? And have I no faith?

Of course working through my childhood is going to be a massive undertaking. I'm looking forward to it but I know I'm going to be drained while dealing with it. There's just so much.

We discussed my postpartum depression that started with BuggaBoo and never really let up. She seemed surprised that I was never medicated, and looking back at how bad things were I'm shocked, too. What really hurts is there was many people, some medical professionals, that recognized my symptoms but didn't help me understand that what I was experiencing wasn't normal. My PPD coupled with untreated depression during my teenage years added to my father's (and possibly mother's) history of depression and mental disturbances makes for a strong case for organic causes. Not to say that it's 100% chemical, but that's a large aspect of it.

We did talk about medication. The doctor feels at this time it might be best to have a few sessions under my belt and see how that helps with my anxiety levels. I am open to taking something if I need it, which is a huge step for me considering how naturally minded I am when it comes to medication.

So, overall things were really great. We decided on weekly appointments because I am in crisis mode right now. It's going to help so much to know that every week I'm going to have time to myself to recharge and be able to work through things. Our car died a while ago so I'll have to take public transportation. At minimum it's a 90 minute trip there. So I'll have at least four hours to myself to just think or read or sketch or write or whatever. And there will be no guilt associated with it because it's something I have to do, so yay!

Again, thank you for your concern, it's heart warming. It's still surprising to me how many lives I've touched and blessed, and seeing how your all bless my life is an affirmation to me that we all need each other. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and God bless.