The past few months

It has been a while since my last post and I just wanted to give an update on how things have been going for me.  Since my last post I have had a lot of changes with myself and with my family, I can say that some of them have been good and others are a working progress.  I have been seeing my therapist almost a year and have been monitored by my family Dr for over a year and first I have to say that I am very lucky to have found Doctors who think of me as a person and not just a client. To me they are very different things, I do not like going into an office and be herded in like cattle. The therapist that I see is awesome and I never thought that I would ever say those words, but he helps me see things about myself that I have never realized before and it has been a great thing.  I can say that I finally see light at the end of this dark tunnel that I have been in for over half my life.  Now the other half of the working progress is my family Doctor who luckily noticed when something was different about the way I was acting when I would come in with the boys or with my own appointments.  He has helped me get out of this whole I was in and I am blessed to have both of these Dr's in  my life, because I am not sure what was going to happen to me and it was a scary thing. SO that being said I have the best team of Dr;s a girl could have:)  Well and there is my really cute eye Dr but that is another story.LOL  Mom you know who I am talking about.  Anyway back to my update.  I have had a good couple of weeks and I hope to keep this momentum but I am a little worried about winter coming because my depression and anxiety seems to get worse with the season and I hope that this year will be different.  I am also trying to get motivated with going to Church and my wonderful friend Laura has been so patient with me. I did finally make it to a bible study and I can honestly say that I really enjoyed it, Shocking yes I know.  Now if I can only get my behind up on Sundays and go to Church I think she would be so happy if I did that.  But I seem to always be in bed when I should be in church, but when you cannot sleep at night it is very difficult to get anywhere in the morning on any day of the week.  Other than doing  my everyday normal things the boys have been keeping me very busy, in fact so busy that I seem to be getting their schedules mixed up and it is becoming a little overwhelming.  Well that is about all I have to update for now I just hope to keep this groove going and keep moving forward instead of being in the same spot.  Until next time bye bye:)

Misunderstood.. Maybe

I know it has been awhile since my last post but after I posted those I really had nothing to get off of my chest.  Well I now have something that I need to get out.  Do you ever wonder why people who say they do not judge people, that they seem to be the people who judge the most?  I am learning through  my therapy that I need to let things go and not let other people intimidate me and speak how I feel without feeling bad about it.  I am really struggling with it because I have some family members who think that I am mean, hateful and I do things out of spite.  Now I am a lot of things like flighty, goofy, talkative, sensitive, honest.etc.  But I am not mean and I am definitely not mean to family members.  No matter if it is a cousin or Uncle , Aunt or a Grandparent I always make sure I treat them with respect even when I do not agree with that they are saying.  Yesterday I had an unexpected visitor and I was caught off guard because I had finally gotten to the point with this family that I do not need them in my life because all they cause are issues within the family. So when I finally accept that, this Aunt shows up at my door step.  Now I am the type of person that when I am having a conversation with someone I usually take whatever they are saying and then after the fact I realize that I should have stood up for myself. I always kick myself for not speaking my mind and allowing that person to have the power to make me feel like I have done something wrong.  How do I change that?  Most of my life I have been in survival mode and I am not sure how to get out of that.  I am so frustrated because this person keeps saying that my mother and I are spiteful, hateful and mean. She actually called me that in my own house, Now why did I not throw her out on her a**, ?  Because I am not mean!  That's why.  If I were all of those things they this Aunt and Uncle say that I am  I would have kicked her out and told her what I thought.  At least I think that is what I would have done if I were mean. Right?  These 2 people say that I am the reason that they have not come to any family functions for the last 5 years. Now as an adult myself would it have not made since to bring the issue that one of their kids thought they had with me.  Um no instead they alienate the entire family and blame me.  I do not get it. Also this person said that at my sisters wedding, which by the way I was 9 months pregnant and it was the hottest day of the year.  I was told that they walked by me at least 5 times and I said nothing to them. WHY NOT Stand in front of me and say HELLO!  But she said that I went up to my dying Grandmother and talked with her. Well DUH of course I went over and sat down and talked, with my Grandmother who passed away months later.  Am I a bad person for that?  This family has me questioning my character and I should not be because I have done nothing wrong.  Now remember she is in my home talking about my mother and me like I was not even here.  She also said that my Grandmother who has MS takes advantage of her situation, even though she has not walked in about 20 years.  She does not feel like my Grandmother  does not like her because when she brings up meals my grandmother does not appreciate it.  And that she takes advantage of people to help her to the bathroom.  At this point I should have come unglued but I am still wondering why she is in my house talking about my family.  Anyway there is a whole lot more to this story but to tell you the truth it is not even worth me waisting my time on because I know who I am and I know that I am an honest, loving, good person and I really should not let is bother me.  Except for the fact that I keep getting calls, texts and emails. I guess I am going to have to put on my mean big girl panties and stand up for myself.  Maybe:)

Panic Disorder

As I sit in my living room fighting off a panic attack I am wondering why I am going to have an attack.  Today has been a normal day nothing out of the ordinary, so why is this happening to me?  Unless you  have ever had a panic attack it is hard to explain the experience.  The closest thing I can relate it to is a heart attack, which sometimes it feels like I am having one.  You feel like you cannot catch your breath, I feel kind of light headed, my arms are tingling, palms are sweating, I have a dry mouth and my heart is pounding and I am having heart palpitations.  I had had this feeling for the past 2 hours and it is getting more intense so I decided to try a different approach and write about it while it is happening.   I remember my very first panic attack, (I talked a little bit about it in my scared to death blog)  I was 14 and it was after my cousin Devin passed away unexpectedly, we were in a hallway waiting to go home and I remember feeling like I was going to stop breathing and die right there in the hospital.  Just about everyday I had these episodes, so I told my mom that I was having chest pains and of course she made an appointment for me because Devin just died from heart failure.  So I went through a series of stress tests and was hooked up to a heart monitor  and they came to the conclusion that I have a Prolapsed valve meaning that one of my heart valves does not work correctly and the blood get back washed and that causes all of these symptoms.  So they put me on medication and it seemed to work for a while but these episodes kept on happening.  Luckily this heart condition  it not threatening so that was a relief, but I felt like I was going to die every time I would have an episode.  So I learned to deal with this problem the best I knew how, which was hard to do since they would happen unexpectedly and there was nothing I could do.  I remember sitting is class and I would start having the feeling that I couldn't breathe and I would start to panic because I didn't want anyone to know what was happening to me.  I always felt like everyone was looking at me so I would look around and nobody had any idea what was going on, I felt so alone and scared.  But how do you tell someone that you feel like your going to die, they probably would have thought I was nuts.   My mom tried everything she could like of she found this book that was created to take your mind of off your issues and I would color these shapes for hours and it seemed to help but they just kept coming and coming.  I would have these attacks all the time, it did not matter where I was or what I was doing so I just figured it was my heart condition.  When I finally hit my 20's it subsided a little but I would still on occasion have one and it would pass and I would just carry on like always.  When Jess and I moved back home from California we lived in an apartment in Connersville and they started up again and this time with a vengeance, I remember sitting on the steps and not being able to move and Jesse looking at me like like I had 2 heads.  I couldn't explain what I was feeling to him and it was frustrating because I thought he thought that I was making this up, hell I thought I was going crazy and I couldn't get a handle on this.  I went to see my family Dr and I was explaining my symptoms and he came to the conclusion that I was having panic attacks or the technical term is Panic Disorder.  Finally!  It had a name and I was not going crazy I felt like I had a weight lifted off of my shoulders because I could finally deal with this and I was happy to have someone give me an answer.  The reason it took so long is because my heart condition and panic attacks have the same symptoms so they just assumed it was my heart.  So I started medication to get a handle on this and it took a good year for me to get them under control.
After we got married we moved to a house that we rented with my sister and I started a new job at MEG, I started in Nov of 1999 and I had to work with this woman who was just awful to work with.  I went home crying everyday and hated going to work except for the 2 friends that I had to get me through the day, I cannot tell you how many times they say me crying.  It got so bad that I would have 2  panic attacks on my way to work and 1 on my way home, it was bad because when you have one just one of these they are exhausting and I would be wiped out by the time I got home.  I only had that job for a year and then they laid me off but it was a blessing because then I got this cream job and I loved it.  I really didn't have any issues for a while when I started my new job and I was grateful, but once in a while one would creep up on me.  I was at American General for 4 1/2 years then we decided that I should stay home and be with my kids which is what I wanted to do anyway.  I really didn't have to many issues for a while and I was maybe having 1 attack a year which from going to 1 or more a day to one a year was great, I felt relieved.  After Brody was born is when I started to feel bad again and so I just went on my medication again and it held them at bay. Until this year I had a lot happen in a short span of time, My Grandmother was diagnosed with Non Hotchkins Lymphoma and was going through treatments she was in remission until this May. While all of this was going on I also had another person to worry about and he was going to be moving in with my Grandparents(which I will go into in another blog).  My Bio dad who I call Jeff was getting out of prison and I have not had any contact with him since 1997 so I was stressed out about that because how was I going to see my ailing grandmother without seeing him.  So that old feeling started coming back I was not prepared to handle what was coming.  Unfortunately my Grandma passed away in May and that started my panic attacks all over again.  So since June of this year I have been dealing with a lot of feelings that I have not had in 21 years and it was not going well. I finally broke down and went to the Dr and he determined that my body was shutting down and it was becoming dangerous and I needed to get a handle on it or the result was going to be bad.  Apparently from doing 2 IVF cycles and having 2 children in 3 years did a number on my body and it is not handling it well.  So I went on a regime of pills and I am still struggling with my body not producing any hormones or my adrenal glands not producing cortisol I hope that eventually my body with jump start itself and I can get over this hurdle.  So I am still sitting here after an hour after I started this blog and I am feeling a little better, my feeling of doom has passed and even though I feel very tired from fighting this panic attack I am grateful that  was able to divert it.  I know that my blogs are kind of long but I cannot do anything short because I don't do things small.  ever!  So for those of you that  understand what panic attacks are I hope that somehow you can find a way to get to the other side, and when and if you do can you please let me know so I can too:)  Thanks to all who read these I am grateful.