Mental & Emotional Health

I haven’t mentioned that I’ve always had the propensity to get sick easily.  Then for years my diagnosis would change from one doctor to another, lupus, fibromyalgia, to simply chronic pain.  I’ve taken steroids, I’ve taken non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, I’ve taken antidepressants, antiepileptic drugs along with all kinds of therapy.

The pain would drift back and forth from debilitating to simply a nuisance.  I’ve had more jobs than most people have in a lifetime.  Somewhere near 40 positions that I have held over the course of my adult life and most were lost due to my health. 

My pregnancies were horrible.  I wouldn’t take anything for my children but this body was just not a good incubator for them.  I spent many weeks on bedrest, I lost massive amounts of weight and was throwing up more and more as the days waned by.  I was on bedrest in my first pregnancy for 12 weeks.  The second pregnancy the best rest was only 10 weeks the second pregnancy but I only managed to carry the child til 10 weeks.  So, there were issues all the way around.

The discovery of 3 herniated discs in the lumbar region of my back.  I had already suffered many years from endometriosis and I knew that having a hysterectomy as soon as possible was in my future.  Indeed, that was what happened.  My youngest son was six weeks old when  I had the hysterectomy but that didn’t solve the the lumbar issues.  When that little cherub turned four months old, I had major back surgery.  My mom quit work to stay with me.  The recovery was a year.  At 6 months I fell down a flight of stairs. 

And, now, now I am suffering from recurring bouts of mono.  I had a full fledge case in or around June and July of this year.  This is my second relapse and hopefully if I can find a way to get to feeling better and take care of myself a little better then I can get to a better place emotionally. 

My mental and emotional health have suffered a great deal.  Mentally, the mono is known for causing mental fatigue.  Emotionally, just the everyday activities of trying to run a business.  We finally closed it.  I still suffer.  I continue to suffer.   I don’t know how long it may last, but I do know that anyone who has doubts about chronic pain and the how it will affect the rest of my life. 

I’d love to hear from some of you who are in the same boat as myself.  I really would like to hear from you. 

This weekend was the most unproductive weekend I’ve experienced in ages.  We have done nothing that even remotely resembles work, other than what I’ve done tonight after say, 7pm.   That’s pretty good, wouldn’t you say?

Now, our grass is way to high for my comfort, laundry is piling out into the kitchen, garbage needs gathering for morning pick-up and the dishes haven’t been washed in so long we bought paper cups today.  But, we felt good…really really good.

My had take-out Friday night, I ran some errands yesterday morning (with my mom so it was relaxing), took naps in the afternoon, went to the county fair last night, slept til 11 AM this morning, had lunch at the local mom and pop place, napped til 5 and then played with the boys and they headed off to bed while me and the hubs have worked a little and watched TV alot.

So, what was so great about that you say?  Well, for over a year we spent all of our waking hours working on daycare things.  We closed it in July and it has taken us this long to come off of that rush.  We’ve just kicked back and enjoyed it.

They call that healing…..in my mind, it was much physical healing with all the sleep I did, but the emotional healing of not fretting over time and money and grocery store lines - that was awesome.  And, mentally, the anguish of money and money and how to prepare for the week ahead. 

So, yea it wasn’t Sexual Healing but so far, every other kind of healing I can think of has happened right here in my little ol’ house.

I’ve written about this before but I’m going to put the information out there one more time.  I am really curious if anyone has any advice.  What am I talking about?  I’m talking about "Children in the Marital Bed".  Here’s some background:

They go to bed fine.  They watch about 15 minutes of Blue’s Clues or Thomas the Train (I insist on these two because the others are too active, those two should bore anyone to sleep).  When it goes off, usually one of them is asleep.  It doesn’t matter though, it happens if one is asleep or their both awake.  After another fifteen minutes or so, they start asking if they can go to "momma’s bed".

Side Note:  I don’t know why they say it the way they do but it is "momma’s bed" and "momma’s bathroom" although Wayne and I both sleep and bath in the respective rooms. 

When we spoke to the counselor about this, he said, "tell them no and put them back in bed".  And, Wayne said that he would do that but I would give in after they got up a few times.  So, I agreed to let him handle it.  Well, here’s my analogy, correct me if I’m wrong….

Human Beings cry when they are unhappy, correct?  And, my children are crying, so that means they are unhappy, correct?

I am an only child.  I remember having insomnia as far back as age eight.  I couldn’t stand my mom’s new husband and I would lie in bed for hours sometimes.  And, I would cry.  I hated being alone.  And, I would cry.  So, what I said about my children crying, that means they are unhappy right?  By the way, the counselors words to me when I explained my thoughts on this matter were "don’t project that onto your children, that was you, not them."

I’ll be waiting right here to see what you think?

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I have mono.  I’ve had it for what seems like an eternity.  I was diagnosed in late July.  At that time my doctor informed me that "you probably won’t feel really good again to after Halloween".  At which time, I collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor and asked for healing.  I’m not kidding.  At that point, I was so deathly sick that I couldn’t imagine being that way for 3 more months.  My spleen was so swollen that I was having a great deal of pain under my ribs.  It wasn’t pretty.

I was told not to exercise or do anything strenuous.  Never mind that the weekend before that I had packed up our entire daycare and put it in storage over a weekend span with about 8 hours sleep.  Pulling, tugging at heavy equipment, cleaning and doing what I thought was necessary.  So much for "nothing strenuous".  Anyway, the end of that week brought me back into the doctor’s office with terrible kidney pain.  I passed a kidney stone about a week before that and now my kidney’s were just plain not acting.  The response of a too large spleen?  Maybe, maybe not. 

I spent the weekend in the hospital.  I come home and spent my 3rd or 4th, who was counting, week in bed.  All day, all night - in bed…tired, emotional and weeping a lot.  Oh and the pain, the pain under my ribs from the spleen.  That was pitiful.

Moving past the week in bed, I had two weeks where I felt pretty normal.  Things were just happily moving right along when BAM, I went down again.  I was back in bed for 4 days thinking I was dying.  How in the heck could that be?  We were getting ready for a vacation the next week and I couldn’t stand the thoughts of being sick while at the beach.

That was two and a half week ago.  And, yesterday, yesterday I went down again.  I was trying my best to hold my head up while sitting in the recliner trying to work.  My son had free reign of the house until about 11 when I forced him to take a nap with me.  We slept til 2′ish and then got up and retrieved my oldest son from school. 

Today, we did school drop off, canceled my marriage counseling appointment because there simply was no way I could get there.  Honestly, if I had been showered and half way decent, I might could have made the drive or found someone to go with me to drive and watch my three year old.  But, the very thought of showering, blow drying this head of hair, getting dressed and the driving 30 miles to the appointment, staying there an hour and 30 minutes drive time home - well it was just too daunting.  So, I canceled.

Emotionally I’m not in as big of a funk as I was when I was first diagnosed.  Well, for the most part I am doing fairly well emotionally.  But, the mental fatigue that hits you with mono is unbelievable.  When I was diagnosed I was told that I had probably been sick for about 6 weeks.  That’s when I put all the vague mental pictures together.  The places where I couldn’t keep up with what day it was, who was suppose to be working at what time at the daycare and when to do payroll. 

That fog lifted after the first bout, the second bout I did ask my mom nearly every day and sometimes 2 or 3 times a day what day of the week it was.  I didn’t try to work so obviously the fog wasn’t so bad.  Or at least I interpreted it to be not so bad anyway.  This time, emotionally I’m fine and mentally I’m better than I was the other 2 episodes, but I do find that time just slips away from me and I have no idea what I’ve accomplished.  No, I do know, I haven’t accomplished much.

So, it is looking more and more like the doc was right it may very well be after Halloween before I start feeling better on a regular basis.  And, if that is the case, look for me to be a little sporadic with my posting.  I isn’t intentional, it just happens as a side effect of mono.

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Just so you know that my thoughts about my size didn’t come strictly from my mother.  My father was a small man.  He was about 5′7" and when he wasn’t smoking and was instead nibbling on every thing in sight, he weighed maybe 130.  So, by the eighth grade, I was bigger than my dad.  I out-weighed my dad early in my life.  That alone wasn’t easy to accept. 

My paternal relatives are all small.  My grandmother at a whopping 95 pounds, and my grandfather probably 130 or 135.  My dad’s sister probably doesn’t weigh 100 pounds either.  So, it isn’t like I necessarily have the gene of being a big woman.  However, my maternal grandfather pushed 300 pounds most of my life.  But, my maternal grandmother and her family, little people as well.

It was kind of like when the dice were rolled to choose my gene for my size and I had a one in four chance of being a large woman, I lost. 

But, back to the fact that my mom isn’t the only one who left me with bad memories of my weight.  I’ll be the first to say that I started being very conscious of my weight by the age of 13.  I had entered puberty way before most of my classmates and I had curves that no one else had.  Once in high school, I fit in a little better and it wasn’t to bad.  I would run from 120 to 130 depending on the time of year.  I played fall and spring sports with the spring sport carrying over through the summer.  But the winter?  Oh the winter was hard.  I would always gain weight during the winter, but once spring rolled around, I could shake it off.

It was a never ending see-saw.  So, since I’ve told you way more stuff that is pertinent to this story, I’m going to try to get to the end.  My father passed away when I was 19, so you know that the comment from him had come my way basically from the age of 14 til 19.  What comments?  It was as if he was a parrot on my shoulder, watching what I ate, watching me gain weight and lose it and while I paid no attention in any way to what was happening.  I didn’t try to lose the weight any more than I tried to gain it.  It was just the part of the cycle of my activities.

But, I remember my father telling me one time, "you know, when you have your eye on a certain guy you lose weight, when you catch him, you put it back on….just like your mother"  I was almost 17 when he said that and I’ll never forget it. And, as it is, he was right.  Those bikini wearing 140 pound days were when I was single…the ballooning up was during times of a relationship, teeter-totter, teeter-totter. 

A memory…yea, probably said without much thought, just a simple observation made by a  father of his daughter.  But it stung, it stung bad.

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I don’t know how many of you have even heard of the book The White Trash Mom’s Handbook by Michelle Lamar and Molly Wendland but if you need to do our best to get your hands on a copy of this book and read it.  You may wonder how it has anything to do with Mental and Emotional Health.  Just keep reading, I’m going to tell you.

I remember distinctly being bullied in school.  I was bullied for all kinds of reasons.  I was bullied because my parents weren’t married to each other.  So, don’t think for one minute that your child and his peers know nothing about you and your partner/spouse/significant other.  These kids are sponges and they are absorbing everything they see and hear.

I’ve known for 5 years that my child would start school in August of 2008.  One of my goals was not to be labeled in a way that would embarrass my children.  When we had our Christmas photos made professionally in 2006, I told my husband that I was "losing some weight before next Christmas because I’m not hiding in the back for every Christmas photo we have made". 

Guess what?  I didn’t lose any and I actually gained (which I now know is the result of diabetes and thyroid) a little weight.  So, when Christmas professional picture time came around in 2007, I hid in the back again.  At that time, I told my husband, "I’m losing some weight because I do not want Walker to have to deal with other kids saying that the fat woman is Walker’s mommy."

Do I really think kids will do that?  Your doggone right they will.  I don’t think for one minute that the kids won’t notice and I  know from experience that they will make fun of me and in return make fun of my son. 

And, you know what happens when you mess with one of Mama Bear’s Cubs, right?  Yea, Mama Bear gets angry.  But, I did lose but approximately 10 pounds and thus far I’m not doing a very good job at trying. 

But, as son as I am given the thumbs up from my doctor to go ahead and exercise (remember I have mono), I have a treadmill in my living room just calling my name.  Yup, I may have to hide in this year’s Christmas photo too but next year, not a chance!  And, my children’s peers aren’t going to label me as "the fat woman" forever.  I can promise you that.

I haven’t talked much about a couple of things here that are central to my life and possibly you can relate.  One of those is my weight.  I’m big.  I’m 200 pounds big.  I have diabetes and thyroid disorder but in recent weeks, I’ve made no effort to do anything about keeping my sugar regulated and thus I’m in a bouncy place of up 2 pounds, down 4, up 3, down 2, etc.

The other issue is that my mom and I aren’t very much alike.  That would really be the understatement of the year.  I am a lot like my father and with that, it is just normal I think that we wouldn’t be the best of friends.  My parents divorced when I was 4.  They fought until I was close to 18.

When you put those two issues together, you definitely get a memory that become a scar.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s more to the issue of my weight than simply my mom and the idea that we don’t get along, there’s way more there than just my mom.  (I’ll get to that later.)  But, the memory that stands out for me regarding my weight goes something like this.

I was getting married, for the first time.  I was terribly self-conscious of my shape.  I weighed about 140 pounds.  Other females my age were wearing clothing that suited their shapes.  Not me, I was covering myself up, ashamed that I had ballooned to 140 pounds once again.  (Later I put that same 140 pounds in a bikini and sported the beach with a little but more confidence, so it couldn’t have been that bad could it?) 

Back to my story, I saw myself on video from one of my bridal showers.  I was dumbfounded, I couldn’t believe that I could possibly be as big as I looked on the video.  So, I asked my mom if I was really that big.  And, what she said to me was, "well you certainly aren’t skinny".

I wasn’t asking if I was skinny, I was asking if I was a monster.  Hindsight, looking at those photos, no I wasn’t skinny, but that same body that was on video that I was made to feel ashamed of was not so shabby in a bikini just a couple of years later.  That memory, asking my mom, asking someone to boost my confidence as I headed into what was suppose to be the best day of my life…….became a scar.  

(I’ll tell you some more another day.)

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I’ve given you lots of information on me.  And, depending on who is reading, I may have given you way more information than necessary.  But since today is my birthday, and I have one official hour left, I’m on CST, I’m going to give you something Mental and Emotional to think about.

My parents were as different as night and day.  My mother a religious zealot (and I do not mean that disrespectfully in any way) and my father a complete liberal.  My mother was a scream at you, make you feel guilty by not speaking to you and grab the belt and spank you out of anger kind of parent.  Needless to say, I’ve kept a lot from her over the years. 

My mom played the guilt card because I hurt her.  In one of her marriages, which was actually a man she married 3 times, they lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, watch the same TV and ate the same meals, yet my mother didn’t speak to him for 6 weeks.  Do you realize how hard it would be do such a thing?  I couldn’t do it, but she did.  And, she would treat me the same way.  She would just quit speaking to me if I made her mad or even if I simply didn’t do what she wanted, not what she asked or expected but what she wanted.  She has done it to me as an adult as well.  As recently as about 16 months ago, she got angry with me, left my house screaming and crying and didn’t call me for 3 days.  I did call her a couple of times but she didn’t answer.  So, that’s my mom in a nutshell.  Don’t get me wrong, I love her dearly, but that is just how she is.

My father was a politician.  He played the guilt card on occasion but he played in reference to me disappointing him and how he had high expectations for me.  He taught high school and did for most of his career.  He simply had a better understanding of child development as well as how to deal with teenagers.  There wasn’t much that I was afraid to tell him.  Although I know if he were here now, he would have gone through periods where he would be very concerned for me, but I don’t remember anything that has happened in the last 20 years that he would have dealt me emotional or mental blows. 

Now, that’s not to say that my mom was wrong and my dad was right.  You know it simply doesn’t work that way.  But, the reason I started this story was to tell you that I got a tattoo today.  If my father were alive, I would have talked to him about it prior to coming to the beach or even prior to getting a tattoo to celebrate my 40th birthday.  My mom?  I still haven’t told her and I won’t until I am home and can show it to her. 

My father would have just given me the information I needed to pick a clean, well-established parlor.  My mom may decide that she is no longer going to help me with my children during the week or that she is not taking them to church with her the next day and she may very well not speak to me for a few days. 

But, the trick is, she might look at it and go, "oh my, why did you do that?’ and never mention it again.  And, she could just act like nothing is different, ask me questions about it and be done with it.

Now, as you can see, this absolutely ties into the way in which I was raised.  It directly shows you how my mother and father created my personality.  My mother causing the anxiety, my father trying to teach me and help me learn.  It isn’t all my mother’s fault that I was anxious and depressed as a child.  I can’t lay full blame on her.  But, I can say that in no way did she ever act as if she recognized my problems.

Even now, there are times when she questions why I take anti-depressants.  Why can’t I just go to church, be holy, know God and not need medication?  In so many ways, I am distinctly like my father.  They divorced when I was 4 and spent many years after that arguing. 

I love my mother.  I respect my mother.  She is simply different than me.  I will keep you updated on the emotional side of how this all plays out when my mom finds out that I chose a tattoo to celebrate turning 40.  And, without any more silly chatter, I give you a photo of my shoulder…this tattoo is brand new, less than a couple of hours old so it is still somewhat puffy…don’t be alarmed, it is going to be beautiful when it heals. 

Oh and the pain I expected to feel, it was almost pleasant in a sick kind of way.  I read a book and sent text messages back in forth with several people with my free hand to keep my mind off of it. I tried to send a book with my husband who has a fear of needles.  But, he wouldn’t take it, I would love to be a fly on the wall while he is sitting there being jabbed with a needle and ink.  His tattoo is an American Bald Eagle that has red, white and blue stripes on him.  Naturally, I’ll get you that photo as well tomorrow.

I take a particular anti-depressant known as Cymbalta.  It has really  helped me and I know that with it and the small dose of Welbutrin, I am a stable, happy person.  I’ll try to keep this short but if you’ve read here long, you know my fingers get diarrhea pretty often and just keep pecking away. 

Anyway, what I was trying to say was this, our insurance carrier made some changes to our coverage and not only were we not notified, it was as if someone slapped me in the face when I went to get my Cymbalta prescription filled. 

I take a fairly high dose of this medication and because of that we have had to have prior authorization from the insurance.  I had the authorization for 120 mg a day through last February.  It took until May for the doctor’s office and the insurance company to get it together to issue another authorization. 

But, even when I went to get the medication filled in July, it was not taken care of like it should have been.  So, I took a copy of the letter from the insurance company to the pharmacy.  The pharmacist was one of my best buddies in high school.and she called the insurance company and got the prescription and authorization  straight. 

Now, in the interim, my doctor would give me enough samples of the cymbalta so that I didn’t have to buy them out right.  At first the insurance company was going to let me have 60 capsules but only if I paid  2 $35 co-pays.  That’s when the doctor started giving me a 30 day supply and I would fill my prescription for the other 30 at 30 bucks a month.

Then, one day it was $35 for the co-pay.  And then, then the bottom fell out because when I picked the medication up last week, the lady said, $60.  I almost flipped my lid.  I paid it because what else was I suppose to do on a Saturday.  I was just planning to call the pharmacists and ask her about it. 

By the time I got around to calling her, she had already called my insurance company (it is good to have friends) and they informed her that I did indeed have an authorization for 60 pills (which is what I got for the 60 bucks) but that my co-pay for non-formulary drugs had gone up to $60.

I did flip when the words came out of her mouth.  I almost lost control of myself.  That’s freakin’ ridiculous ya’ll.  I know the medication is expensive.  I know I’m lucky to even have insurance when many people who need anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs do not.  I know I am lucky that my husbands employer pays the entire premium for us.  I know. 

But, regardless of who it is paying the 60 bucks, someone insured or someone who is having to fork out the entire amount, the price of medication is ridiculous.

So, when I go back for my visit, which is sometime around the end of September, I fully intend to ask that he change my mediation (although it has taken 4 years of tweaking to get it just right) because honestly, $60 is just not going to happen. 

Are you insured? 

If not, do you pay out of pocket?

If you are insured, are your co-pays decent and predictable?

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I’m not sure where I’m going with this.  I’m just going to wander into it.  We bought a daycare in May of 2007.  I had never been able to work a full 40 hour work week because of my health.  The depression, the anxiety, the laziness.  No, it wasn’t really laziness, it really was depression.

When we bought the daycare though, I became the person that had to do it all and do it all right.  I am a control freak, I have OCD and I get depressed and anxious when things are not going according to my plan.

And, with that, I have to tell you that very little that has happened since May of 2007 has happened in the manner in which I planned.  We sold the daycare a few weeks ago but had already closed it in July. 

My health was going down hill and fast.  I found I had a thyroid disorder and diabetes.  I wasn’t doing anything to keep my diabetes in check so that, along with the state of affairs at the daycare, had put me in a serious funk.  I thought it was ONLY a serious funk. 

As it turned out, I had caught mono somehow and before it was all said and done, I was in the hospital.  I’m still not over the mono.  I had a relapse as late as last week.  My doctor says that with my other health issues and my tendency to become depressed, I would probably see symptoms of mono into the winter. 

My doctor really seems to be watching  me close and trying to do his best to see that I don’t fall over the edge.  He is a great doctor and I just wish everyone could have a doc like him. 

And, so with that, we are headed for a vacation.  There wasn’t one person that knew us that had any doubts that we needed and deserved a vacation.  Not one person! 

We’ve been gone since 9 AM this morning.  I woke up at 3 AM and couldn’t sleep.  I just stayed up.  For me, at 3:20 PM, 12 hours later, I’m nearing the end of my schedule for the day.  Yet, we’ve got at least half of the trip left ahead of us. 

We left this morning in time to stop by the great super store and pick up a few odds and ends as well as get Wayne a haircut.  By the time we got gas, made it to our favorite restaurant, ate lunch and got back on the road, it was almost 2 PM.

With that said, I haven’t relaxed yet.  We are going to be on vacation at the beach until next Friday and I’m hoping that by the time we lay our sleepy heads down tonight I start to get that feeling that you are suppose to get with vacations.  I don’t know if I even know what that feeling is but I sure hope I get it…and soon!

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If you read any of my other blogs you know that I talk about going on vacation about 20 times a year.  Normally I"m just dreaming of some exotic nice place and sometimes I dream of the places that are familiar.  I knew we had a vacation coming and I was all set to go to Myrtle Beach.  We had never been and it was going to be a blast. 

The more we discussed our vacation spot, the more restless we both become.  This last year owning our own business and then my husband being involved in 2 big projects this spring and summer that caused him to work 12 and 14 hour days for about 20 days at a time, took a terrible toll on our family.  We were ready for a vacation.

Finally, I was the one who said, "would you rather just go somewhere that we know about and simply relax?"  I knew that if we went to a vacation spot we had never visited before we would want to take in all the sights.  And, honestly, with a 3 and 5 year old, sometimes that is terribly unrealistic.  So, the vote was unanimous, we would go somewhere that we knew a lot about (me more so than him, but at least we know what’s what and what’s where). 

The decision was a place I had visited since I was as young as 2.  Panama City Beach, Florida.  I have vivid memories of going there as a child with my mom and dad and then just my dad as I got older.  Then, as a teenager I visited quite often with other teenagers.  Let’s just say, even though a hurricane wiped the place out a few years ago, I know my way around.

None of that was the point I was after, but that’s what happens with me, I talk too much have too much to share.  We will be leaving in a couple of hours, taking or time since check-in isn’t til 4.  We are stopping at our favorite restaurant in Birmingham (P.F.Changs - any Chang lovers out there?) and then maybe our children will sleep a big part of the way with a full tummy.

By choosing to go somewhere familiar, we take out the factor of trying to run and see as much as possible in our 6 days.  Instead, we will hang out in the condo, go to the kiddie pool that has a lazy river and a huge children’s wading area.  We will go down on the beach and play in the sand.  We will go to the condo and do our kindergartener’s school work for the day while the little one takes a nap.  We will go back to the beach and pool. 

We will relax.  We are not running ourselves all over the place.  We will only go to the places that we know are good and we won’t waste money eating at places we know nothing about.  Maybe next year…..maybe then we will tackle Myrtle Beach.  I mean, I want to go to New York and just wander around, but that’s not practical with 2 children nor is it practical when you are really exhausted and wishing for more time to relax instead of more time to run around like a chicken with its head cut off.

I looked around and found some sites that have some great tips.  I’ll link to them and give you a couple of parting words from those sites….enjoy…and as always, tell me about your vacations and your hopeful vacations.

According to a survey at A State University of New York, men who take annual vacations reduce their risk of death by 20 percent.  Men who took no vacations in five years had the highest death rate as well as the highest rate of heart disease.

And, a study by a Wisconsin Medical Journal found that women who took frequent vacations were less likely to become depressed, tense or tired. 

As I mentioned, I have vivid memories of PCB from my childhood and I hope to re-create some of those for my own children.  And, believe it or not, that is one of the benefits of a vacation.  No fancy studies, no research, just plain common sense tells us that when you take time to go out and play and explore the world like you did as a child, you are revitalized by those vivid memories.

And, apparently, it is a belief that employee’s who take at least up to 2 weeks vacation a year are more efficient the other 50 weeks. 

So, hey, let’s get going.

As I went in search of more information, all I could find was reinforcement for what I just said; vacations stave off burnout, vacations keep us healthy, vacations strengthen bonds, and vacations help with job performance.

So, hey, now let’s really get going.  As always…

tell me about your vacations

tell me about your favorite vacation spots

Discuss.

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So, you know way more about me than a lot of people I know in real life.  But, as one would guess, you are probably wondering if I am just a clown that has had many mental and emotional issues and I’m going to try to urge you to go get medicated.  That is simply not the case.  I do believe that medication has its place and we will explore that more in depth later, but for now, I’m just going to give you a few credentials.

My personal thoughts on  my own mental and emotional health are that without the interventions of modern medication and later some therapy, I would not have been able to accomplish much.  So, with that, I’m sure you are wondering just what it is that I’ve done that makes me think I can write a blog here and help anyone.

For starters, did you read the two part introduction.  That alone should tell you that I’ve been the mental and emotional health genre for half of my life.  I was 19 when my father died and that depressive cycle began.  I will be 40 in a couple of weeks.  But, if you read those, you know, I suffered well before the age of 19, it was just then it became apparent to everyone because they could see the issues on the outside.

So, what did I do with myself?  I did what my father always dreamed of, I graduated with a Bachelors degree.  That was in 1991, in physical education.  I used that to teach physical education two and a half years.  My dad tried to tell me not to be a teacher.  I don’t think he knew that I was simply not going to be good at it, (which I wasn’t), he just wanted me to choose a career that wasn’t so difficult to endure (and it is very difficult). 

Either way, I graduated.  I also had a minor in chemistry so I was able to teach Earth and Life Science on year and again, it was awful and I wasn’t very good at it.   Later I taught Pre-K and…again, it was a horrible experience and I wasn’t very good at it in the first place. 

I let my certificate expire and thus was unable to teach after 2001.  In 2005, I decided I should try teaching again, I was older, my temperament was different and maybe…just maybe…

That’s when I realized my certificate had expired.  So, that meant I had to return to school.  So, why  not get my Masters in something that I could use outside the school system or inside if I chose.  I taught Biology while I was in school and just as before, I hated it and I was not good at it either. 

I got my Masters in Counseling last winter while I was busy running my own daycare.  It came in handy and even though it is not my nature to brag, I was able to pick employees strong points as far as what age they would be best working with.  At first they would balk on me, but later, people came to realize that I had a little education and I was good at reading people.

Personalities come easy for me it seems.  I can talk to someone for a short time and tell you way more about them than most of them know themselves.  No, I’m not psychic, I learned a little when I pursued that last degree and it is paying off for me now.

I knew my husband had ADD (attention deficit disorder).  It was very apparent to me.  He had suffered his entire life but didn’t grow up in a home with educated parents who knew what to look for.  I got him an appointment, they did the intake, they gave him a couple of written tests and then the doctor spent about 45 minutes with him.  Diagnosis?  ADD.  I knew it, I’d lived with him too long not to know it.  I knew the symptoms and with my husband, they were terribly obvious.

In recent months I came to realize that my husband was depressed.  Again, he didn’t see what I saw.  I had the education (and I don’t mean that in a smart-alec way, I mean, I read the books, I listened to my professors and I learned so much from them) and I knew that he was depressed.  I encouraged him to tell our psychiatrist that treats his ADD.  He didn’t.  I mentioned it at one of my visits but only briefly and only in the manner in which it was affecting our marriage.  I asked my husband the next month if he would please tell the doctor how he felt.  He said yes, but he didn’t do it.  The next month he suggested I come with him.  I did but the doctor talked to him alone.  My husband managed to pull off the ol’ "it’s just the stress of this one project at work and when it is over, I’ll be fine.).

Not only was I mad at this point, I was ready to do something drastic.  His behavior was affecting our marriage and especially affected his parenting skills.  So, at my next appointment with the doc, I asked if we could come together.  He said if it was ok with my husband, then of course it was ok with him.  We went together.  They gave him a depression test. 

I don’t know much about the depression test because I didn’t see it so I don’t know which test they gave him. However, after the doctor looked at it, he said, "you definitely appear to be depressed, a score of anything above 8 on this test would mean you might benefit from medication and therapy and you (meaning my husband) scored a 24"

Ok, see, I’ve been around the block.  I’ve had the emotional problems, I’ve had the mental fatigue, I’ve dealt with the problems and I’ve been trained to recognize them. 

So, with that, I give you my credentials.  Do you trust me yet?

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