Ramble On

This article from Boing Boing was shared with me on Face Book. I knew the story, I've been following Reid's progress and blog for over a year now, every since I was up late in my hospital room googling Crohn's, aka: what the hell was wrong with me. This article is amazing and I hope that it gets a lot more people on board with this diet. Yes it's hard (at first)  but it's for your health, is there a better reason to just give it a chance? Honestly, what is there to lose?

That's the point I was at 15 months ago right after my diagnosis, granted, that is not a very long time in the grand scheme of things but when I look at where I am now to where I was... I don't ever want to go back to feeling that way. My main motivation has always been caring for my children; which is why I knew I had to try everything I could to get well,  but now that I am feeling better than I ever have in my life,  I'm realizing that maybe I can have an actual life outside of this disease and outside of my role as a mother.

I think that's why I'm so excited for my knitting designs going out into the world. I created them on my own, no one helped me, no one felt badly for me because of my condition, people that are using my patterns probably don't even know that I have this disease.

I want to be an advocate for this disease, (or my combo of diseases, depression and Crohn's) but I don't want it/them to define me. I'm not sure how I would even define myself, this actually kept me up last night, I'm older now that I ever though I'd be, and now I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing with myself! It's a crazy feeling, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet.

Over the weekend my husband took our kids to visit his family. I stayed home to paint the dining room and the kitchen. It was in dire need and I don't mind painting. It was so quiet here with out kids and I had a lot of time to myself while I was rolling "pale sunshine" on to he pepto pink walls (who paints their dining room pink? whatever!). 

The drama has been thick recently. My Aunt had a house fire (she's fine, damage is limited to one area,  the firemen got it quickly) which scares the crap out of me. Fire is one of my worst fears and especially since hers was electrical, well that just freaked me out more. My mom doesn't think my Grandma is going to last to the winter, which also scares me. She's 93 years old, she's had a good long life but I've never lost a Grandparent before. I know I'm lucky, to be nearly 30 and never suffered a loss like that but now here I am staring it in the face and I'm not sure what to do.

It was nice to focus on painting. I don't know if it's my medication or what but I've been able to focus lately, before my mind was going a mile a minute and I could really do one thing at a time. Now it's like a check list up there, I can focus, I can complete one task in it's entirety and move on to the next one. It's incredible! I feel silly for saying that I'm excited that I can actually do the dishes without getting distracted by the fact that the floor needs swept and end up only doing each task half way and ending up with more of a mess then I started with. Maybe that's confusing and it was/is just me, but I'm glad that's changed.

I guess I never realized that I never got a break, there was always something I was freaking out about or anticipating in my own head. It was never quiet. Over the weekend I took two long hot bubble baths, it was sort of like I was getting away with something because I usually never get the chance to do that. It was wonderful to actually relax with out rehashing all my mistakes or be making a mental list of all the other crap I had to do.  I never knew what I was missing out on here. I'm so much calmer, the noise and the random pain I was having in my gut nightly has stopped. My GI told me that she thought these symptoms were being caused by stress, I really didn't think I was under all that much stress at the time because that is what I was use to and accepted as "normal"!  She was right, and thank God she told me!

It's amazing what someone can convince themselves of to the point of illness and breaking. I don't want to be broken anymore, I just want a normal, boring life. That's it. I want to be comfortable in my own skin, have enough money to take care of my family and make a home to raise my children in. I'd also like to have some chickens but if that can't happen I'll be okay with that ;-)

I've been on Exfexxor 75mg for one month as of wed. I've seen a lot improvements in my mood and in my demeanor in general. I'm not yelling (much) at the kids any more. My paitence seems to have improved quite a bit, I'm thinking before I speak (huge issue for me), and I'm no longer crying over everything (tv commercials etc). I knew something was different when I was watching American Idol and didn't start bawling when Scotty sang Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning. I sat through the whole thing and actually listened to the lyrics. Usually, I would have been a heap of salty tears and snot, but not that night. I was amazed!

My anexity and panic attacks have really lessened in severity. My car decided it doesn't want to work any more and stalled out five times on the way home from the grocery store. My husband was driving and we had all three kids in the car, normally, I would have been crying and probably screaming or something but I just made jokes. We were on rural roads, we weren't in the middle of traffic or anything when we stalled. I have enough family around here that someone would have given us a ride. We were going to be okay so in the end it was just ridiculous and funny (the car is 12 years old, this wasn't totally unexpected) !

On the other hand, I'm still tired. A lot. I don't feel like I'm ever getting enough sleep and I'm waking up 2-3 times a night. I also have some smalls zits now, which would either be from the meds or the changing weather. My appetite has not improved, in fact, I'm not hungry at all any more. I am still eating and using an app I downloaded to my ipod to track my calories but I am just simply not hungry, which isn't a good thing. I weigh 113lbs right now. I'm only 5'4" but I have a medium build and wide (or as I like to say, childbearing) hips. My ideal weight is 120lbs. That's how much I weighed all through high school and college. I'd like to try to get back up to there again. I have some work to do but with absolutely no appetite it's hard.

I am now offically back on antidepressents, and honestly, i'm really happy about it. I've been freaking out  over dumb stuff. I found myself sitting here on Sunday getting really worked up about Christmas. Not in a "oh we should start saving" way I was getting really upset and trying to figure out things I could sell so I could buy my kids gifts. Um. What made me think I wouldn't be able to buy my children gifts? No idea. I always managed to in the past and I'm sure this year, once again, we'd magnage but why the sudden freak out? Not to meniton that I've been crying, a lot, about everything and nothing.

I'm an emotional person, I've always been an easy crier but it's never been at this level. I'll be having a phone conversation and just start tearing up.  There's more, isn't there always? I'm tired tough, of talking about it and obsessing about it. The bottom line is that I was having reactions to situations that I felt were irrational and I've been dealing with my depression long enough to know and realize when I need to go get help before it gets any worse.

In my mind I don't plan on being on the meds long-term, the doctors aren't thinking I'm going to either. We're currently look at 9-12 months and then weaning off, but we'll see where we're at when that happens. Right now, I need to be present for my kids and not a weepy heap.

My daughter's birthday is on Saturday, Easter is on Sunday this is a time of the year to make positive memories not things like "remember when I turned 6, and mom flipped out?". I'd rather not be involved in that. Thanks.

I don't have time to type the long verison out now (don't worry I will) here is the short version: I'm not dealing with things well. I'm getting help. Everything is going to be alright. <3

I don’t like making these mostly because if it’s something really important to me I should just want to do it anyway not because I’m self-imposing crap on to myself, with no real consequences, in the spirit of celebrating a new year. So these aren’t resolutions per say. This is stuff I’m doing, stuff I’m trying to do, and stuff I hope to make a habit of.

Things I’ve started to do recently:

1. Floss consistently, ever single day. Oh Lord the stories I’ve read about people with Crohn’s and their nasty teeth.
2. Pray at least once a day. I pray a lot through out the day but especially at night, this really helps me get to sleep.

Things I need to start doing:

1. Spend less time online. I’m connected all the time now. I’ve got an Ipod that I pretty much carry around with me all day (use it for alarms) that I can check facebook and email on, which I do way too much. I will allow myself the ipod, however, I am on my laptop way to much. Most of the time I’m sitting on my laptop, with my ipod beside me, and the TV is on. What the heck?!
2. Knit the yarn I’ve already bought instead of just buying more ‘cause it’s pretty. That’s self explanatory I think.
3. Be more willing to screw up aka take chances. With my knitting, with my writing. I need to just do it. I’m wasting too much time.

I know the last couple of entries have been cryptic and borderline dark. I want to let anyone who is reading this know that I am okay. It was one of those things were you’re kneeling on the bathroom floor crying out to God while the rest of the house is sleeping feeling so alone and so lost and knowing what to do. I’ve suffered with depression for as long as I can remember. I’ve been on and off medication and therapy for it for years. It’s been hard to admit that I have this problem and even harder to try to explain it to people. Some people really try to understand and others just don’t care to.

The past few weeks have been hard for me. It started out with me just not sleeping which I should have realized was a warning sign and then the paranoia started, someone is going to break in during the night I have to stay up, I can’t drive the car because I will crash it and hurt my children. On and on and on it's so tiring to be on edge all the time and feel so alone.

I finally felt compelled to do what I was afraid of doing and I told my husband what was going on. I told him I needed to talk to him alone and he sat awkwardly at the edge of our bed I sat down beside him and as I told him what was going on he just sat there looking confused and lost. I couldn’t hold back my tears I told him that if I started acting funny to please tell me, he said, “how will I know?” and I just told him he would. He sort of nodded and just stared off into space. This is not the first time he’s dealt with this we’ve been together for nearly a decade but I think he realized this time was different.

I felt such a weight lifted off of my after I told him and when I prayed last night and felt even lighter. Today I’m feeling much better. It's hard to deal with this I'm ashamed to admit it but I feel like I need to. I'm not the only one suffering with this illness.

I mentioned before that I hate it when people blog about a huge problem they are having and then by the next entry they say “Oh never mind things are perfect now!” and I’m not trying to do that I just have to share how much better I’m feeling today. That doesn’t mean that things will be okay tomorrow but today, right now in this moment, things are okay. It’s Saturday my wonderful husband is home with me and all of our children are being nice to one another it’s snowing lightly outside and we have nowhere to go.