Sometimes I wonder if I just wasn't meant to make it through all this. I was built with cracks, sharp edges, chipped corners, and weak glue. And the showers have been wearing down all that glue.
I don't know if I am strong enough to get through this. There are a lot of times I think I really may not.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Boom!
Wondering on what day, if ever, I will know that I am no longer a ticking time bomb. Will it be when I give up? Or when I overcome?
Friday, June 20, 2014
Down The Rabbit Hole
It has been a difficult year. Not necessarily a bad year. It has had some really really really bad parts. But those have often been counter-balanced by good parts. Here's where I'm at now: we are moving back to CO... which I have wanted with all my heart for the last 8 or so years. So this is wonderful. And oh my gosh so freaking hard. Our house finally hit the market this morning, and we have already had 4 showings.
In the midst of all of this I feel like I am losing my mind. My grip on reality. My emotions. My ability to relate to people. The marriage went through some very hard times. I chose to stick it out again. One day at a time. I lost my best friend because she didn't want to stick around for the drama. And then when she left I just couldn't let it go. I made an ass of myself. And I have been spiraling ever since. I don't feel like that was the catalyst... maybe just the thing that made it show. That brought my crazy into the light. It didn't create it.
Last night I chose to smoke with Dan which was a terrible. idea. I almost never do it, but I have been so insanely stressed, busy, and upset that I felt it would be helpful. The first time it was. The second time it was. Last night it was like the walls I have been using to hold myself up just crumbled away and left me high, spinning, and dropping down into the despair I fight so hard to stay out of. Suddenly all of the pain and regret and sorrow I have held in my heart was stripped bare, raw nerves exposed, and I felt like Alice falling down into the to rabbit hole. I'm glad that Dan was there to make me stand up and helped bring me back to my senses a bit. But that weight I felt. The guilt. The sorrow. The shame. Was so heavy it will not soon leave my heart or mind. It made for a very heavy day.
I've been analyzing a lot, the way in which I process emotion, partly because the intensity of my emotions is curious, but also because Sara, and sometimes Gabriel seem to be showing that same searing intensity. I believe it is likely related to ADD. To start, I will say that through insecurity, or mental illness, I often don't actually connect with my emotions. I know that sounds impossible, but let me explain. When I feel, I feel super intensely... and yet there is this part of my brain that sits back analyzing my responses. Analyzing the validity of my feelings. Observing and carefully crafting interactions with people in which my emotions or emotional state is made known to someone around me. It begins to feel like I am faking the emotion, so I step back, re-evaluate the facts, try to compare them against m reaction, and convince myself that I am being genuine, but I A) am too obsessed with how others percieve me - which ironically often backfires. and B) I'm not really normal.
So I read an article about ADHD and emotion, and something called flooding. Where someone with ADHD is capable of feeling something, but not without his or her whole brain latching onto that feeling and going full boar with it. That sounds just like me. And just like Gabriel, and possibly even Sara. Here's what my brain seems to do. Picture a circle of Trumpet players, all facing outward and waiting. When emotional stimulus happens its like a Bingo Ball popping into the middle of the trumpets, objectively identifying the emotion that should be felt. "Cue Angry." And suddenly all of the trumpets take their cue and play angry emotion as loud as they can, no filter, no volume control, no further analysis of the situation.
I am too tired to type more.
I just want to say that if I am going to lose my mind, as I seem to be doing, it would be so much nicer if I could be oblivious to losing it. Being acutely aware of my descent into insanity is freaking - excruciating.
In the midst of all of this I feel like I am losing my mind. My grip on reality. My emotions. My ability to relate to people. The marriage went through some very hard times. I chose to stick it out again. One day at a time. I lost my best friend because she didn't want to stick around for the drama. And then when she left I just couldn't let it go. I made an ass of myself. And I have been spiraling ever since. I don't feel like that was the catalyst... maybe just the thing that made it show. That brought my crazy into the light. It didn't create it.
Last night I chose to smoke with Dan which was a terrible. idea. I almost never do it, but I have been so insanely stressed, busy, and upset that I felt it would be helpful. The first time it was. The second time it was. Last night it was like the walls I have been using to hold myself up just crumbled away and left me high, spinning, and dropping down into the despair I fight so hard to stay out of. Suddenly all of the pain and regret and sorrow I have held in my heart was stripped bare, raw nerves exposed, and I felt like Alice falling down into the to rabbit hole. I'm glad that Dan was there to make me stand up and helped bring me back to my senses a bit. But that weight I felt. The guilt. The sorrow. The shame. Was so heavy it will not soon leave my heart or mind. It made for a very heavy day.
I've been analyzing a lot, the way in which I process emotion, partly because the intensity of my emotions is curious, but also because Sara, and sometimes Gabriel seem to be showing that same searing intensity. I believe it is likely related to ADD. To start, I will say that through insecurity, or mental illness, I often don't actually connect with my emotions. I know that sounds impossible, but let me explain. When I feel, I feel super intensely... and yet there is this part of my brain that sits back analyzing my responses. Analyzing the validity of my feelings. Observing and carefully crafting interactions with people in which my emotions or emotional state is made known to someone around me. It begins to feel like I am faking the emotion, so I step back, re-evaluate the facts, try to compare them against m reaction, and convince myself that I am being genuine, but I A) am too obsessed with how others percieve me - which ironically often backfires. and B) I'm not really normal.
So I read an article about ADHD and emotion, and something called flooding. Where someone with ADHD is capable of feeling something, but not without his or her whole brain latching onto that feeling and going full boar with it. That sounds just like me. And just like Gabriel, and possibly even Sara. Here's what my brain seems to do. Picture a circle of Trumpet players, all facing outward and waiting. When emotional stimulus happens its like a Bingo Ball popping into the middle of the trumpets, objectively identifying the emotion that should be felt. "Cue Angry." And suddenly all of the trumpets take their cue and play angry emotion as loud as they can, no filter, no volume control, no further analysis of the situation.
I am too tired to type more.
I just want to say that if I am going to lose my mind, as I seem to be doing, it would be so much nicer if I could be oblivious to losing it. Being acutely aware of my descent into insanity is freaking - excruciating.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
To say I've been stuck between a rock and a hard place for the last few months would be an understatement. I've already blogged about some of this earlier, and I really don't need to be repetitive, but I'm in a rut. Which seems to be getting deeper, and also lonelier.
When you have depression, there are those who encourage, which is wonderful and needed. Those who tell you to be and think more positive and positive change will follow. They are somewhat right, and should continue their reminders. But sometimes in their attempts to help they grow weary. They don't understand that the feelings of despair and deep down brokenness can't often be switched off or on like a 100 watt light bulb, eradicating all sign of darkness. Depression is a puzzle, and also a winding stairway in an Escher-esque room that doesn't always make clear whether you are on an upward or a downward path. Often a person with depression gets comfortable in their direction, steps are firm, life seems to work, all is calm. Sometimes they have been taking, by virtue of grace or chance, all the right steps, and can thank the stars and God that the sunlight is sure to shine a little longer.
Sometimes with sure or unsure steps a person with depression creeps slowly and cautiously, trying to enjoy the light they have, when suddenly either the stairway flips and they find themselves upside down and in the dark again due to unforeseen circumstances, combined with an inhibited ability to deal with upset on the fly. And sometimes, they simply come to realize that gradually the dark has crept in little by little, step by step, unnoticed until it nearly envelops the world around.
I have found myself in the blackness in each of these ways. And have always managed to find my way back. The thing, though, that is hard to understand for someone on the outside, is that often getting back into daylight is a little more complicated than it might seem. Maybe complicated isn't the right word. What I mean to say, is that it is a slower journey back to the light than it is for most. There is most certainly a way out. There always is. The sun is always there waiting patiently, but it is so much harder for people to wait.
To find the way out of the haze and darkness of depression, one must first find a reason. Motivation is critical. And next come tentative steps in various directions testing the levels of light. Am I closer now? Further? And once a clear path is found, there is the hike back up through the layers. This can be rather quick, or awfully slow depending on the complexity of the "issue." Often times there doesn't even seem to be a real issue or root cause, making it harder to ascend quickly. But given time and support, a person who struggles with depression can find their way out of these dark pits that regularly loom, and live a relatively normal existence.
The hard part for me though, is when I find myself in a particularly dark and sticky pit, with an abnormally windy path out. Friends begin to give up. To walk away from the negativity... and heck, I'd probably do the same. I feel the silent label of negativity stamped accross my head and across everything I say and do. I fight it, only to find it harder and harder to fight. Suddenly I find that I am too much for any of my loved ones. Too much for my friends to bear. They may still wear the facade of friendship, but I learn one by one that they can't take my confidences anymore. You begin to meet new people, your church, for example, and realize that your life is too messy to bring to them. And up go the walls. Someone will breach them, because many church people are well intentioned, wanting to get to know the people they see there, and then fear sets in and you notice you have begun setting up an escape plan. And then you suddenly see that you have been here before. This is a pattern you are repeating once again... Too much.
I felt this way today. Too much. At the edge of several friendships that are more behind me than anything else. A husband who has his hands full just dealing with my moods and my inability to manage our house and kids. A church full of people who I cannot let into the darkness, because I know I will never be able to escape it in their eyes once they see it. I felt sad and beaten down. My kids were tired and bored and testy. Needing more but not knowing what they need... and I know that what they need is more of me, as I try not to pull away.
Then there was the tantrum. An hour and fifteen minutes of screaming. I screamed back. I cried, I begged, I had some terrible parenting moments in that hour and a half. Something about not being able to console my child cuts me as deep as any other wound could. And then I make it worse by screaming back. I'm tempted to say "it was only once," but once is too much. There is no "only." The fit calmed and we went about our evening of Bible Camp uneventfully. And then there were fits over bedtime.
This time I was calm and cool, and resolved. My voice didn't raise, my stance was steady, but I still felt that something was broken. Had been ruined. A vase somewhere in that little heart was cracked or crushed. But when I finally kept my promise to come back in her room if she calmed herself, I reached down to kiss her cheek and she said the most unexpected thing ever. "I'll never give up on you mama." And I sobbed. She kissed my cheek and wiped away my tears.
In that moment, I knew that she was right. She never would. And I found a glimmer of hope, that maybe just maybe I really can trust God to make up for my mistakes. And maybe I can find a way to be a better me. Because I really don't want to let my sweet angel daughter down. I want to give her something to believe it. Something other than a legacy of tears. Hers and mine both.
When you have depression, there are those who encourage, which is wonderful and needed. Those who tell you to be and think more positive and positive change will follow. They are somewhat right, and should continue their reminders. But sometimes in their attempts to help they grow weary. They don't understand that the feelings of despair and deep down brokenness can't often be switched off or on like a 100 watt light bulb, eradicating all sign of darkness. Depression is a puzzle, and also a winding stairway in an Escher-esque room that doesn't always make clear whether you are on an upward or a downward path. Often a person with depression gets comfortable in their direction, steps are firm, life seems to work, all is calm. Sometimes they have been taking, by virtue of grace or chance, all the right steps, and can thank the stars and God that the sunlight is sure to shine a little longer.
Sometimes with sure or unsure steps a person with depression creeps slowly and cautiously, trying to enjoy the light they have, when suddenly either the stairway flips and they find themselves upside down and in the dark again due to unforeseen circumstances, combined with an inhibited ability to deal with upset on the fly. And sometimes, they simply come to realize that gradually the dark has crept in little by little, step by step, unnoticed until it nearly envelops the world around.
I have found myself in the blackness in each of these ways. And have always managed to find my way back. The thing, though, that is hard to understand for someone on the outside, is that often getting back into daylight is a little more complicated than it might seem. Maybe complicated isn't the right word. What I mean to say, is that it is a slower journey back to the light than it is for most. There is most certainly a way out. There always is. The sun is always there waiting patiently, but it is so much harder for people to wait.
To find the way out of the haze and darkness of depression, one must first find a reason. Motivation is critical. And next come tentative steps in various directions testing the levels of light. Am I closer now? Further? And once a clear path is found, there is the hike back up through the layers. This can be rather quick, or awfully slow depending on the complexity of the "issue." Often times there doesn't even seem to be a real issue or root cause, making it harder to ascend quickly. But given time and support, a person who struggles with depression can find their way out of these dark pits that regularly loom, and live a relatively normal existence.
The hard part for me though, is when I find myself in a particularly dark and sticky pit, with an abnormally windy path out. Friends begin to give up. To walk away from the negativity... and heck, I'd probably do the same. I feel the silent label of negativity stamped accross my head and across everything I say and do. I fight it, only to find it harder and harder to fight. Suddenly I find that I am too much for any of my loved ones. Too much for my friends to bear. They may still wear the facade of friendship, but I learn one by one that they can't take my confidences anymore. You begin to meet new people, your church, for example, and realize that your life is too messy to bring to them. And up go the walls. Someone will breach them, because many church people are well intentioned, wanting to get to know the people they see there, and then fear sets in and you notice you have begun setting up an escape plan. And then you suddenly see that you have been here before. This is a pattern you are repeating once again... Too much.
I felt this way today. Too much. At the edge of several friendships that are more behind me than anything else. A husband who has his hands full just dealing with my moods and my inability to manage our house and kids. A church full of people who I cannot let into the darkness, because I know I will never be able to escape it in their eyes once they see it. I felt sad and beaten down. My kids were tired and bored and testy. Needing more but not knowing what they need... and I know that what they need is more of me, as I try not to pull away.
Then there was the tantrum. An hour and fifteen minutes of screaming. I screamed back. I cried, I begged, I had some terrible parenting moments in that hour and a half. Something about not being able to console my child cuts me as deep as any other wound could. And then I make it worse by screaming back. I'm tempted to say "it was only once," but once is too much. There is no "only." The fit calmed and we went about our evening of Bible Camp uneventfully. And then there were fits over bedtime.
This time I was calm and cool, and resolved. My voice didn't raise, my stance was steady, but I still felt that something was broken. Had been ruined. A vase somewhere in that little heart was cracked or crushed. But when I finally kept my promise to come back in her room if she calmed herself, I reached down to kiss her cheek and she said the most unexpected thing ever. "I'll never give up on you mama." And I sobbed. She kissed my cheek and wiped away my tears.
In that moment, I knew that she was right. She never would. And I found a glimmer of hope, that maybe just maybe I really can trust God to make up for my mistakes. And maybe I can find a way to be a better me. Because I really don't want to let my sweet angel daughter down. I want to give her something to believe it. Something other than a legacy of tears. Hers and mine both.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Batcave Crafting
A few years ago my dad build a two story indoor fort in our playroom which we call the "Batcave." It has a ladder, a ramp with climbing "stones," and a carpeted upper level. The kids have loved and used it literally every day of the last few years. They still play there daily and make forts, houses, schools, ships, stages, etc out of it, but as they have (suddenly???) reached the ages of reading etc, I decided it was time to make at least the lower level into a sort of reading area - which of course requires some cushions!
We have a bazillion uncovered pillows stuffed in closets, so I dragged them out, had each kid choose one, and then drug my flannel and minky fabric stash out to let them sift through. I worked with each kiddo to pick out their favorite combination of fabric and whipped all three up in a day! Here are some pictures of the final products and my little showoffs making use of them... and pretending to sleep. :) Note that Maddox could not be persuaded to be a part of these pictures ;0).
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We have a bazillion uncovered pillows stuffed in closets, so I dragged them out, had each kid choose one, and then drug my flannel and minky fabric stash out to let them sift through. I worked with each kiddo to pick out their favorite combination of fabric and whipped all three up in a day! Here are some pictures of the final products and my little showoffs making use of them... and pretending to sleep. :) Note that Maddox could not be persuaded to be a part of these pictures ;0).
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Saturday, June 14, 2014
Bye Bye Facebook
As mentioned before, I recently dumped my mistress (mister???). Its name was Facebook. And while I will still occasionally be online for this or that reason, I have decided to try to keep it out of my life as much as possible... which leaves my poor mama kindof high and dry when it comes to pictures of the kiddos. Plus I need somewhere to post the funny things my kids say and do... which is why I'm here!! This summer I have a variety of adventures and activities planned for us, and I hope to snap pics along the way, and at least once a week visit here to share the highlights and lowlights, leaving me a bit more hands-free to enjoy my family!
Our first adventure this last week was an attempt at Geocaching. And while we did not in fact find a cache, I refuse to call it a complete failure.
After which, the kiddos were beyond tired... my timing may have left a lot to be desired. But we did it! I awarded Maddox the Super-Trooper award for keeping up and walking the whole way without needing to be carried, and without complaining. The other two both needed to be carried a bit, and did quite a lot of complaining lol. There were definitely some kinks to work out, but I think we will definitely try it again sometime!
This post is already getting long, so I'll post more tomorrow if I can!
Our first adventure this last week was an attempt at Geocaching. And while we did not in fact find a cache, I refuse to call it a complete failure.
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| We got out in the sun together |
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| Saw beautiful horses |
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| Got some good excercize |
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| Talked about and touched moss on a tree |
 | |
| Took lots of pictures, learned about latitude and longitude |
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| Found a playground |
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| A big playground |
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| And laughed and giggled! |
This post is already getting long, so I'll post more tomorrow if I can!
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
A New Adventure
Today I am saying goodbye to Facebook for awhile, and hello to my family! Hello to living in the present, and loving what it I have! Because I have SO MUCH to love and be thankful for. It is the second day of summer, and I hope to fill each day with adventure, family time, and lots of love for my kiddos. I hope to check back in here regularly and post pictures and updates of our adventures!!
Today we are beginning our exploration into the world of Geocaching. This is something I have wanted to try for some time. I finally showed the kids a fun video about it, and they are excited too!!
sara who just typed her own name is excited too!
Today we are beginning our exploration into the world of Geocaching. This is something I have wanted to try for some time. I finally showed the kids a fun video about it, and they are excited too!!
sara who just typed her own name is excited too!
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