I actually AM posting the photos I mentioned last night (this morning) when I said I would. Amazing how that works isn't it??? 8o)
I'm sending my laptop to work with Mike tomorrow, someone thinks they can fix it. Let us all cross our fingers. What would that mean? Well more blogging of course! I honestly can't explain WHY it is that I can't stand to sit at my desk for long anymore, but I just can't. Quite frankly, as much as I actually DO like to blog, share photos etc... I don't really want to get so comfortable at my desk again if that makes sense. If you know what our schedule/lives were like back in Texas, you can likely almost understand why I feel that way. I don't want to be chained to it like that ever again. Instead, I'd rather lay on my arse at night and do it!
I know I have mentioned a couple of things I meant to come back and elaborate on previously. Namely the two that continue to pop up in my head are about Co and myself. So, for Co it was regarding a sensitivity to the sun. Now I can't even remember what the exact name was that I diagnosed him with thanks to the help of a friend who sent me in the right direction since no Dr. would bother to take the time themselves. I think it was PMLE, but don't quote me, that might be some pre-menstrual distress syndrome or something instead. Basically, it can act sort of like a sun allergy, but it's really (obviously) not a true sun allergy. Those are EXTREMELY rare and well... uh kinda deadly and stuff. This is basically just a sensitivity, more so than others. Which on one hand you might find odd since he's actually rather dark complected. As it turns out, people of strong Native American background are more prone to this than very fair skinned people. Odd isn't it? At any rate, he blistered and scarred really badly last spring on his nose. Then he had what looked like baby acne on his nose for SEVERAL months, I asked several times to several doctors and they blew it off. Do they ever really even KNOW for sure that I don't have more degrees than them? I don't obviously, but do they dismiss people who spent insane amounts of time and money on degrees to end up as smart as me anyway as quickly as they do me? I don't know. At any rate, I'm done with that and next time, I'll just be a bitch b/c frankly I'm sick of that mess. If they can't think enough of me to validate my concerns, why do I care if they think I'm a bitch? Idiot...bitch, does it really matter? I think not.
As it came about again this year though, it was his ears. It's not an especially sunny day, it is not a day in the pool or anything like that. It's not even his entire body that has been exposed to the sun. It seems to sort of pick a spot and singe him. Poor little guy. It is pretty painful and takes awhile to heal. So his little ears blistered and swelled and were bright red and it really began to worry me. It is nearly a rash in a way I suppose. It got his ear lobes, and the outer edges, whatever those are called (yeah rock on with my genius). At any rate, it is basically something like he's just over-sensitive to the sun in the spring, when the UV is stronger, or he's not been exposed as much but you tend to be outside more er... something like that. It just worries me b/c of the "scarring" it seems to leave. Will he be more prone to skin cancers when he's older? Especially in the areas he's scarred so badly? So, I will admit I've not been the most proactive parent when it comes to sunblock, it's just not something I've ever really used much on myself, so I've had to grow into the obsessive usage of it. Sadly it took my baby burning really bad two years in a row to get that rolling. Now it's SPF 70 UVB/UVA whatchamacallit all the way. Cloud, sun, rain, snow...whatever, it's on.
So that is that.
For me, I mentioned awhile back how I was feeling better than I have in like EVER. True that. At that time I really really really was. Too bad it didn't last for eternity. Is that what everyone else feels like all the time or just those obnoxiously happy put together people that get on my nerves anyway? At any rate... this will likely be more long winded than I'd intended as usual. I've often joked about ADD and me. Why? Well, because it was rather fitting. There are, in hindsight, many many ways that this can be masked. For me, and for the most part my reasoning as to WHY i was this way was simply my "upbringing". It was up, down, happy, sad, okay, scary, worrisome, lonely, infuriating...I could obviously go on if I want to get past just one hour of my childhood. Regardless, there was no stability, no consistency in anything at all. I was either with my Mom, one set of my Grandparents, my Dad, my sister, friends, strangers, on my own...you name it. So even beyond just being with my Mom being a roller coaster ride a minute, living from day to day or week to week with someone different, regardless of how loving they are, it's just always something different. There was always some sort of drama, not necessarily in a bad way. Just always changes, ebb and flow. ALWAYS. Then I married someone with a drinking problem and a not so nice way of saying things...again a constant roller coaster ride. However, I kinda smoked a lot of pot at that time, so at least there was that and in hindsight yet again...there were the perks to that. I had my anal retentive desk at work that I KNEW, I mean I KNEW if anyone else in the world had sneezed in the direction of my stapler b/c it had been moved. I could grasp my artistic side a bit better and drew and wrote and painted and of course photographed a lot. I could spend hours at it. Then life changed drastically yet again. No more roller coaster, and no more pot. Hmmm.... so now I'm out on my own, left with myself and trying to figure out just what that means.
What do I do? I meet a great guy, who himself, is NOT a roller coaster. Far from it, but...well he is in the military so there's frankly no need for him to be, they take care of that for him. In very little time we'd met, dated, moved in, gotten engaged, married, had a baby and then another and moved to a new country. All the while he worked 2 jobs and I worked from home with my own business and two small children. I saw him perhaps 1 hour per day for lunch and on the weekends some. When he got home, I was already engrossed in my work and I would be up until 2-4AM and then pass out until the kids got me up at 6-8AM. On the weekends, I was out shooting. So you see, there has always been SOMETHING, keeping things hectic, out of whack, and me even more of a mess than I ought to be. I KNOW the organization is there somewhere. I KNOW that the anal retentive bitch don't touch my freaking stapler or I will staple your eyeballs to your toenails person is in there (I know which of you are laughing at that). However, it just cannot ever get out right. Try as I might. So that then lead to serious frustration. Which then leads to beating yourself up. A lot.
So. On with it? Sure. Obviously when Kade was born, life changed DRASTICALLY. People say that, but for me...well, I wasn't the old me anymore at all. Depressed? No. Not at all. Absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt insanely in love with a tubby little baby? Most definitely. However, I know now that it really should not have changed nearly every aspect of me. Of course the massive weight gain did a LOT to me b/c I am so sickly vain, but again... However, I was not depressed. I've hardly ever been depressed. I get grouchy, not weepy. I still have to get out of bed b/c the world would fall apart in it's own chaos without me keeping it in balance with my own donation of it. So, I rocked along, trying like hell to get "it" together but it just wasn't happening quite right. Yep, let Self 1 beat Self 2 to bits, I'm much harder on myself in my head than anyone else could ever be. I'm well aware of that, I won't even share the things I said to myself when I was working out at the gym! At any rate, we rocked along. When Cody came along though, I guess it was just too much. At the time Mike was gone for a couple of months and if anyone has more than one child, you just know how much more that 2nd one tosses into the mix. Okay so call me lame but if your kids are 3-4+ years apart, you might not count quite as much as someone who's still got one under 2 years and a newborn. ha! Not discounting you, but...it's perhaps a bit easier? Dunno, didn't have that going on and never will.
Anyway, Mike was gone, an almost 2 year old, a newborn and the mess that was me? Yikes. Weepy? Nope. Full of despair? Not at all. So again, depressed??? I wouldn't think so. It was tough, but I managed through it I guess. However, I just didn't' like me. I didn't like the way I reacted to things, I had too short of a temper where I'd get frustrated too easily and walk away for a moment. Which in itself was just as upsetting as the times I yelled. I HATE yelling. I am NOT a yeller and it bugs me. Then the concentration was soooo bad, it simply wasn't a comprehensible word for me anymore. So on and so forth. I was just getting more and more into a mess. I came across some pamphlets from when we brought Co home from the hospital and one was for post-partum depression. I was bored, I was reading through it. Well...some of that stuff did sound like me. However, again I just did not feel depressed. Keeping my history with my mother etc... in mind, the thought of talking to anyone about the possibility of depression let alone taking medication for it is simply the WORST thing for ME to have to do. I mulled it over for several days and finally decided that, as much as I had tried, I had tried wholeheartedly to quit pussing out and getting over it. However it was not working. I love my kids more than my own life and quite frankly, what has always hurt most and I've found so aggravating about my own mother is that she did not care for us enough, to simply say this is how I feel and I need help. She couldn't put herself aside enough to get honest help when something was so definitely wrong. So I put my brave hat on and visited with my doctor. However, I did not go there indefinitely seeking out help for post partum depression. I actually initially asked about ADD since I had so very very many symptoms of it. He asked me a few questions regarding school when I was a kid, which...for me, really are not a fair assessment. He decided that we would try a medication that fit my own issues and call it post partum depression and see where it got us from there. So I began taking it and honestly, I found that in a very very short time, apparently I'd had something like that since I'd had Kade at the least b/c I had not felt so much like myself since the day I walked into the hospital to have him! It was wonderful!
However, well...I suck at remembering stuff you see. Taking a pill everyday? Not so much. So as much as I started missing them, I remembered them and before long I'd quit. I was off and on them a few times over the next couple of years but still convinced that ADD had to fall in here somewhere.
Cutting to the chase, I won't go off on my rant about the lack of brain cells when it comes to shipping someone overseas and then not offering the anti-depressant they are taking at the pharmacy on base and it's not available in the whole damn country. I'll keep that one off on the back burner still. So, they did not have my medication here. Hard way to find out when you RUN OUT. So they gave me the same kind, but in a different release. Uh...but take it the same as the other? Let me just say that SCREW UP YOUR FREAKING CHEMISTRY is a bit of an understatement. It DID make me that nutty person I imagined when I went in initially. Which then WAS depressing b/c all sorts of crap goes through your head, am I really off? Like REALLY???? Okay well that might sound sort of mean to others that do take anti-depressants, but...unless you had my mother, you can't understand the depth of those fears. So, this seems drawn out? Well you should've been LIVING it or worse yet...living WITH me. It was awful, awful, AWFUL and I'm still extremely bitter about the whole situation. I am sure you can't tell right? So, now that I"m all jacked up and mental and I've now done my homework and researched it like no one else bothered to do, you know those folks that are RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR HEALTH CARE should've, I'm pissed the hell off too. So I go in and talk to my dr. and discuss my options, along with the fact that I would like to make a formal complaint. Not necessarily on my behalf really, but honestly, I came over here in fabulous spirits. Feeling great! Excited and looking forward to everything, and even on the backside, if I did not have those pills, I still wasn't going to completely flip out, I just wouldn't have had it quite as "together" as I did. So, in all honestly, let us imagine someone that TRULY, in all seriousness NEEDS that to sustain that very delicate balance. I mean, thank God I wasn't standing on the roof while calling in a refill for a drug they didn't' even carry here? See what I mean?
At any rate, he gave me the run down of my options and none were really all that appealing. I had to choose one and it still took me a month or so to come to terms with it and just do it. That was going to see a...a....(oh it's STILL so hard for me to say it or type it) psychiatrist. However, the point of this was simply to re-evaluate my need for this medication or if something else might suffice that they carried. Yeah, way to cover your asses. Thanks. At any rate, upon talking to my personal doctor some more, we were also going to delve further into the ADD thing.
I was so freaked out about going to a dr. with such a title. I mean really, really freaked out about it. ME? I don't go to therapists, or psychologists or psychiatrists?!?! I can't have that on my records! The stigma that goes with that? (By the way, just so you know it's an ENORMOUS step to even admit this stuff to many folks, much less on a blog that anyone and their dog can read. You can pat me on the back next time you see me).
At any rate, he asked me at our first visit what I felt was more pressing, depression or pin-pointing what I felt to be ADD? Well, I don't think I'd feel all freaked out, overwhelmed and unable to accomplish simple feats if I had my brain together, which in turn could cause something similar to depression which turned into insane frustration (i.e. super bitch) for me. So, again, I forewent the "depression" bit that I just wasn't feeling and we got to work on the ADD bit. I continually say ADD rather than ADHD, even though the official diagnosis reads ADHD, this girl ain't got an ounce of "H" in her body, trust me.
So I mentioned that my previous dr. back home and discussed it with me shortly after having Cody and he ruled it out due to me doing well in school when I was younger. Well...that's not a very fair way to put it as I mentioned.
So this dr. now put it to me in a different perspective. It was really hard to remember how I might've been when I was 7 since it was hard to remember what I was doing at 7 that MORNING, much less that many years ago. HOwever, as he continued asking the questions I think I could give a fairly accurate answer. Did I get in trouble in school when I was little? Well, not much that I remember. However, for an abused child, school is often the safe-haven. The place that you seek and can often only receive praise and feel safe. So, quite frankly, I'd deduce that I actually sought approval by behaving and going above and beyond when I was little. I know anyone that knew me in Jr. High or High School is spitting a drink on their screen this very moment. We're talking pre-puberty okay folks? (and that hit really early for me too). ha!
So I did not really get in trouble per se, I did daydream A LOT. I was usually in some other world and the only other thing that really stuck out in my mind was that ONE teacher who was a face forward, feet flat on the floor person that I DID get in trouble with continually b/c that is simply impossible for me to do. As I type this now I've got one leg rested up on my desk and the other one curled up under me and I'm sure I've re-adjusted that 15 times in the past half hour.
Then he began to give me examples. "At this age, did you do this, this, this or this?" I'd pick all 4. Nearly every time. What would my teachers have said, what would my parents have said...oh but wait... yeah. So, taking into consideration that I was PAINFULLY shy as a small child, abused and lived in another world half the time, yet made straight A's - well it got lost somewhere. You could dismiss me being weird about stuff, I even decided that I ate more at the beginning of the month and then had no appetite hardly at all toward the end of the month many years ago when I was trying so desperately to gain weight b/c my mother would get paid once a month so we ate so well at the beginning and then starved the rest of the month. I mean, you can really spend a lot of time thinking about stuff and usually find some off the wall reason for it.
School? Well, when I did go, I made good grades. When I wanted to. When I showed up and bothered to do the work, I passed with an A every time. *IF* I tried. IF being the magic word here. Why? School isn't that hard for me. I'm a read the bold print, side print and make an A kind of gal. Oh but can you imagine what classes that didn't work so well in? Yep. Math and crap like that. So, it was quick and easy to read that stuff that they made leap out at you, common sense and a multi-faceted brain that can half way listen to a teacher talk and write notes to your friends and think about what to do on Saturday night all at once had me passing w/out a second thought if I took the initiative to do so. So again... that was not necessarily the proper way to evaluate ME for it.
So, with a qualified psychiatrist AND numerous quizzes on google. It turned out to be pretty easy to see me making the grade again. VERY high on the ol' ADHD scale. Then came the drugs. That took a bit to get just right but OH MY GOSH, when we got the dosage right I swear. I felt so much more like ME than I had in I can't even imagine how long, probably EVER, probably the ME I'd yet to meet. I felt wonderful. It was so great, I was near tears several times b/c it had been so long in coming!
That went on for about a month. Then, out of nowhere the bottom completely fell out. I still can't really tell what it was about, why or anything. I, again, was not depressed but I was bitchy, bitchy, bitchy and it would NOT go away. I can be grouchy for a day or something, but I'm not that way EVERY SINGLE DAY. Never. PMS, okay I get a couple days for that, but it's just not like that. It was like a MONSTER pms that lasted a whole month. So, not only was it bad enough just to feel so grouchy and know you are making everyone around you miserable, but to have felt SO good and then just lose it with the snap of a finger, was all the more devastating.
Again, I can't really say what it was. I called in the dr. and moved an appt up sooner and we discussed it and maybe it can somewhat go back to, okay I feel better now...but life is so.... well I don't want to say stagnant because that sounds bad, but I don't mean it that way. Just, it's just there. It's just flowing. There's nothing major going on. I don't have all these crazy wild commitments and there's not some huge enormous thing looming like always. The Dr. had warned me that he saw in me, a danger to feel better and start over-committing myself. I promised I would not do that though b/c I'd done that for so long and I was just too tired and frankly on my last year with my boys being at home with me...I wasn't going to put them aside any longer for people that honestly rarely took the time to notice that you were going out of your way for them anyway. And I did not. AND I will not still. I've gotten so good at No.
Well, as it figures, a few visits with a psychiatrist and I scared him all the way back to the states! Okay but really, he was going back stateside so I was then referred to a new psychologist since we had the chemical part taken care of. I've met with him twice and I really do like him. I beat myself up all the time about my inadequacies as a Mother and how I feel that I fail my kids due to my screw ups. Kade starts school in the fall and I WILL be a good school Mom. Not the one that everyone is looking at thinking, " that poor Kade, his Mom is such a flake." I REFUSE to do that to them. I will have their cupcakes made well ahead of time, their supplies bought before they are needed, time set aside for special projects, we will not be late etc... etc... etc... all those things I always do. I don't want to do it anymore. Not even necessarily for me, but for the way it affects them and I have to do it. I HAVE to do it for them if nothing else in the world. I will.
So...as quickly as it came, the perpetual grouch moved on and I'm on a pretty even keel now. I'm not overly HAPPY HAPPY! JOY JOY!!! Bouncing all around, that'd even get on my own nerves you know. I'm just good. It's the best I can say. I feel more normal.
So the work we are doing, I kinda feel like I am going to class for "how every other person in the world lives" or something. He's helping me get that jumble on track now. My brain is so much quieter, I can find the focus. I can even hold conversations now without losing myself in mid-sentence or worse yet...mid-word. It really happened a lot and I can't imagine how stupid many people thought I was. I wouldn't blame them to be honest b/c I KNOW it was so bad. I can lay down in bed at night and go to sleep (tis another reason you see so much less blogging from me). In so many ways, it's truly astounding and I'd honestly have to sit back and write down things as I noticed them to really say how many things have changed already.
HOwever, there is much work to do now, for now I've got this mess at my feet and I have to figure out how to clean it up and put it where it goes instead of stuffing it all in the tiniest closet for it only to knock the door open and fall out all over again.
I giggle at my "homework" too. I had to go buy a dry erase board. I have to put it up where I will see it. I have to make sure I LOOK at it, rather than looking past it like I"m sure I will do after a week or so. I have to actually mark stuff off of it. I can do it. That is step one.
That and trying to help the boys, by helping myself. Mike and I setting rules that we BOTH have to stick to for the boys. We simply have not really seen eye to eye on much when it comes to discipline and well, with the way things were for so long, it just didn't make the top of the priority list sadly. Just trudging through trying to do the most basic of things was the best that could be mustered. That's done. Gone.
So trying to get the boys in order and starting to stick to my brain training as I call it. We're on the road to awesomeness.
So. That's that.
So if you read/ or read (see how can I really type that to mean both?) my mention of pills and alcohol, that's it. Just ADHD meds. Nothing to keep the voices at bay. I mean, beyond my own shouting at me and calling me names, and all my other voices in the background talking about pink ponies and that new TV and needing to pick the dead weeds out of the rocks up front, or how I should really write it down next time I remember the meaning of life etc... It just cut THOSE voices out, but they were all mine, so I don't think that is the bad kind. I hope...
At any rate. That is that. I still feel better than I have in MANY years if not maybe better because I feel now, that I can really actually accomplish these things. I hope that someday, in the near future, I will have a neat tidy home where everything has a specific place and reason for being there. where my computers are neatly organized. Where dinner is most definitely ALWAYS at 6:30PM unless it is gameday or some special event. Where I never forgot the boys lunch or cupcakes for the class party. Where there's not a never-ending list of "to-do's" that stay for months at a time. I've got a LOT of catching up to do, oh man if you could all SEE this mess that is my photo files, anyone with any weaker constitutions would likely croak in an instant. It will get done. Oh, and my kids WILL have very detailed scrapbooks of their childhood. That only seemed like a pathetic distant dream, but I WILL make it happen.
There's that old Aimee determination I remember from days gone by. It WILL. Not, I will TRY.
So. There.
Your novel for the week.
Oh yeah, but apparently I am still unable to get my thoughts out in quick undescript ways. That will likely never change unfortunately. Sorry for that!
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