Little Brother

Sometimes it's rough being the little brother.

And yes, my windows are filthy.  Don't judge.

Library

Sam and Sariah and I have been spending a lot of time at the library.  It's one of my favorite places to be, and I'm pleased to say it's one of their favorites, too.  Sam, especially, loves it.  He was thrilled to go to baby story time, and is especially happy now that he can pull up on things so he can reach the trains (not the cars! and not the beads!!).  It makes me smile.

Happy Birthday, Caleb!

I had to send my camera in to be repaired at Nikon.  I'm really missing it.  My phone photos will have to do for now.

I can't believe my firstborn son is 10 already.  It's crazy.

He got a new bike for his birthday (now he can stop riding mine ... because I ride mine ALL the time) and a pink shirt (it's currently his favorite color).

Why I Tell

Several people have asked me why I am so open about my mental illness.  Some people ask me out of genuine curiosity.  Some ask me for my own protection.  Some don't ask at all; they just look at me funny.  You know, like I'm ... crazy.

When we first had a name for what was going on (the big D, Depression), I did not want to tell people for several reasons.  One, there is still a stigma out there that people with mental illnesses are whack jobs.  Two, my very own brain had betrayed me by failing to work the way it should.  I wanted to be happy, but my traitor brain chemicals prevented me from doing so, no matter how flippin' hard I tried.  And believe me, I tried.  What a miserable, imperfect failure I was, and I didn't need people knowing the extent of that.  And three, taking head meds is "bad."  Bad, bad, bad.  Meds are even worse than having a therapist/shrink/whatever.  You don't need medicine to snap out of it and choose to be happy.  Get your chin up, your head outta the sand, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, suck it up, everybody's gotta deal with it.  Read your scriptures and pray; that'll heal you.  Or so "They" say, on and on and on.  Just imagine if you had a heart attack or an asthma attack, and as you were gasping for breath, "They" told you to suck it up and will it away!  Gee, that sure is helpful.  Not.  I didn't want to go in for that sort of punishment, especially since I was already pretty good at berating myself for things I couldn't control.

However, the longer I stayed on my meds, the more I realized how sick I had actually been.  No, I sure didn't think, "I want to kill myself."  But I did think, "My kids would be better off without me."  I wasn't as severely ill as some people can be; I still got out of bed everyday and fed myself and my kids.  That was probably all I did, but I did do that.  I cried all the time.  And when I got angry, I felt like a blood vessel in my head was going to burst.  Or 9 or 10.  If I were my husband (which, fortunately for me, I am not), I would have divorced me.  I know my children avoided me at times, and they were far too young to be avoiding their mommy.

It was hell on earth.  My own personal hell that spread out and cast shadows on everyone around me.  And I didn't even know I was in it, and that everyone else dear to me was in it with me.

So, when I began taking medication and started to step back into the light, it felt so wonderful and warm and beautiful.  I felt so loved.  That's when I realized that Heavenly Father had certainly heard my prayers and answered them ... it just took me awhile to figure out what the answer was.  My medicine is my miracle.  I don't know that medicine is for everyone, but it's what works for me and my family.  Over time, I have added in other elements, ranging from supplements to managing my personal habits.  The most important thing is that I have sought treatment and healing, and have been able to reclaim my life the way I want to live it: joyfully.

No one should walk through that valley and feel so very, very alone.  It's lonely to feel hopeless and helpless. It's distressing disturbing despairing devastating to know at some level that you are the missing piece of the puzzle, and you have no idea how to put it back because you have no idea where to find yourself.  Nobody should walk that road alone.

I can't fix anybody else's head, heart, or mind.  But I can be that little light along the way so that even just one Somebody Very Important knows that someone else has been there, too, and has emerged, and is making a go of it.  It's a fleeting little piece of hope to that Somebody Very Important, but it might be the only hope they have, especially when they are too despondent and too heavy-laden to just keep trying in the face of unyielding darkness.

And the funny thing is, you never know who needs that little piece of hope.  When I first started telling people, many of them would say something along the lines of, "But you are so happy!  You never seemed bad.  I would have never guessed."  So many people with depression have such a good "company face" that you would never guess.  When my cousin's husband killed himself, nobody would have ever guessed.

That's why I tell people I have a mental illness, and it's called depression.  You never know.  You might never guess.

And it may be that my telling the entire world will only help one person, but that's enough for me to give up some selfish pride.  Everybody needs a little light somewhere along the way.  I'm not going to withhold that from that one Somebody Very Important who needs it so desperately.

Spring Fever, Tracky Style

It's spring, officially and in fact (for the most part).  My daffodils are blooming, and they make me smile every day.  We can go outside without an extra layer.  The kids come in after hours playing, and they smell like sunshine.  We can open the windows in the bedroom at night when we sleep, which is my favorite way to sleep. I love spring.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I hate spring.  I have my own personal brand of spring fever, and it makes me crazy (certifiably so).  For whatever "freak of nature" reason, my depression flares up pretty good in the spring.  See, most people who have seasonal bouts with depression have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which essentially means that in the fall/winter when the light fades and the temperatures go down, depression rears its ugly head.  Sometimes light therapy is used to treat SAD.  And when things warm up, and the sun starts coming around more, they get better.

But me?  I didn't happen to wind up with something so predictably normal.  Oh no!  When spring comes around here, I get spring fever.  But it's not the get-up-and-get-moving-go-outside kind.  It's the kind where I want to crawl in bed and hibernate.  What am I supposed to do about that?  Get more sun?  I put it on my list every year when the time changes, but funny, it doesn't help.

It took my husband and me many years to figure out that I have a flare up of my depression every spring.  I've spent the last few years trying to figure out why it happens.  Sometimes I think it's allergies.  I don't have a lot of allergies, but they do flare up occasionally, particularly in the spring (it's the darn trees that I think are so beautiful).  I do try to take allergy medicine in the spring months for this reason.  ...Or maybe since I've had all my babies in the spring, my body has just decided it's 7-9 months pregnant come March and should act appropriately--I mean, what gonna-pop-any-day-mama isn't irritable and moody, right?  ...Or maybe my kids' activity levels go up and it wears me out.  ...Or maybe it's all 3.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

The fact remains that I still have to cope with it, because I haven't figured out how to prevent it (and apparently the experts haven't either, according to the Mayo Clinic).  Because my depression is generally so well controlled throughout the year, I have developed a tendency to forget how bad it was during those 5+ untreated, unmedicated years of depression.  But in the spring, I remember.

• I remember how grumpy it makes me to be grumpy.
• I remember how little, irrelevant, minuscule things can make me cry, and I remember how deeply I am capable of feeling truly sad things.
• I remember what it's like to wake up worrying and not be able to go back to sleep.  Even when life is good, like it is now.
• I remember how spilled milk can become a reason for everyone in the household to cry.  Mainly because Mom loses her cool.  Over.  Spilled.  Milk.
• I remember what it's like to be constantly irritable, and not really know what it is that's so irritating.
• I remember what it's like to want to be a good mother, but to put the effort in feels like I'm carrying around the weight of the world on my shoulders, and what it's like to feel like a miserable failure at being a mother, even as I put a healthy dinner on the table and read bedtime stories.
• I remember what it's like to wonder if there's light at the end of the tunnel.  How I ever made it through those years when I didn't know there was light, I will never know.  It's hard enough now, when I can tell myself repeatedly that "this, too, shall pass--in June, in June, in June!"
• I remember what it's like to pray, and wonder if anyone is really listening, or if I'll ever feel the Spirit again.

It's a small taste of what those 5 years were like.  It's not fun.  But it's so much easier than those dark years when we didn't know what was going on, or how to handle it, or if anything would ever be better again.  And I am so grateful, not only for the things and the people that pulled me out, but for the experience itself.  It's kind of like tasting the bitter so that you can know the sweet.  It makes my babies' big moments sweeter, and my husband's patient kindness more beloved, and my friends' and family's devotion more precious to me.

In the mean time, the point of this post is that I try to cut myself a little slack in the spring, so if I don't blog so much, it's okay.  I don't have to be perfect at it.  My mental health is more important that that.  Please be patient with me.

Update

My divorce from peanut butter remains in effect.  I've lost some weight.  I can't go back there any time soon.  I still miss it.  Sometimes I stand in front of the cabinet door, debating with myself about whether I'm staying on the bandwagon.  But I NEVER open the door, because then the battle would be over.  My kids and the neighbor kids think I'm a little loony, but really, if it's working I can't stop it.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Break Up

Dear Peanut Butter,

That's it!  We're through.  I'm breaking up with you.  In the words of those great philosophers, Rascal Flatts, "I don't wanna see you anymore/I'm just not that strong/I love it when you're here/But I'm better when you're gone/Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease release me!"  You are very, very bad for me, and we can't keep going this way.  I must give you up entirely or face my certain doom.  I made it all day yesterday without you.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.  Even when I was driven to stress eating (yes, I'm an emotional eater) by my 3-year-old who refused to go to bed last night and I couldn't resist the sugar anymore, I chose Lemon Chalet Cremes (I don't even want to know what's in those, but it's not my beloved PB) instead of Tagalongs which are filled with nothing but you.  And I survived.  I can do this.  Please don't take it personally.  We're just not right for each other.  Don't call me.  Don't wait.  I can't come back any time soon.  This is it.  This is good-bye.

Love,
Me

What I've Learned

I have sporadically been monitoring what I eat with livestrong.com for the last few weeks.  And I've learned a lot more than I thought I would.  Please be patient with this post.  I get so excited about it that I get a little scatterbrained.  Because I am never ever scatterbrained otherwise.  No, really.

I've done the Weight Watchers thing, and I loved it.  About 4 years ago (right before I decided to have 2 more babies and by default gain 40 lbs.), I lost about 30 lbs with Weight Watchers.  And on and off again, over those years I've used their online food tracking system.  I thought it was pretty decent, although I had some issues with user-friendliness.

The livestrong thing has its pros and cons, but it certainly answers to my user-friendly issues, and for some reason, I had an easier time dealing with my emotional issues with this than the WW.  One thing I learned from WW is that when you are tracking your food, you have to think of it as a tool which enables you to know yourself and make necessary changes.  You can't look at it as the food police putting limits on you, and you can't be afraid to monitor your food choices, good or bad.  You kind of have to take the emotions out of it.  When I tracked my food before, I'd hit my limit for the day and give completely up.  I think because my new tracker breaks things down into a little more detail it was easier for me to look at my choices a little more objectively.  Anyway.  Whatever.  It's all rationalization and gets me farther away from the point I'm really trying to make here.

So, I learned a lot more about what I eat than I did with WW.  With WW (under the old points system, not the one they've come out with this year, in all fairness), I was counting my points (essentially calories) and trying to stay within my range.

With my new-to-me tracker, I've learned that even when I'm staying within the calorie goals I've set for myself, I eat a lot, a lot, a lot of fat.  True, it's better-for-you fat than I used to eat; I've spent some time trying to get partially hydrogenated oils out of our cabinets.  But still, it's a lot of fat.  Way more than the recommended 30% of your calories.  I'm sure that eating peanut butter by the spoonful has nothing whatsoever to do with this.  Even though this should have been really obvious to me, this was a real revelation for me.  I thought I was being good (except for the PB), but I wasn't.

Then, combine that whole fat thing with the realization that I don't get nearly enough fiber.  Not even close.  Not that this is really a shocking realization since I tend to crave refined carbs and avoid fresh vegetables.  But still.  I need more fiber.

And, and, and I get way too much salt.  (Fluid retention, anyone?)  Again, this shouldn't be a shock to this American since we hear about all three of these issues regularly.  Still, though, I thought I was doing so good.

AND (this might seem totally random, but it's a big deal to me since I am an avid milk-drinker) did you know that Braum's fat-free milk, which we buy because it's BGH free, has 50 MORE CALORIES per cup than other brands of fat-free milk?  I sure didn't until about 2 weeks ago.  How does that work anyway?  It creates a dilemma for me.  Another reason we buy from Braum's is because a gallon of milk there costs the same as a half gallon of organic milk at Wal-Mart or Target.  When your family of 8 goes through 4 gallons of milk a week, that's a whole lotta $$$ (upwards of $55/month).

And suddenly, voila!  No wonder I stay put at my current weight.  Not to mention that my exercise program has gone completely out the window. 


Soooooo, I am now going to work really hard at altering my food choices.  This won't be easy.  Expect whining.  And crying.  I'm such a wuss, and so in love with food.  But I gotta do this.  Wish me luck!

Gorgeous!

Do I not have the most fabulously beautiful girls ever!?  All of a sudden they aren't little girls any more.  They are young women.  It's crazy!  We enrolled Hannah at the high school a couple of weeks ago.  It was all I could do not to cry.  My time with them has been so much shorter than I ever anticipated, and I spend a lot of time wondering if we've taught them well enough, and if they know how much we love them.  But one thing I know for sure: these beautiful ladies are as amazing to me today as the day they were born.

Accountability Check

Congratulations--you are all highly motivational!  I got everything on my list done.  It's true, I took my walk at 7:30 in the evening, and I only read my scriptures because I was driven to seeking something peaceful by one of my contentious children.  BUT I did get everything done.

I reset the goals for myself yesterday.  Unfortunately, with 2 sick babies and mama coming down with something, too, that didn't go so well.  More luck/planning today, I hope.  :)

It's All about Accountability

So I'm not doing so well on some of my goals these days.  There are a variety of reasons for which this could be.  But I think I'm going to have to quit leaning on my stash of excuses and start being accountable.  And you, my faithful readers, have just become the people to whom I'm going to be accountable.Whether you want to be or not.

Today, I'm going to:

1. Drink all my water.  Instead of doing it all before bed because I was so flippin' thirsty at that point that I didn't care that I'd be up and down all night long.  I surely do care this morning.  I'm one glass down and seven to go.
2. Read my scriptures.
3. Take a walk in my neighborhood.
4. Track what I eat at my new favorite website, livestrong.com.  Where I have already tracked my one glass of water.  On to breakfast.

I could plan to do so much more, but a) I want to be successful (baby steps, people), and b) baby Sam is running a fever and I'm not sure how that's going to pan out around here.  He was pretty clingy yesterday.

Wish me luck.  This seems like such a short list, but I'm such a procrastinator.