Kids teaching parents

Read Madam Bipolar's blog, Plan B and the comments that followed it, makes me think a lot about my mental illness and its effects on my daughter. (Both genetic and environmentally) I, in fact, just today call a family therapy group so that we can deal with her anxiety. (Daddy was kind enough to provide his own anxiety disorder to her genetic make up, in addition to my disorders.) As well as, to help her deal with Chuck and his daughter moving out. It is something I am constantly aware of. For example, the other night I had a particularly bad anxiety night and my daughter wanted to climb on me, snuggled with me, the normal stuff, but for some reason every time she touched me I got jumpy and felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. She was doing her normal 6 year old thing, but the wiggling, and talking, and bumping me....I just couldn't take it. It made me feel like a horrible momma's. She just wanted some attention. Now believe me when I say my child has NO lack of attention! She is an only child, and the first born grandchild of 3 sets of grandparents. But the fact that I knew MY disorder was causing me to not be able to hold her, snuggled her, and be the affectionate mom I usually am bothered me. As a lot of the comments left on the Plan B blog said you become so aware of moments like that. Instead of yelling at her and telling her to leave momma a lone, we talked and she understood that momma's needed some down time. It helps some to see her understand and reflect that. She will tell her dad when he call that she "thinks momma's newest some alone time because she is really frustrated and upset"
These things, these example, show not just the negate side of a mentally ill parent, but they also show a little girl with a kind heart. She is always willing to help and always wants to make people feel better. I once told "No, no honey momma's is the adult. I will take care of it." She rubbed my back, whiles my tears away and said, "See momma's even little people can help too." And she was right. I needed to feel love and cared for that night.
I have struggled from clinical depression and anxiety since I was 19 (least that's when I was diagnosed). My 20s were spent in a lot of turmoil. Skipping class, sleeping a lot, then the panic attacks started. Then I stopped caring. Stopped eating, stopped wearing make up, started cutting, got my first tattoo. I cycles though the depression, the self destructive behavior for the next few years. Then once I had mocked with my ex down south, I found people who began helping me. I kept up with my medications, as well as my counseling. As did my ex. I went to counseling 8month pregnant, I went 9 months pregnant, and I went with a new born. I did NOT want to fail now that I had a little life at stake. Just having her makes me want to be a better person, makes me want to maintain my level of being high functioning. She pushes me to do that. When I am to depressed to get out of bed I get up and get her to school, every morning. After I get home I lay down again, but damn it she is at school. When Chuck lived here and he was non-stop on me about something and I wanted to grab my keys and go, but I didn't I didn't want to leave me daughter here without me. She sees that I am down or "Don't feel so well", and she generally let's me rest. She understands a lot for a kid her age. We talk about our feelings all the time. But most of all she makes me stronger. She makes me feel I can do things for her that I can do for no one else. The bus stop, every morning. Some times just get outta bed.
If I lived alone I would not get up, but she needs her momma's. So I push myself and I do it. Basically what is am saying is that without her I don't know that I would try so hard, or push myself as hard, or ever have know unconditionally love! And since I, and pretty much I alone, made my girl everything wonderful, compassionate, smart, independent. I gave her that and she gives me a reason to push on.

Update 12/7/11- I apologize for the earlier typos. I was writing on my cell phone and after taking my Paxil and Ambien.   

Purple Elephants

So Chuck has accused me of liking funky things just to get back at my family, who is very into having a good appearance to the outside world. Truth is, I spent a lot of years trying to live up to their standards. It never worked out for me. Partly, because no one could be as perfect as what they wanted, partly because it just wasn't me. So yeah, I have tattoos, piercings, and now purple hair, but not to annoy them or to needle them in anyway. More because it is a way of connecting with myself. A way of expression, and a way of reminding myself that I don't have t be perfect. I don't have to look like everyone else. I don't even have to look the way other people think I should look. It is ok for me to be whoever I want.

Sadly, I left the hair salon feeling good. Liking the new brightened, up funky me. As I put on make-up and got ready for dinner with my family I was already plotting what "excuses" I was going to give my parents about the color of my hair. AT dinner I found myself explaining how I did not really mean for it to be so bright, how I let my stylist choose the color. All of this was true, but the truth is I kind of like the color. Makes me feel bright and funky, more like an artist and less like soccer mom. Sometimes just being around them, always feeling like someone is judging me, always feeling like I have to answer to them, even though I am in my 30s brings me down in and of itself. Sometimes though I feel sad for them though. They have two amazing daughters who they will never see for who they REALLY are. Never see how talented, smart, fun, creative, and brave we are. Brave enough too be what we believe in instead of what we are told to be. Choosing instead to believe us to be only a good or bad reflection of themselves. So they hate my tattooed body, and my purple hair because other people may not like it or may think I am strange. They cannot even see the person under the purple hair. The person THEY created. I will keep my purple hair (at least until I need a new pick me up) and there will probably be more tattoos because I need to stay in touch with the part of me who loves things that are different just so I can continue to believe in myself, my creativity, and my belief that you can be whoever you want in this world.

I Need to Cry, But I Can't

Illustration by James Collins

Today is a crying for no reason day, or more accurately a crying for EVERY reason day. I realized today that while I have teared up several times recently. It has been awhile since I have had "a good cry". Which means what I have been doing is burying my emotions, and/or keeping myself distracted enough to keep myself numb. Either way, it is not good. I am defiantly depressed. I seem to be finding very little happiness these days. My anxiety is up to the highest it has been in a long while. My concentration level is GONE! I sometimes find myself talking and honestly have NO idea what I am saying. No recollection of what is coming out of my mouth, or what the thought process was that got me there. I am increasingly disappearing into my own head at home and at work. Tuning out Chuck and the girls as though they are not even talking to me. Forgetting to do basic things like walk the dog before bed, feed myself. Today Chuck ask if it was foggy this morning on the way to the bus stop, and I remembered fog, but could not answer for sure if that was today's drive to the bus, or Monday's. I am mostly going through the motions now, and one day blurs into the next.

Yesterday I woke up hurting. Sore from my throat to my back. Head pounding, feeling like I hadn't had a good night sleep in a week. I thought uh oh, fall allergy season has begun. I spent the majority of the day asleep. When I wasn't asleep I was sipping coffee, yet by 9PM I was yawning again, and I slept the night through as though I had had a full day.  So then I began to wonder, am I not feeling well physically, or is this depression? Then I thought, "Great Patty that's what you need, to have anxiety over whether you are letting your anxiety depress you! Just add that to the list of things you are worried about." Kind of a chicken and the egg type thing, do I feel worse because I am getting sick, or do I feel sick because I am feeling worse. (sigh) So if I go home and cry until I run out of tears will I feel better? Will it give me the release I need? Or will it just lead to opening up a Pandora's box of emotion that I clearly am not able to deal with right now? And whatta you do with that? It is not like I have the time, space, or energy to do my drawings, meditate, or even cry to a friend. I pretty much distract myself with my book to keep from having to deal with my overwhelming emotional state, and just keep on keepin on because I don't really feel like I have any other option. I am not am to reach Chuck right now. He is also in an altered state. I can not quit or give up, I have 2 little girls who count on me every day. So each day becomes a blure of things I "have to do" for work, for my family, for my pets, and nothing more. I am sad, I am angry, I NEED to cry.

I have moments of feeling SO glad to have gotten Chuck's daughter out of such a crazy, sad life style. Or of feeling bonded to her, or her feeling attached to me. Or the joy I feel when I am rocking her and she falls asleep with her little head on my chest snuggled up to the stuff animal we got her as a welcome "home" gift. I have moments of pride in my child as she aces her spelling list. Or a moment of hearing her Or a moment of happiness when she giggles about some game we are playing. A moment of contentment with one girl snuggled next to me and one on my lap, story in my hand. And I cling to those mements. They ARE memories that are crystal clear to me. Staying with me and helping me remember what it is like to not be angry or numb. I cling to them. People keep asking me how I am doing? Am I ok? How are we all adjusting? Without a second thought I automatically blut out "we are fine" "I'm ok" "It's ok" The truth is I don't know how much longer I can be this OK, and that scares me. I CAN NOT be depressed. I CAN NOT stop being mom. I CAN NOT stop bringing in an income. I CAN NOT stop supporting Chuck while he does what he has to in order to help his child. I CAN NOT disappear. I know this and it weighs on me. What if I am not ok? Nope, not going to even let my head go there. I MUST be ok. I can't let my emotions get ahold of me.

I am Peppermint Patty

Dr Seuss

Since beginning There is an Elephant in the Room? I have been reading a lot of other blogs and articles on mental illness. I find so many of them so brave and so inspiring. I had two objectives when I started this blog. The first was to shine a light on mental illness of all types, and how it affects so many individuals and in turn so many families. My second goal, was to share some of my personal experiences with others so that they could know they were not alone, understand, and/or share their experiences. Well and I guess make myself feel more understood and less alone. I guess that means I had three reasons for starting a blog.

Yet even as I read, and write, about the stigmas attached to people with mental illness and talk about bringing it out into the light, I myself hide behind a screen name. It often tears me up. I spend quite a bit of my life hiding my true self from the people around me. I have tried to be myself, tried to talk about counseling, or medications, and I have paid a heavy price for that. Part of my depression and anxiety stems from years of verbal and mental abuse when I was younger, often from the men in my life. Bringing the abuse and the PTSD, depression, and anxiety that followed into the open has cost me friends. At 19 and ER doc who was seeing me for a panic attack sent to crisis center in the middle of nowhere that had all male residents at the time. I have mentioned that my parents are often not supportive in my quest for recovery, they have stopped paying for my private counselor when I was in my 20s because they deemed me "better". My mother has withdrawn completely for weeks at a time. I have had relatives talk about me behind my back. Saying I was depressing to be around, and really down on life. My grandmother once told me she knew I was just "playing" my parents, and I feel I will be forever viewed as the families black sheep. What I want more than anything is to just be ok with that. To be able to say f'em and just be me, but I have never been able to do that. instead I have split myself into two different people essentially. There is the person Chuck, my closest friends, and counselor see who is not perfect. Is often depressed. Is often full of anxiety, and dramatic. Has ticks where the same panicked thought rolls through my head again & again. (Do other people have that by the way? the "I gotta get out of here. I've gotta get out of here". Or the "just be quiet. Just be quiet" rolling through your head over and over on really bad days? Just checking) The person who deals poorly with stress. Occasionally turning to cutting, tattoos, drawing, screaming, and crying to deal with all the pain inside. Then there is the person I present to family, co-workers, and anyone who may come into contact with my parents. THAT girl tries to always look presentable, even when all messed up on the inside. Smiles through the pain and depression. She does not cry in public, or cause a screen ever, or even hesitate at the drive through because the people behind us (or the 16 year old serving me) may think poorly of me. Seeing as I live in the same small town as my parents, and work for my father, that turns out to be quite a lot of people that I pretend around. Meaning that I spend about 75% of my time hiding my true feelings and thoughts from people. I often feel lonely, and unaccepted. I feel like hurt, angry, and sad that the people who claim to love me will never really see me for who I am, let alone accept me. How does one accept and deal with that? It has also rolled in to a form of social anxiety for me, and a lack of self confidence. So I guess technically I AM Peppermint Patty in my world, in my head, then the person my family created in their world. Don't get me wrong my parents and family are good people, but they do not know how to deal with things they don't understand, or can't control. Leaving me stuck in two worlds, sitting on the back of my invisible elephant, and feeling very inadequate, and lonely.