A week off ?

Hello and welcome.

I have not written anything in a while because I have been kind of busy with the crazy, hectic rigmarole that is my Summer break with the kids. Until this past week that is.

Getting ready to board the bus. Water bottle
and hat did not make the return trip home.

One week ago today, my daughter left me for a week to go to summer camp. On Tuesday, I went to see the movie "Rock of Ages" with an old friend. Wednesday I took my grandma to the doctor and I spent Thursday afternoon drinking with another old friend. Other than that, my schedule was miraculously clear of any obligations. So what to do with myself and all this "spare time." I decided to dig through my old video games and replay "The Longest Journey." As it turns out, I have been unable to make my old, antiquated, 2 disc copy work on Windows 7 64-bit. Although, while digging through boxes to find my beloved game, I came across my old diaries dating all the way back to December 31, 1990. Reading through, I realized that there is a strong possibility that there may, or may not, be some significant information in there to help my doctors settle on a more concrete diagnosis for my mental condition. So begins my new project of transcribing all of my journal entries to document files on my computer so that they are in chronological order (I discovered that I did not tend to stay on the correct page when writing, luckily I did date each entry - however the lack of order will be annotated on the transcribed pages for relevance, if there is any.) and easily handed over to whichever doctors are willing to read them. I am actually only about three months in and I have realized that I don't even like reading through my own mind, let alone remembering and reliving it. I have, of course stopped. I don't want to continue. I need to continue. I was definitely a terrible person, a terrible writer, and an especially terrible speller. It makes my head hurt. In fact something I noticed when flipping through old journals was that at some point during my third pregnancy, I stopped writing. So now I'm going to change the subject.

My less than happy, slightly ill daughter with her pillow

Come Friday afternoon, it was time to pick up my daughter from the bus. I waited impatiently as one bus after another arrived and none of them was the one my daughter was on. Finally, and not really late (thought I felt like it had been forever), The bus arrives. When my daughter steps off the bus, I can see that she is feeling VERY ill. You see, she suffers from motion sickness and takes OTC generic Dramamine for long trips. The problem is, the camp personnel do not seem to see the importance or significance in giving her this medicine more than 2 minutes prior to stepping on the bus even though the bottle clearly states to take one hour prior to travel. Ah, the pleasures of letting other people care for your children. Now, I know that I write more about my daughter than anyone. Maybe because she is more active than my other 2 children. But if you read through my past posts, you will see that I have a son with Autism and a son with "undiagnosed something" who gets hit by cars frequently. I love them all. But in honest, full disclosure, I always wanted a little girl. I wanted to be able to dress her up, do her hair, and hang out and do mother/daughter things. Just the two of us. And instead, it's the four of us and the boys have mental issues like me. That doesn't fall into my fairy tale of what having children was supposed to be. So for now, I'm going to sign off. I don't know when I'll post again, but thank you for reading. I love you just for being here.


P.S. TheBloggess, Jenny Lawson is Awesome! You help me navigate my way through my own brain.

Depression

Today, or yesterday considering it's after 1am, I read a wonderful post from @thebloggess at http://thebloggess.com/2012/01/the-fight-goes-on that inspired me to write this post. So here it goes, thank you Jenny Lawson a.k.a. The Bloggess.

Different psychiatrists have told me different things. when I was 19 it was postpartum depression and was given prozac and Xanax, at 22 it was schizophrenia (and was told I had no right being a parent), at 23 I was back to depression and given Paxil. A couple more pregnancies (and obviously no meds) before I sought help again at 31 (after a complete and total breakdown at a Wal-Mart self checkout counter), and now it's Bi-Polar coupled with Social Anxiety Disorder. Don't remember the meds that time because I was on like 5 different ones at once. By this point, I was over 300lbs due to side effects of meds and depressed eating, so at 32 I see a different psychiatrist who treats me for Bi-Polar with multiple mood disorders and multiple Anxiety Disorders. At 33, I am told, "you're not Bi-Polar or Schizophrenic, you're just severely Depressed and need to force yourself to socialize more, have you thought of joining a social group like 'Meetup.com'?" by a case manager at the mental health clinic. I left there in tears. I am now going to be 36 and have been off my meds ever since...My mom says I am definitely "borderline schizophrenic" and she believes this because my father was a "Paranoid Schizophrenic with Bi-Polar tendancies" at one point he was told he was "Manic Depressive with ADHD." I am a single mother with 3 children (18, 10 & 9), I have lost some weight (I am down to a fluctuating 245-250) and I just muddle through and spend most of my time seeking solace on the internet.