Month: January 2018

When You Fear Yourself

On By spaige08In Advocacy, anxiety, depression, foster mom, hospitalization, medication, mental health, Uncategorized, writing2 Comments

There were brief moments, tiny myopic moments, seconds that I could see my reality. In these moments of lucidity, I became scared.  I was frightened at what I was becoming and how fast my body and brain were transforming.  Fortunately (or unfortunately) these moments of clarity were scarce because my body was failing me so rapidly, my cognizance was minimal.

 

I was healthy. Off medication for a few years. Actively working out at least four times a week.  I was confident, loved how I looked and felt, a rare time frame in my life where I wasn’t self-loathing and highly pessimistic. It was a euphoric high that I never imagined I would plummet out of.  I was wrong.  Oh, so wrong.

 

The severe Anxiety hit first. I couldn’t sleep and I tried, I tried so hard.  Listening to my Therapist, I got up, left my bedroom, and went downstairs to watch TV.  I thought watching TV in the dark with the comfort of my cat lying in the crook of my body on the loveseat would do the trick.  I would be able to return to my bed and the act of slumber.

 

But, the sounds came next. My foster son would cough, my daughter would cough and it would echo through the house.  A neighbor’s car alarm would go off.  The heat, even the sound of the damn heat turning on would shatter any hopes of sleep.  Most nights, I gave up around 3am and just cried quietly.

 

It didn’t end there though. The mornings brought me Panic Attacks.  I would be short of breath and my heart would be beating so fast that it felt as if I just finished a marathon in record time.  Nausea would riddle my body and I would run to the bathroom dry-heaving.

 

Then, I started to become delusional, spewing forth ridiculous ideas that my children would be taken away from me (which in the end our foster son was removed from our house), that my in-laws would take me to court to obtain sole custody of my daughter, that I was going to die. These thoughts were constantly in my head and I couldn’t keep them there.  They came out of my mouth easily and I believed every one of them.

 

Finally, Depression and Grief set in, a split second after our foster son was removed. I was experiencing a death not only at losing this little boy who I still think about every day, but at losing myself.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for those damn moments of sanity.

 

Ugh, they constantly reminded me of what I once was, so healthy and vibrant, and showed me what I had become. I felt defeated. I didn’t understand how all of this happened.  I didn’t want to go on, the fight was so hard.  I feared how much worse I would become; how much worse my family’s lives would be.  I was so scared, so scared that this episode of Major Depressive Disorder and Severe Generalized Anxiety would kill me.  In fleeting moments, I wish it would have.

 

Through all this fear, when I was lucid enough, I knew I needed to get help. I started the hunt for a new Psychiatrist.  I made sure I kept up with Therapy.  I asked for medication even though it was heartbreaking for me to go back on them.  I even fought to be hospitalized again because I knew it would help me.  I wasn’t going to let my fear kill me.  I couldn’t let my daughter lose her mother at such a young age.  I couldn’t let my husband lose his wife.  I couldn’t let my parents lose a child.  I fought for them.

 

It was a long rough journey, so bad, that I believe that the next episode will probably kill me. I’ve taken precautions though.  This time I will never go off my antidepressant.  I will continue to look for the signs, to seek out my fear.  I will be more mindful of my body and listen to it instead of fighting it.  Most importantly, I will remind myself that I have defeated Depression and Anxiety before and that looking at my track record, I am likely to win again.

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Yesterday was the 3 year anniversary of entering myself into the hospital.  Taking advice from several people (Therapist, family & friends) I do not dwell on how bad I was anymore.  When I think of that time, I acknowledge how far I fell, how bad I became and then, then I think about how far I have come.  I am healthy again, still medicated, still in therapy and still kicking ass.

Teaching My Daughter To Rise Above The Stigma Of Mental Illness

On By spaige08In Advocacy, anxiety, mental health, parenting, stigma, Uncategorized, writing, Youth Mental Health1 Comment

My daughter has seen me. She has seen me throughout her eleven years of life.  She has seen me lose touch with reality several times, seen me cry uncontrollably many times, seen me at a handful of Psychiatric and Therapy appointments.  She has even seen me become hospitalized.  Throughout all of this, she has stood by my side supporting me any way a preteen can.  She will get me my medication and water when I have an anxiety attack.  She will tell me she doesn’t want any other Mommy when I say she deserves better.  She fights the stigma behind Mental Illness for me to “infinity and beyond” (A Toy Story line that defines how much we love each other).

 

But, even with all that she does to help me, she falls victim to the stigma when it comes to herself.

 

My daughter was diagnosed at age 6 with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, a diagnosis that she deserved even at age 4. She feared doctors or, honestly, anything medical.  She catastrophized thoughts in her mind constantly thinking that she could catch diseases such as Ebola and Rabies just by breathing it in.  While these medically induced anxieties faded through the years she still tends to get overwhelmed and will have minor Panic Attacks over things that she can’t control.  She is easily frustrated.  She cries. She’s a worrier, and a huge Empath like myself.

 

There have been several occasions where school was a trigger. When she started elementary school, they placed my daughter in the Special Friends program at my request.  It was a program dedicated to giving young children a place to relax for an hour and talk about their feelings.  I loved this program.  She aged out after 2nd Grade .  At this point we started therapy for her to learn coping skills for when anxiety attacks hit.  This helped for a while and she was able to stop therapy for a year or two.  Enter a few major life events, moving and entering Middle School, and her anxieties came back full force.  Insomnia set in.  Panic Attacks over homework became present and therapy sessions returned.

 

Through all of this, I have been her advocate. I do not want to see her suffer the way I have.  There was a brief discussion last year with the school nurse about possibly getting her further help, such as a 509 report, within the school system.  She had been sent home because she threw up.  The nurse knew right away after seeing my daughter through the years that this was related to her GAD, but due to the rules, I had to pick my daughter up and keep her home for 24 hours.  The nurse said that if this was in her file, she could return to school the next day bypassing the required 24 hours.  I thought heavily on this and suggested to my daughter that we get the school more involved.  Her response:

 

“I don’t want special treatment. There are kids that need it more.”

 

I respected that answer since the school year was almost over and we were switching school systems. She started Middle School and things were okay for a short period of time.  Then I noticed her getting heavily overwhelmed, crying and panicking.  I brought the subject of getting more help from the school with her again.  She hesitated and replied:

 

“I don’t want special treatment.”

 

I explained to her that it wasn’t special treatment. Her diagnosis, which is in her medical file at the school, would be more known so that if she did have further issues, she could receive the help she needed, whether it be visits to the school Psychologist or extra time on a test.  Then she started to tear up a bit and said, “No, I don’t want it.  The kids will make fun of me and my friends won’t like me anymore.”

 

Oh boy. Enter the Mental Health stigma.  Because I have been fighting it so long, the huge advocate in me came out and I may have reacted a tad too intimidating for an 11-year-old.  I was angry.  I thought the world has become slightly better with Mental Illness, but I was wrong.  I spoke, with a seething rage inside my head, sternly to my daughter:

 

“Do not feel that way at all. Do not, for one second, be ashamed of your diagnosis.  So, you have an Anxiety Disorder.  You have no idea what other kids at your school may have.  Most likely a few of your friends have one too.  All that, all that you just said, that is the stigma talking.  You do not have to hide like I did.”

 

She began to cry a little. She knew I was right especially after being such a support and advocate for me.  She nodded her head, apologized, and went upstairs.  I didn’t know if it really sunk in, the words I said until one afternoon she came home from school and was excited to show me a video she was working on in school in one of her classes.  I sat and watched the video and was so enamored and proud of this child.  Here she stood, in the crowded hallways of her school talking about her Anxiety Disorder.  She didn’t care if anyone heard her.  She spoke confidently about coping skills and therapy.  My daughter isn’t hiding anymore.  She’s kicking the stigma to the curb just like her mom.