When I wake up to two sticks of butter on the counter that is my husband’s way of saying, “Please make chocolate chip cookies?” Sometimes I am in a grumpy mood and I’ll throw the butter back in the fridge, mumbling to myself about how I don’t have time to make cookies. Once while I was working as a pastry chef and he begged me to bake him cookies on my day off I snapped at him, “I don’t ask you to do your job on your days off, so don’t ask me to do mine.”

But in the grand scheme of things spending some time baking cookies for him isn’t going to ruin my day, and he does work very hard, so I think he deserves the treat.

Oddly, while I was thinking about this entry I googled butter and found this picture of a butter sculpture. It never occurred to me that people might sculpt with butter but I guess it makes sense. More of the food sculptures by Jim Victor can be found here.

Things are going okay so far this weekend. Nate went to a high school football game last night (his first) and had a good time. I hung out with Polly and then watched Nip Tuck with Alex. Laura Ingalls, my how you’ve changed. When Nate got home he wanted his Dad all to himself so those two watched a movie and I tried to spend some more time with Polly but we were both getting tired so we went to bed to the sound of Nathan and his Dad laughing over some movie they were watching together. It made me feel good.

I also had my first taste of absinthe last night. I have heard stories of it my whole life but never tasted it. We did the whole sugar, water thing so we didn’t have to drink it straight and it wasn’t bad. I was surprised because I don’t really like licorice, but it was very mellow.

In response to Cazzy’s comment on my last post, thank you for letting me know I am not alone. Sometimes it really feels that way. If anyone gets to keep the earnest money it will be my Mom, but her realtor says she’ll probably have to go to small claims court to get it.

Someone like you, thanks for the well wishes. I never expected the teen years to be so difficult, even before my son was diagnosed. I know that we will get through this, somehow. Thank you for stopping by.

I was on the phone most of yesterday and I now have Nathan on the waiting list for three different alternative schools. I spoke with his psychiatrist and his primary care physician, both who said they will happily write letters on his behalf to maybe help speed up the application process. When I told Nathan that he was on the waiting list he seemed much happier. I think just the thought that he might be getting out of this school has really lifted his spirits. They have a lot more programs for teens over the age of 16 or teens who have been arrested, expelled or who are teen parents. Fortunately Nathan qualifies for none of those programs, but it is still frustrating to see how far you have to fall before you can get a hand up.

Polly is doing very well at her school. I spoke with her teacher last Friday and she is getting all As and Bs. Her teacher is very nice and the whole environment at that school feels so positive. She is going to her first dance on Friday. She asked me if I would chaperone and so I said I would, but the office said that I can’t until I fill out a criminal background check. I just had one last year, so I could volunteer at her last school, but they said when your child changes schools you have to get (and pay for) another one.

I’ve only volunteered a few times at my children’s classrooms, preferring to let them have school time be their time. When Nathan was in kindergarten I used to go in and read to a small group sometimes. When Polly was in kindergarten I used to go in and help during journal time. Soon Polly was clinging to me when journal time was over and begging me to stay the entire afternoon. I decided it would be better if we parted ways at the door. The school that Polly is in now requires parents to volunteer sometimes. I can work in the school’s garden, or help in the kitchen, or run copies in the office. All of this after I prove that I am not a violent felon.

I was sad to hear about the death of Anna Nicole’s son. I used to watch that show on E sometimes and he seemed like a sweet young man who really didn’t want to be in front of the camera. The fact that he apparently died trying to treat his depression and who knows what the methadone was for makes me feel bad. Not to get all Tom Cruise on anyone, because I have tried many antidepressants and had a lot of luck with most of them, people, be careful with the drugs you take.

Life is precious, even though it can be a real bear to bare at times. Today I am focusing on cleaning my house and doing some laundry. I haven’t been working at my Mom’s since she returned because I want to focus on my kids and on my own home. I feel guilty in some ways, but in other ways I know that my kids need me most and this is where I need to be. I hope someone buys my Mom’s house. I am tired of devoting so much of my energy to it, tired of having it be the #1 topic of conversation.

We are trying to find an alternative school for him to go to. He just can’t manage at a high school with 1000+ kids, and his medications are making it difficult for him to get up in the morning. My Mom is home safely, and as she worked in Special Ed. for 20+ years here in Portland I asked her today if she might be able to make a few phone calls and pull a few strings because it is becoming clearer by the day that Nate isn’t doing well.

The sale of my Mom’s house fell through today because the buyer lied about her income so she wasn’t pre-qualified as her documentation stated. My Mom is going to see if she gets to keep the earnest money. Oh the constant drama.

Like most people, I’m assuming, I grew up listening to the story of how my parents met. Unlike most people, I am once again assuming, this story changed many times in the retelling. My father never mentioned the matter to me, so I know only what I’ve heard from my Mom. One of my parents, and I can’t ask my dad which one because he’s 21 years dead, placed an advertisement in the back of some sort of publication looking for international pen pals. My Dad was working as an electrical engineer in Pasadena, California. They started writing each other and their correspondence continued for at least two years. I have found pieces of these letters from my Dad over the years as I have taken on the horrifically difficult task of sorting through my Mom’s things. They are never together in one long letter, it will be page six from some letter and page two from some other letter but I have read them hungrily anyway, trying to get to know the man who was my Father; the man who left me at age twelve, the man I never got a chance to know, not really. Whenever I have shown my Mom the letters her eyes filled up with tears and she shook her head NO, so I instead started a folder of the pieces of letters hoping that one day I could put them all together, like a puzzle. I once asked my Mom where the letters from her had gone, for I never came across them after my Dad died .His possessions at death consisted of his clothes, shoes, and books, his framed degrees from The University of Kansas and a shoe box full of assorted things, including a bible, his wallet and his wedding ring, which I never saw him wear. I know this because I snuck into his room two days after he died, looking for a suicide note. There was none. My Mom told me that once in a fit of anger against her he built a fire and burned all of the letters she had written. I can imagine him doing that.

What I do know to be true is this; my Mom was working as a manicurist in Sydney, Australia in her early 20s. She saved her money and bought five acres of land outside of Sydney. She saved her tips, sold the land at a profit and bought a plane ticket to travel around the world for six months. She wrote to my Dad to tell him of her trip and mentioned that she would be stopping over in San Francisco after she went to Hawaii.

As she tells the story, without her prior knowledge, he drove from Pasadena to San Francisco and was there when she departed the plane. Although she claims they never exchanged photos during those two years of writing she said she knew who he was as soon as she saw him standing there. She walked up to him and said, “Mr.—– I presume” and he smiled. She said that it was love at first sight. When I was very young she told me that they spent two weeks together in San Francisco, fell deeper in love, and got married. As a child I thought that was nutty, to marry someone you’d only known for two weeks. I had a hard time comparing the raging, abusive, alcoholic father I knew with a man she could fall in love with at first site.

She gave up her remaining tickets to Canada, to Europe, to wherever else it was she had planned to go and married him. As I aged and my Mom retold the story of their meeting in person days started to get shaved off the time between the airport and the wedding. It went from fourteen to eleven to seven to six. Finally, as a frustrated teen I asked her why she kept changing that part of the story and she said, “OK. It was four days”

“How the hell”, I asked, “could you marry someone you had only known for four days?”

Her answer was and is that she had already fallen in love with him through his letters; she knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, to have him be the father of the four children she planned for and eventually had.

The past two days I have spoken on the phone with my three siblings more than I have in the whole of 2006. As we tried to coordinate airfare, money deposited into her checking account, rides from the airport and I rushed around and cleaned and vacuumed her house and watered her plants and placed fresh milk in her fridge and bought bread and cereal and canned soup so she would at least have something to eat when she returned I talked to my siblings.

Maria, the sister I am closest to and the one who has been my rock in this life and also the one who can calm me down when I am panicking and make me laugh when I am at my lowest, and I were speaking last night. My thoughts were on other things, Nate’s illness and mood, getting Polly ready for Outdoor school, envisioning helping my Mom move now that the house is sold and it looks as if it’s really going through, my Mom sleeping in an airport and the tremendous quantity of laundry that has built up over the past week. I was trying to breathe slowly, I have a tendency to be a shallow rapid breather and it doesn’t lend itself to calming me down, when Maria said, “I’ve figured it out”. I had no idea what she was talking about, thinking it pertained to the here and now and not the early 60s. “I now know why Mom married Dad four days after meeting him at the airport! She had run out of money and had no other choice.”

We laughed. We laughed until our sides hurt. It doesn’t even sound like a nice thing to do, to laugh over my Mom’s obvious current misfortune of sleeping on a bench in the Dublin airport, but there was something so necessary in the laughter. I have shed more than a few tears in the past few days as I struggled with the sale of my Mom’s house, her dilemma, Nathan’s manic episodes, doctor’s appointments, calls from Nathan’s teachers, and also trying to find time for my husband and Polly, my daughter, who doesn’t get as much attention as she deserves because her brother often takes more than I even know how to give. I have slipped off into the bathroom and cried, snuck off into the basement to cry, and even cried all the way on the bus to pick up Polly from school the other day, drying my eyes as I arrived. To be able to laugh once more, that coupled with the great sleep I had last night has left me feeling a lot better, and ready to face whatever next week brings.

I haven’t discussed this here and I wasn’t sure if I was going to. My son Nathan is bipolar. He is being treated and he is on medication. Sometimes he is the most wonderful young man I could have ever dreamed for; kind, helpful, smart, funny, and empathetic and a pure joy to be around. Sometimes he spirals out of control. Last night was one of those nights. He had a manic episode, wouldn’t take his meds and his Dad and I couldn’t calm him down. I paged his doctor who told me to call 911. I didn’t. He wasn’t being violent with me, although he has been in the past, and I didn’t want my son being dragged off in handcuffs. It took me until 2 am so calm him down. At five am my Mom called me from Dublin to tell me that she is stuck in the airport and she couldn’t get a flight because her credit card was denied for some reason and she was out of money and wanted to come home right now. Of course her phone card was running out of minutes and so I got the information as quickly as I could and did the unthinkable. I hung up the phone and called my brother. Now I love my brother very much but we have had a strained relationship for many years. Part of the reason for this is the unsolicited advice he always offers, or the way he tells me I fucked up my life and that I’ve made so many stupid decisions. He calls it constructive criticism, I don’t know how it can be constructive if it’s not.

Anyway, I knew in an emergency he would probably be the best one to call because he is not only level headed he is smart enough to keep an emergency savings account. He was awake when I called, and rather calm. He did mutter, “How the hell did she manage that?” He wrote down all of the information and took care of it over the phone to the cost of too many Euros. But he didn’t complain. I guess that’s what family really is about. I haven’t spoken to him since Thanksgiving but when I needed him to help at 5 am on a Friday morning before he had to go to work he was there.

I called my sister Monica later to arrange a ride for my Mom from the airport because my brother has to work that day. She said that our Mom was like having a big 67 year old teenager and we both giggled at the thought. Truthfully the thought of my Mom sleeping in the airport freaks me out. I went to her bank to deposit money into her checking account and tried numerous times to call the airport to page her to tell her the money was there so she could at least get something to eat or even a room for the night but I was informed that there is no paging service at the Dublin airport.

I took Nate to his primary care physician for a check up and he spent from 12:45 to  2:10 talking with him. Part of the time I was in the room, part of the time he asked me to leave which is cool. He’s 14 now. The doctor suggested I send him to an alternative high school. I am going to have to think it over carefully. The truth is he’s off to a rough start. I have had numerous calls from teachers about his behavior in class and him acting dangerously around equipment in ways that could harm him or someone else. Or break a machine that costs tens of thousands of dollars. The teacher made sure to throw that in there. I thought he loved that manufacturing class. Hot metal and mania do not mix, just so you know.

My heart is broken. I know he’s sick and that he needs help but right now I don’t know exactly what to do. I guess I have to just keep being here for him. Tomorrow is another day.

Right now I am going to take a Tylenol and go lie down for awhile and let Alex watch the kids because I feel so burned out and on the brink of some sort of emotional breakdown. I know I am just tired and stressed and this too shall pass. Thanks for reading.

Hello, my name’s Becky and I’ve suffered from many years of panic, anxiety and depression and am now recovered. I have made some notes about the steps I have taken. Please print out and read. These steps have helped many people towards recovery. Please feel free to contact me here or on my email: becky@imaginet.co.za and I will be happy to chat with you about anything in connection with panic, depression or anxiety.

BEATING DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY

Having suffered through numerous bouts of depression, anxiety and panic attacks during the last 14 years AND having learnt how to control this disorder, I’ve made the following list of things that have worked for me, and other people, on how to deal with and BEAT this problem. Be prepared to make a BIG effort, but remember that it’s worth it in the end.

Firstly you need to discover the keys to beating this condition and the following are steps I have taken towards my recovery:

1. Have a medical check-up to ensure that you’re healthy and that there’s nothing medically wrong that could be causing this condition. This will also give you reassurance which helps enormously in calming the anxiety and gaining control over your condition.
2. See a good Psychologist/Therapist who can explain to you exactly what’s happening to you so that you can understand your condition. Knowledge is an important key to recovery.
3. Find the Root Cause to your problem. What has triggered this off? You need to face this problem and deal with it. You may not be able to do anything about the problem, that doesn’t matter, as long as you can face it in your mind.
4. I look on this condition as a string of bad habits which need to be broken. I have made a list of good habits which I substituted. A kind of list of rules which I made an effort to stick to. Remember that a habit takes 21 days to take hold. Make that effort until the good habit becomes second nature.
5. Don’t accept that you’re stuck with this condition for life. You don’t have to live with it forever. I’m living proof that there is hope for full-time and lasting recovery.
6. Be prepared to make a big effort to change your life.
7. Focus only on the positive things in life. Don’t spend too much time thinking about the negative aspects of this condition. Once you’ve had your check-up and understand more about what is happening to you, start thinking of yourself as recovered and normal again. Don’t spend a lot of time discussing your symptoms with fellow-sufferers It’s more likely to do you harm than good (and it’s quite possible that sub-consciously you’ll start mimicking their symptoms/phobias too). (But by all means discuss ways to deal with the condition with people who have recovered). Start thinking of yourself as normal again, and live that way.

CHANGING BAD HABITS: (here you may like to substitute some of your own habits and things that you find work for you)

1. NEVER GIVE IN TO THE MONSTER. (the name I’ve given to this condition)
As much as you would like to stay in bed and sleep for the next 6 weeks – DON’T!!!
This is allowing the depression to control you, instead of the other way around. Sleeping is a form of escape, but, unfortunately, when you wake, the problem is still there. You need to deal with it. SHOW THE MONSTER THAT YOU’RE IN CONTROL AT ALL TIMES.

2. KEEP BUSY, MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY.
Keeping your mind busy means it won’t have time to think about the anxiety/depression. When we’re depressed or anxious it’s easy to become self-centered, concentrating only on our own problems. This is what we DON’T need. DON’T FEED THE MONSTER. Rather starve it by ignoring it.
Keeping your body physically active helps it to produce more ‘feel-good’ endorphins.

3. SUNSHINE
Get outside and soak as much sunshine into your body as possible. Drink it in and while you’re doing that concentrate on how it’s repairing your mind and body. Take it like a medicine.

4. EAT
It’s not always easy to eat when you’re depressed or feeling anxious. Choose food that goes down easily and food those appeals to you. Milky drinks and soup. Chocolate definitely improves your mood and is easy to eat. Even if you find your food difficult to swallow, remember that every mouthful is helping you on the road to recovery. Often people with anxiety suffer with stomach problems. Relaxing will ease the pain and a glass of wine or sherry is a good way to relax before a meal. Without food your condition will worsen and you’ll feel worse.
So EAT!!

5. BREATH
Get into the habit of doing breathing exercises at least once a day, more if you can remember. Breath in deeply to the slow count of 10, hold it for 10 and breathe out for 10. Repeat this exercise 10 times. I’ve found this very helpful when having a panic attack, because of the concentration it takes.

6. TAKE IN SOME BEAUTY
Find something that you consider beautiful, and spend some time each day looking at it. If you feel especially low, keep the article where you can see it. I chose fresh cut flowers in a vase and put them on my dressing table so that I could see them when I woke up in the morning. I would look at them, clear my mind and fill it with the beauty of the flowers. Concentrate on the good feeling you get when looking at them. Focus on something that makes you feel good.

7. HELP SOMEBODY ELSE IN NEED.
There’s always someone worse off than we are and always someone in need of help.
During times of depression/anxiety I have welcomed my children’s problems and sicknesses. When my help is needed I can switch off from my own needs and anxious thoughts and concentrate on whoever needs my help. Fill your mind with thoughts of others. Find an important project where you can be of help and where you feel needed. My work has helped tremendously. Who can be depressed or anxious when you’re so busy all day, and tired out at night.

8. AVOID BAD NEWS.
Remember that what you take in with your eyes and ears effects your spirit. If you are bombarding your mind with negative and bad news you won’t feel happy. Don’t feed that monster with negative things. Don’t watch the news (it’s nearly always bad anyway!) Don’t read the newspaper. Fill your mind with only good positive things. Read peaceful and interesting books, watch only comedies on TV. Mix with happy positive people.

So, remember, DON’T FEED THE MONSTER, in time it will shrivel up and die. Remember, too, that this won’t last forever; you WILL get better and once you’re better you can use your experience to help others.

I must add here that a number of years ago I became a Christian and as my faith and knowledge of Christianity has increased it has brought peace to my spirit.
I know where I belong now, I know that I have a purpose in life and I feel secure in the knowledge that God is watching over me and protecting me and above all that I have nothing to fear or be anxious about.

These are new habits to replace the bad ones, remember it takes 21 days for a new habit to take hold. So make an effort for that period of time and eventually they’ll become second nature.

I accepted the offer. It was a good one and the buyers waived the contingency to have an inspection (idiots) and the realtor dropped the commission by one point so I signed. Then I went out onto my Mom’s back deck and cried. She told me to do my best and to go with my gut but I still feel as if I let her down and that she will somehow be disappointed. I don’t have a phone number to reach her in Ireland and she’s not answering my e-mails. I am going to go drink some vodka, play some Math game that Polly has to do for homework and throw some ravioli in water for dinner.

When will I ever feel like a grown up?

I am off to look at the counter offer to the counter offer to the counter offer to the offer on my Mom’s house. I am not kidding. I feel like I am going to have a nervous breakdown.

I also feel like having a very stiff drink.

I had to turn on the comment moderation until I can figure out how to stop these spammers. If anyone knows a good antispam program for wordpress please let me know.

My first grade photo. I am hoping to get my camera fixed this week so I can get some new photos on this site.

So Janet Jackson has come out and said that her brother, Michael, called her “fat butt” when she was growing up which gave her issues with her weight. My brother told me that bugs would crawl into my ears and tunnel through to my brain, creating entire colonies and living there happily until I died, except when another species of bug would enter and there would be wars between the two. This led to years of me not allowing my Mom to put my hair up into pig tails, only a ponytail that covered my ears and made her sigh with frustration, “Tammy, this would look a lot better if you let me pull it up and over your ears”, but no, I couldn’t do it. The threat was so real. I slept with cotton in my ears. My Mom never had a lot of money so instead of buying cotton she saved the cotton from the tops of medicine bottles, so for years I went through life with aspirin scented cotton wads showed in my ears while I slept. They were called earwigs for a reason, right?

Anyway, I would have expected something juicer from Janet, such as my brother used to dangle me over balconies, make me wear a blanket over my head when we left the house, slip elephant man bones into my bed while I slept, try to get my little male friends to sleepover in his room, and in later years, refer me to plastic surgeons who would do a wonderful job on my nose.

Truthfully, I was never a fan of Janet’s music, but I watched “ Good Times” religiously as a little girl. I loved that show so much I wanted to be a poor family living in the projects in Chicago in a too small apartment. They seemed so much happier than my family, living in a too small house in a lower middle class neighborhood. At least the parents talked to the kids. I felt like a stranger who just got in the way.

On that show there were these paintings that they showed depicting African American people. I still love those paintings but I’ve never been able to find out anything about them. If anyone knows who the artist was let me know in the comments or drop me an e-mail.

I have decided that I need to buy a laptop because I can never get on this computer. I have no idea how I am going to afford such a thing but it’s good to have dreams, yes? Between my husband and our two kids I am always 4th in line. I have planned on writing late at night when the kids are asleep and Alex is at work (he works the graveyard shift) but I am just so damned tired these days. I think it might just be a side effect from the Prozac or the increase in Klonopin my doctor put me on. I am not going to read all of those pieces of paper that come with the meds or do any research about side effects online though, because I will then get every bad side effect they write about. Trust me; I’ve made that mistake before.

Polly is going to outdoor school soon. My first reaction was that there was no way she was ready to be away from me for a whole week. I mean, this is the little girl who wakes me up in the middle of the night because she heard a scary noise. She seems okay about the trip though, so my second reaction was that maybe it is me who isn’t ready to let my youngest go just yet, and my third reaction was, “Damn, I’d better buy her a new sleeping bag, hers doesn’t look so good anymore.”

Nathan is doing okay. He’s had a cold and a sore throat and he even had the audacity to tell me that his ears hurt because I let us run out of Q-tips and he couldn’t clean his ears. Everything, my fault. I tried to take him to the doctor but he didn’t want to go so I am just keeping an eye on him. Plus, he has been eating three or four grapefruit a day, and I’m thinking that if his throat hurt that bad he couldn’t handle anything so acidic.

I am still trying to sell my Mom’s house for her while she is in Ireland drinking Guinness with her sister. We agreed to a $20,000 price drop and that seemed to renew interest so I am hoping.

Other than that I am okay. The panic attacks have dropped considerably and I am traveling by bus without too much trouble. I started reading “ Out Of Africa”. I am not far enough into it to tell whether I like it or not, but it came highly recommended by someone I trust so I have high hopes. I rented the movie “ The Human Stain” which I am going to hopefully watch tonight after Alex leaves for work. That is if I don’t fall asleep first.