Better Than I Should Be

First I want everyone to know that I am sorry I haven't been very good with keeping up with noting the last couple of weeks. I sit down to do one thing and get side tracked to a thousand other but I suppose we have all been there.

Second I want to make sure everyone knows that I am not in some deep dark awful place even though my postings may seem that way. No its not all flowers and hearts right now and I need a lot of work but my life is in a good place even though my mindset is not. Maybe that is why everything is manifesting itself now, because there is no need to have to cope with extreme stresses my mind has nothing better to do than show me its time to heal. Sometimes it may be hard to read if I decide to share what is really going on in my mind. I have to get it out and "purge" it because if I don't it just festers. I know a lot of people will say "just stop doing it" but if it were that easy I would in a heartbeat but it just doesn't work that way, hence the therapy.

Finally after 2 weeks I had another therapy appointment. I needed it. My next appointment isn't for another 3 weeks and I started to panic in the office last night. Part of me thinks, "wow my therapist must be really good if she is so booked up" and then the other part is thinking "how can she let fragile patients wait so long in between visits" and then another part thinks "boy am I hungry I should have eaten before I left".

I am on a waiting list for an appointment and boy I'm sure hoping I can get one. I feel a little "Monkish" (yes meaning the show Monk) that I slightly panicked not being able to get an appointment.

My appointment went well and I never realized how much crap I really had to endure. I still have severe sleeping habits and she told me I looked very tired. I tried to go to bed early last night. In my time early means 1:30am instead of 3 am. Well needless to say I didn't fall asleep until after 3am. My therapist did tell me that with everything I have had happen in my life she is actually surprised that I am as stable and well functioning as I am. As funny as that sounds it was pretty encouraging. You have to understand that I was taught by my father, stepmother and other family members that it was my fault that things happened and I caused all this misery for myself and others. It is almost like I was treated differently like I was a bad person or a bad seed. I don't know what it was that lead everyone to come to this conclusion but that's how I have felt since I was five. Now don't get me wrong, I do understand that ultimately I am responsible for myself and how I turned out but it was encouraging to have someone else point out that other people did have influence and I am not to completely to blame for my issues.

Sometimes I look at my life and think it's almost so ridiculous that maybe I imagined all these things and made them up and maybe I am really crazy. My therapist, because it is her job to take these statements seriously, told me that I remember too many details about events to have made them up. Knowing that all of those traumatic events were real and showed the issues of the other people that influenced my life ironically made me feel better about myself. It was very encouraging for someone else to point out that other people were crappy to me and they were wrong for it. It was encouraging to learn I am NOT a bad person. I feel I am a really great person, I just need to get her out from under all the weight of these issues I carry around.

1st Therapy Appointment

So I had my first therapy appointment. If I didn't have such a good sense of humor I would probably be in a corner crying about my life right now. I didn't even finish discussing all of my issues in a 60 minute session with her. I have LOTS of issues. She said, and I quote, "At least you're not boring!" She did help me to realize that I am not the "bad seed" in my family because they are all crazy too and need to be in therapy. Apparently we should each have our pictures under a different disorder in some text book somewhere. I almost didn't make it into the session though. I got there, paid my copay and sat down. There were several people in the waiting room and all of a sudden I started to freak out. Quietly in my own head freak out. I felt extremely anxious and I just wanted to get up and leave. I don't know if its because I felt like everyone was looking at me like I was a crazy freak (I'm leaning more toward this) or I thought they were all freaks and it was creeping me out.

The funniest part of the whole thing was when I was leaving she asked the receptionist to schedule another 60 minute session. (I'm surprised it wasn't 120 minute session) The receptionist asked me is this for next week? I told her is assumed so, I hope she didn't mean this week. The receptionist (and I) thought this was funny. So maybe I don't look as crazy as I feel. Unfortunately, my therapist is all backed up from being out from foot surgery so I have to wait 2 weeks for my next appointment. I almost started to panic again and quickly caught myself by thinking, my god I'm just like Monk on TV. I crack myself up.

And the Diagnosis is....

So I went for my first appointment. I am moderate OCD but it looks like I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. Believe it or not they are two separate disorders. My shrink actually told me that I should read up on what I have. Then he hit me with a bomb. He believes that I need to start taking medication but I can not breastfeed. And I'm not talking 1 medication he believes that it would be 3 minimum and he also believes that I may have ADD as well due to some other symptoms that don't fit with OCD. He said it was common for OCD'ers to have things like ADD accompanying. So now we are talking a minimum of 4 medications.

Well I'm sorry but I need at least 5 more months nursing my daughter. I just can't stop. Even if I was willing to put her on formula the hormonal changes and physical changes from stopping would be huge challenges in themselves. My compromise was to do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for at least 5 months and then I will reevaluate. However, he did stress that most people with OCD do not respond to therapy without medication and Ihave to be careful because OCD is a progressive disease and since I am having anger problems he seems a little more concerned. So now I have my first appointment with my therapist who is a psychologist on Tuesday.

I have to laugh though because while I was telling him was wrong he kept making noises, ya know those little noises that people make when they are taken aback, or over concerned by what you are saying. I wanted to say "is it really that bad". A little unprofessional but funny none the less.

No padded room for me yet!

Breathe, Just Breathe

So they had on one of those channels (Oxygen or WE can't remember) The Secret Lives of Women and it was all about OCD. I'm pretty sure that is part of my problem but I'm not completely sure. It's definitely not stuck in the grieving process from the death of my mother 23 years ago. I was asked if what type of therapist I was seeing and I will be seeing a psychiatrist.

When I was in high school they had me see a councilor to deal with the death. It was a group session once or twice a week and I was in it for a (school) year. I think back and don't really remember much about it. I wasn't so depressed about my mothers death as I was having to live with my stepmother. I mean I was upset about losing my family but even then I realize that I had to accept and move on. Of course when your 12/13 no one believes you can do that. My major problems were anxiety and depression due to my living arrangements with "the parents". All my control issues begin there. I did really well in high school and I was a highly motivated person with all the hopes and dreams and I was focused and creative and ambitious. I was always on time and got all my work done.

Fast forward to college and I started procrastinating, skipping classes, never did my work. I had lost myself somewhere and had no motivation. I couldn't come up with a creative idea to save my life (I still can't). All the joy of learning and focusing was gone. I used to love to crack open a book and do homework, I know that sounds crazy but it felt like I was doing this all important search for some secret answer. I loved the smell of the books and the writing of the answers and it was always easy for me. In college I would read something and panic because I couldn't focus on it and it started to look like greek and I couldn't understand it to get through it basically because I was panicking. The same thing happened with test questions. I would study, know the stuff and then read the questions and not understand the words. After a while I just gave up. I barely squeaked by with my degree.

With all that said I felt myself drowning. I was doing a lot of other self destructing behaviors and felt I was falling apart and went to see a psychologist. Let's keep in mind that I was a psychology major and have a degree (barely) in psychology. He never even gave me a diagnosis, he decided that most of my problems stemmed from my mother dying and constantly wanted to talk about that. He never talked about my current parent problems or the problems I was having with myself. I did start feeling a little better just because I was talking to someone and then he ended therapy because he made progress and felt great about himself. I guess since you usually make very slow, little progress he wanted to end something on a good note.

I chose a psychiatrist because I wanted someone with theory backed by medical knowledge and had a more logical scientific approach with cognitive behavior. Psychologists are just too subjective backed by theory and then like to incorporate their own theories. THIS IS MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION. I remember sitting in some of my classes watching these people and thinking that many of them should never be allowed to treat another person. No, I did not decide on a psychiatrist so I can take medication. First of all, I can't take anything until I finish breastfeeding and I'm not stopping because my daughter is more important. And second I just want to really exhaust all of my options before I even consider going that route.

Can you tell by my post that I'm panicking about my appointment this weekend and that I needed to explain it to myself really. Breathe, just breathe Dena.

Nope Not a Carnie - Side Show Maybe

Woo Hoo, both my kids decided to wonk out. Why at almost 7pm at night I don't know but good thing I'm a a night owl. I now have time to update.

No Jodi I did not run away but did contemplate becoming a side show attraction. I have some pictures, okay I had to tone it down because I had too many pictures. Hopefully Ava will start sitting up on her own soon so it doesn't look like I keep taking the same picture of her in the car seat wearing the white hat. There are a couple of new ones.

My one set of golf lessons ended last Thursday and my second end this Sunday. Trying to hit that stupid little white ball has become extremely addicting. I still think its a ridiculous game created just to aggravate and torment but its still addicting. I think I'm going to sign up for the intermediate lessons so I might be able to get on a course by next summer. I figure Ava will start going to school with Damien once or twice a week so then I can start playing golf. Thats it for about the "Dena Only" fun in my life.

I finally called and got my first Shrink appointment for this Saturday. I had to get an okay from insurance and then get my appointment scheduled. The receptionist asked me what the problem was. Well duh, if I knew that I wouldn't need a shrink now would I. I told her that it was anxiety issues but hind sight I should have said I was hearing voices. It probably wouldn't have been as funny as it sounds though.

Thats about it for now. Here are some pictures to leave you with.

Here are some pictures of Damien at Sesame Place, (he's still asking to go back to Big Birds House)

I think he was trying to get the whole thing in his mouth at once. He had these huge stains on his cheeks and it made him look like the Joker from Batman

Damien is obsessed with tractors and it took us an hour to get him off of this thing

They have amazing water park stuff for his age group.

Little Miss Thing as happy as a clam as always.

These are from the local carnival. The other little boy in the picture turned out to be a classmate of Damien's

They let him throw some baskets (too cute!) He didn't get one in though.

The little swings ride. I thought he was going to fall asleep on it.

And this is what Little Miss Thing thought of the whole thing

She is up on all 4's but doesn't crawl or sit up yet. The crawling thing I can wait for .

And last this is Ava at her cousin's birthday party hanging out in the jumperoo. (At least its not the car seat again)