Archive for the ‘Depression dealings’ Category
I feel like I should write something
August 15, 2007I saw #5 this morning. He does a damn good job helping me sort, verbalize, whatever. I’m not sure I feel better but I have more clarity about what is going on emotionally. And well, it isn’t something I’m comfortable posting about.I know, surprising, considering some previous posts.
Heh. Guess I’m changing 
Update full of randomness
August 10, 2007My session with #5 this week was better than I thought it might be. Lots of him making me evaluate and look at what things I’m stressing over that I might be able to take steps to get answers to. Plus we talked about my great ability to stew about stuff. I said I excel at stewing, which made him chuckle
My anxiety has been awful lately over the whole money situation. Every time I think we might be able to get on track, we end up in another tight money crisis. On paper, it looks like it should work but it never seems to. We are still agonizing over whether to file bankruptcy or wait because I am picking up an extra day starting in September and I got a whopping 40 cent per hour raise, which will help but we don’t know if it will truly help enough. Whether my “sanity” can take another day in the world of Thermoblah, I don’t know. And of course, we are continuing to get some phone calls from the “friendly” people at our old mortgage company, and since they won’t talk to me and they call my cell phone to talk to T, I guess they are s*0*l. I figure if I get a chance to talk to them, I’m just going to say they might as well give up now because if they do push us for it, we are going to file for bankruptcy protection which we should qualify for with no problem, so either way, they aren’t getting jack from us.
T is leaving me again this weekend for more canoing. This time he is going for one of our friends’ 30th birthday. While I’m glad he is getting some time to do guy stuff, I’m kind of dreading having the weekend to myself with Widget because she has been a bit of a pill lately and having his help on the weekend is sometimes very essential to my stability. I was thinking about tackling potty-training since we would have the weekend with no plans but I haven’t committed myself to it yet. I still don’t know if she is really ready or not (I think I was agonizing over this a year ago, with no progress. Ha!) and it seems like such a huge project.
Clear signs
August 4, 2007I’m having some indications that my stress level/emotionally stability is in flux.
1. Headaches. Not as bad as some of the migraines I get but regular tension whole head headaches, that my usual two ibuprofen dose chased with caffeine-laced Moutain Dew isn’t diminishing. I’ve had 3 days worth with minimal breaks in between.
2. Widget is getting on my nerves far too easily. It was actually going along very, very well in terms of my tolerance level with her twoishness. Not so much the last few days.
3. More vivid dreams. Recurring sequences in dreams where I’m signed up for classes that I forget to go to until the last day, then I remember the class and I have to take an exam on a subject, which I know nothing about or I forget the exam entirely, therefore failing the class. Or the other running theme is having my teeth disintegrate and fall out and there is nothing to do to stop it.
4. Increased mind-numbing activities like the internet: spending too much time looking at the same blogs, forums, news sites, e-mail inbox as if I might miss something drastically important if I don’t check this instant. My other new one is crossword puzzles. I bought these two books of them in the $1 section of Target earlier this summer and what I have discovered is that they essentially use the same clues over and over again with a few different ones thrown in for variety. So now that I have them figured out, I can sit and do several of them in a row. I even stay up late doing them instead of sleeping.
I’ve got until Wednesday before my appointment with #5.
Battling
August 2, 2007My mind and emotions at war today.
My emotions are playing the “Pity Party at Erin’s house cause her friends are having another baby and she can’t. Adoption isn’t an option at the moment since finances suck and we might have to file for bankruptcy.” card
My mind is trying to stop my emotions by repeating to herself, “There is a plan behind all this. You haven’t a clue about what it is. This has nothing to do with you as a person.”
Blech.
“Worry ends when faith begins”
July 29, 2007Before I launch into my post about this statement, I want to say that today T & I attended our friends’ church for their son’s baptism. This church is of the same denomination as our church, with a similar contemporary format. Afterwards, T & I said to each other how glad we were for our church and how going to this other church made us realize choosing to become members of our church was absolutely the right thing for us. The service wasn’t bad but it felt very superficial and while the pastor was very nice, he sounded a bit glib to me in how he preached and led the service. After attending the service, I kind of think that our friends only go to this church because her “substitute mother figure” attends this church and if she ever left, they would follow her or quit going. I even struggle with being sure of how genuine their faith is, but I don’t know since I’m not them 
For her, I see their church as more of a fit than for him. I actually think he would love our church. Maybe sometime I’ll be able to get them to check our church out.
Okay, back to the topic at hand….
During my appointment with #5 last Monday, we were talking about my upcoming appointment I have with the Long Term Follow Up Clinic at the University of Michigan. I told him that as soon as I got the reminder notice in the mail, I started thinking about it and I could feel my anxiety level ramping up. Usually I find myself getting gradually more and more anxious until right before the appointment when I start think I cannot go, they’ll find something wrong, I’m going to cancel. I always end up going and then breathe this giant sigh of relief when I pull out of the hospital parking ramp.
So we talked about why I was anxious and what other emotions I tend to feel when attending these appointments. He asked me what the most predominant emotion was and I said fear. Complete and utter fear that they will find cancer again or they will tell me about some late term effect with dire consequences from my treatment. He said well, that is perfectly normal and physically, my body remembers what happened all those years ago, kind of like a post-traumatic stress episode, in fact, it probably IS a post-traumatic stress situation for you. My reply? Oh, I’ve always thought that being afraid and worrying was a sign of weakness, of failure.
Then I said it was part of what pushed me away from God and church because of the feeling that if I had faith, I shouldn’t ever worry, that I would just be able to say “Okay God, have at this” and then be capable of handling anything without worry. Instead I was crumpled in this ball of depression, worry, fear, sadness, loneliness, so I thought I must not have faith. If I don’t have faith, then who needs God? Not me since He isn’t there anyway. Fortunately, I found my way back to faith and God, despite having this feeling lingering in the back of my mind.
#5 then asked me if I had seen the notice board of one of the churches down the street on my way in. I said no and he told me he had a patient come in really angry one day because the notice board said, “Worry ends when faith begins”. #5 said I told him that statement is a load of hooey. I have faith, I believe in God, I believe in Jesus, I believe that He died for my sins but I still wake up on occasion at night with worry. Worry and faith can coexist, you can’t let worry take over but having worries and fear are NOT a sign that you don’t have faith.
And boy was I ever glad to hear him say that!
Swirling thoughts
July 25, 2007I have a ton on my mind.
Another story about an adoption that seems to have been done very unethically resulting in a desperate woman doing a desperate act.
And I watched a PrimeTime episode about domestic adoption through the Gladney Center in Texas and I have lots to say about it.
#5 and I had an interesting discussion about faith and depression, plus fear and trauma at my appointment with him on Monday.
But it is late and I’m tired, so I’ll come back to this tomorrow!
Reminder
July 18, 2007I got a reminder in the mail today about my appointment at the University of Michigan’s Long Term Follow-Up Clinic. This is a clinic appointment for anyone who has gone through childhood or adolescent cancer and is five years or more off all treatments. Going to these appointments always feels very odd because they hold them in the same clinic as the pediatric hematology/oncology unit, so I sit there in the waiting area as an adult watching dozens of kids who are being diagnosed, being treated, being followed for the same reason I have been going to U of M for care over the last 24 years. It can be very overwhelming and the last time I went was very hard for me because we had Widget with us- she was 9 months old- and I thought what hell must these parents be going through watching their child deal with such incredibly intense medical treatments in order to live. I understood so much better what hearing my diagnosis must have seemed like for my parents. I’m sure most people thought we were there for Widget, not me, a 20+ year cancer survivor. I already know I’m leaving her home this time because an almost 3 year old during a long boring day of doctor’s appointments and lab tests plus 6 hours round trip in the car? Not my idea of fun or Widget’s! Last time I wanted to show her off to my nurse practitioner, who has been one of the team of caregivers since I was diagnosed. What was funny was she took her off to show some other people in the clinic and they were all so thrilled to see her as if we had adopted her just to show her to them
I have until October 5 to prepare myself for this visit. I always get very anxious that “something” is going to show up, either an unknown side effect from the chemo/radiation I had or an abnormality in the blood/urine tests they run. I know it is highly unlikely that they are going to find something wrong, particularly since I’m highly vigilant about my health and PH would probably discover it first. Plus I’m going to have to share the depression stuff & psychiatric stay- not something I’m looking forward to telling (there’s that stigma again- what will they think of me if they know I’ve had a psychiatric hospitalization?).
Good thing I’ve got some time and visits with #5 to sort through this….
No voice
July 11, 2007I have no voice thanks to a lovely summer cold.
Although, driving 6 hours round trip taking my sister M and her hooligans to Chicago Midway airport with my mom yesterday, and having conversation the whole time probably didn’t help.
We talked about lots of stuff- faith, marriage, parenting, therapy- both hers and mine. Probably one of the best conversations we’ve had in a long, long time.
Plus I had an interesting session with #5 on Monday, in which I did lots of talking and some crying, also not a good combination when you already have fabulously stuffed sinuses.
