TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2011
Mood - I got up late 10:10 am. I took the meds. around 1:00 pm. I didn't feel so puffy and droopy, or dopey. I woke up a bit after the meds. and since it is not as hot today as it was Saturday I am not seriously sweaty and dragging. I've been hanging out since I got up in my t-shirt and underwear. Time to get some clothes on, it's 2:16 pm!
Physical - I woke up at 10:10 am. My knee is sore but not so bad. The front of my knee is weak. I'm still limping when I go to the bathroom in the morning. My period is pretty much gone. I've had it for about 16 days. I feel overly warm and slow. My left top eyelid didn't twitch today. I did more activity today than yesterday and got out of the house just not as much as yesterday.
Woke up - I woke up at 10:10 am. I took the excedrin and allergy meds but not the Aleve later in the day. I took the gummi vitamins after noon time.
Activities -I went to bed around 4:00 am. I didn't close the curtains but fell asleep. I got up at 10:10 am. Mom woke me up asking if I needed to go do anything in town and if my alarm needed to be answered. I ate the rest of the macaroni salad with some of the zucchini, summer squash and green pepper mix cut up and mixed into it. I also added some of that chili paste S M gave me and drank some diet mountain dew to take my meds.
Mom went into town without me or surprisingly Dad. I worked on the blog and on getting links for the WRAP Workbook. C texted me asking if I'd come in to do the shuttle run. I get ready to go and did some more online stuff. When I left I told Mom not expect me for dinner when she asked. Arriving at CQ, R was there. He had to go pick up his daughter at life guarding class so I was to stay around for deliveries in case any needed to be done while K was doing delivery, shuttle and collecting.
I hung out there until closing.
Around 7 pm C and I went to El Fuegos. I ordered a Grande Burrito with chicken and he got an order of chips and salsa and a Buffalo Quesadilla for himself.
We went home forgetting that I'd left the car at CQ. No one was home when we got there so I went upstairs and online. About 8:15 pm Mom poked her head in y doorway and said that she needed me. Dad had walked off and she didn't know where he was.
Mom had driven to Ocean Skate to see J practice for roller derby tryouts this fall. When she went into the rink Dad said hi to J and T. He told Mom that he was going to sit out in the car. Mom left the rink about 10 minutes later and no Dad. She drove home looking for him on the sidewalk thinking he'd walked home. He never arrived. We drove back to the rink but looked at Moo Moo's then the carousel. J and T were just taking off their skates when we got into the rink.
Mom and I explained what happened. We asked Tom to go to the Mall across the road and look for him. In Dunkin' Donuts they had seen him but he'd left and they didn't know where he'd gone. Mom and I visited the businesses that were still open on our side of the street. We went over to Mariner Square to look for him there. As we were leaving Mariner Square K called me to tell me that Dad was home. He seemed to have just appeared. K had called J and T and at that point I'm assuming E too who had joined in the hunt.
Mom picked up Dad's skim milk on the way back home at Cumbie's. I asked Dad how he'd gotten home after Mom yelled at him in frustration about just taking off. I told Dad that we were worried about him because his phone didn't work so we couldn't call to check up on him. He told me the police picked him up and took him home.
I feel weary after this.
WRAP - I wrote today's blog. I wrote today and yesterday's Daily Pages.
Plans for Tomorrow I plan on getting up. I plan on writing Monday's Daily Page. I plan on doing an activity for WRAP. I have to finish decorating the piñata. I plan on filling out the Genetic Alliance Online Questionnaire. I need to ask C when R is leaving for his vacation to see if it coincides with Mom's cataract operation and recovery. I have to pick up my car. I may have to stay with Dad while Mom gets her car maintained in Middletown tomorrow afternoon.
{I want to change a bad habit so that I 1) Stop doing something bad 2) exchange the bad action with a positive action 3) and get a result that will help me in my life.}
A reminder: I need to plan a weekend worth of menus for Dad while Mom, E and J are away in August. J is coming on the 27th of July for a few weeks. E asked Mom to pick him up this Thursday and Mom asked B if he'd come to Boston with her. We are also planning a family party to coincide with J's stay in RI Mom wants it to be this next Sunday. Mom will be going to NY the weekend of C's birthday, the 15th and the 14th August. E and J are planning on going with her so I need to plan for at least 2 days worth of menus. August 17th Mom is having the cataract surgery. I need to make sure I schedule nothing for 3 days. Mom as well as Dad will need my help then. I need to glue tissue paper on the piñata and decorate it the July birthday party cookout. I can't find the little gifts from the last piñata. I also need to wrap E's and Lil's gifts. I also need to buy Lia a gift since we are planning to combine the August and July birthdays in one celebration while Jerome is here. ALSO CALL JONNYCAKE CENTER FOR FOOD BASKETS OR EXTRA FOOD. AND MAIL THE ENVELOPE TO HUMAN SERVICES. Sept. 19 through October 1st I will be in Philadelphia. I need to plan a menu for the Piepszacs before I leave for that weekend.
Things that gave me joy today and things that made me feel better about myself:
Joy: I went to El Fuego with C.
Made me feel better about myself: We found Dad.
Other Stuff I Discovered While Online:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-lion-tamer
Today, the 55-year-old Stosny—a Ph.D. and clinical psychologist practicing in the Washington, D.C. area—has become a multimedia guru of anger. He has turned his intimate understanding of the emotion and its roots into an unconventional treatment method that's gaining both widespread popular attention and the notice of other psychologists. Most anger management programs are based on cognitive-behavioral therapy and the premise that our rational thoughts shape our emotional responses. If you can think before you explode and use relaxation techniques to calm your physiological response, the theory goes, you can control your anger and its potentially messy aftermath.
But research has shown that conventional anger management doesn't work very well. Domestic violence treatment is even less effective. These programs can help the highly motivated—but most people with problem anger don't think they have a problem and don't seek out treatment. Besides, merely controlling the impulse to lash out doesn't get to the root of long-term resentments. At the heart of problem anger, believes Stosny, are severe feelings of shame and guilt as well as a lack of empathy for self and others—or at least an inability to recognize and express it. Rather than merely teaching tactics to control anger, Stosny asks his clients to look at their emotional core and make a truly revolutionary shift: trade bullying for compassion. Instead of confronting angry people with their failures, he provides a way for them to adhere to their own internal values and meet their own best standards. Once that person recognizes his or her own best qualities, it becomes easier to substitute kindness and compassion for violence and hostility. "If you show people a way to change," says Stosny, "they do."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/demystifying-psychiatry/201105/bipolar-spectrum-disorder-problematic-concept
A resource for patients and families.
by Charles Zorumski, M.D., and Eugene Rubin, M.D., Ph.D.
Bipolar Spectrum Disorder: A Problematic Concept
Subthreshold Bipolar Disorder – Not Ready for Prime Time
Published on May 9, 2011 by Eugene Rubin, M.D., Ph.D. in Demystifying Psychiatry
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/demystifying-psychiatry/201103/good-psychiatrists-should
A resource for patients and families.
by Charles Zorumski, M.D., and Eugene Rubin, M.D., Ph.D.
Good Psychiatrists Should...
Characteristics of a good psychiatrist.
Published on March 29, 2011 by Eugene Rubin, M.D., Ph.D. in Demystifying Psychiatry
Children of Parents with Mental Illness
I sometimes forget that my Father is why I am here in this group. I have gone through my life being there for other people because neither of my parents were there for me. I am even now here in this house for my parents and they still live as if nothing ever happened. Love is a four letter word. It's used to illicit a response in peoples' lives. That is how love was practiced in my parent's household. I did my best to change that for my sons in our household. I didn't begin to live until I escaped my parents' reach. Then I came back here thinking that I could heal. I've found that this household is the gaping wound. My siblings warped and living like nothing affected them but dripping the past as they limp along. My parents dancing the same old tired out dysfunctional dance. And I have reverted back to the same old protection measures just to deal with the same patterns that have never been recognized nor changed. The one good thing that happened is that I can SEE what is going on here. I speak the truth that no one wants to hear. It isn't for them or their health anymore it's for my sanity that I state the obvious and (to them,) the obscene. Carry on in your minds the flames of reality. No matter who denies it you will light your path towards your own restoration. And for anyone else that cares to learn it will shine as an example.
Sisyphus Sypher I'm realizing more and more I have the power to change things for myself. The fear is keeping me down. The bothersome thing is that I think I'm making myself sick lately so that I can harness the power of anger to get me out of this mess and survive the anger of people who don't understand. I've been trying to understand my bad habits and confront the ways that I deal with my life through the lessons that I learned in this place. I'd rather be whole. I see myself acting in passive-aggressive ways and my family thinking it's from the illness. I can't grow here. I can't learn here. I don't know how to communicate with people that don't want to hear. They support me but only in the stilted way that they know how.
Thanks Joanne, I hope to master this and come out stronger on the other side.
I too want to thank everyone especially Christophe for starting and maintaining this conversation thread. For me writing down what's going on and the results can help me see that I'm not losing it. It's really happening.
Wow, powerful stuff Melisande! I live here. With my two sons. My room is my apartment that is never safe from the chaos. My Mother has told me she plans on putting my Father in a nursing home in September (my birthday month it makes me wonder what the underlying message is.) She also said last year that she was planning to put him in the nursing home but didn't because of the money situation. I don't trust her. I never did. She's left me so many times with my @ss hanging in the wind. I avoid my Father unless i can remove myself emotion wise to regard him as an old powerless disabled person. Then that is the only time I can interact with him. He's tried to bully me before. He's pushed me and ripped my purse. These things don't bother me so much. i know his mind is gone and they are attempts to bully me into doing his will. I don't hold it against him but I know I have to be careful around him.
Still I wonder if I passive-aggressively deal with him the way I do because I have hated him for so long. I can't pretend that I love him to myself. I pretend to my Mother and siblings that I do care and love him to look normal to them. I worry that I am damaging myself by having to think and feel how I do privately yet give the impression that I don't feel how actually feel with my family. I'm sick of the charade.
I've already openly told my Mother I'm planning on moving to another state that has better mental health care than this one. In September I will be going to that state to visit a friend who will be helping me to apply to housing there so that I can complete the first step in a long process. I feel so worn. I feel like it's either do or die.
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I'm no expert. With that said I can relate to your 14 year old. I was tightly packaged as a child and wanted a lot of attention. Both of my parents neglected me. Saying that I looked developmentally disabled most of my life. I did not take any interest in school. I was bullied easily. I had friends but I was also dysfunctional in that I chose people who were as out of the loop as I was. I had been molested at the age of 3 by our babysitter's husband and asked to be taken out of that place. I was ignored. That taught me that I was a child and had no power to change anything as long as I was a dependent. So I withdrew and waited. My older sister was much more socially competent. She had never seen the abuse, didn't know about the abuse and teased me like other children I knew. I hated her for years figuring she willingly made my life hell. As I grew older I viewed any kind of kindness from other people as a direct attempt to use me for their own profit. My anger burned slowly and grew to huge proportions and I held grudges against people. My only power was passive-aggressive actions. I slept a lot. I spent a lot of time in my bedroom drawing. There was no privacy in our house because my Father an alcoholic, undiagnosed bipolar and a Momma's boy that got whatever he wanted and had no empathy for other people's feelings. My diary was read through and critiqued by him. he would take any money that was in my room rationalizing that he was "king of his castle" and I only lived there because I couldn't move out. Someone stole something from him. Everything was someone else's fault, never his. Etc. etc. etc. My Mother was an angel to me because in comparison she was harmless. I was afraid of my Father because of his moodiness. Some times he was so generous and would treat us to movies and a dinner as kids. Sometimes he screamed at us to shut up he had to listen to kids all day at his job. In the summer he would skulk around the house in his underwear and sleep weird hours of the day. We weren't allowed to bring friends home. In reality my Mother is and was an enabler. Nothing changed in all the years that they stayed married.
Why am I telling this to you? You have the power to change things. You have the power to talk to your child and at least let Shanna know that you want to work with her. You have the capacity to connect with her and ask her what she wants from life. You have the potential to connect her with reality in a safe way. and you should do this as soon as possible. She is a young teenager. And if she is harboring as much anger as I did at that age it is going to come out or it will eat her up inside. What do you want for her? To learn how to seek help for things she doesn't understand or react to a confusing closed off world and possibly become more and more shut off from society and reality? As a teenager I was molested by the man that sold my Father his booze. He was the next door neighbor. I had to wait until I was crazy angry before I told my parents. And their reactions were not what I wanted or expected: complicity and surprise. Build a connection with your daughter outside of the home. take her to do things she finds interesting and fun to help build your relationship. Make her take a walk with you. Talk gently of things that bother you about her actions. Tell her directly that you are concerned. Start now because this is a habit every parent should get into and practice with their loved ones all their lives. I too have children with special needs. They were not able to get the help that could have given them the tools to handle everyday life. No matter what I have always tried to connect with them and communicate with them. I'd love to say I am an excellent parent but I'm not. I'm flawed and wounded and fearful. I am also willing to do whatever helps my children and I to get by and work together for our own little family and piece of mind. Good luck to you. Hang tough and know that you are loved. <3 By the way my oldest child was molested twice. I called the police both times. I left my husband when he burned my oldest child. My children and I have been through tragedy and have lived in poverty. What I have paid in sweat and tears and humiliation I get back with family loyalty from my children. They KNOW I will always be there for them.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/schizophrenia-children-families-grapple-costs-emotional-financial/story?id=14109216
Schizophrenia in Children: Families Grapple With Costs, Emotional and Financial
Brenna: 'I Need to Be Locked Up'
Stigmas Surrounding Mental Illness
Mentally Ill? Prepare to Wait
Jani Tormented by Hallucinations
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