PonderEthereal

Cody has been doing wonderfully as a service dog. I take him with me almost everywhere I go now and it’s absolutely SO MUCH EASIER to go out with him. It makes getting out less of a source of anxiety.

A month ago, I would avoid going to the bank. Today, I’m going with nary a second thought. yesterday, we needed hamburger buns in the middle of the day, a time that I stay clear of stores, and I took Cody and got through it great!

I still can’t take him anywhere with shiny floors because it freaks him out but for short trips to a place with shiny floors, he can sit in the car. I saw a great dog whisperer episode that gave some REALLY great tips and I realize how I reinforced the shiny floor behavior now. I’m going to try to arrange an after hours training session…

My husband, someone I loved and trusted, intentionally harmed me. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have trusted him. Intentionally causing emotional and mental harm for however many years is definitely a precursor to physical harm and maybe I should have seen that. But I didnt. He was a fixture in my life for 14 years. My life was built around our relationship. And then suddenly, he was the thing that was putting me in danger. Suddenly, my the structure of my life was in peril… my home and my ability to take care of me and my son. And worst of all, suddenly, the thing that felt safest in my life meant danger.

For the first week or so, I was just in shock. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t remember, I couldn’t function. There was one day, Sexxyred1 took me to the doctor - maybe the day after it happened? And I…

Anxiety

• Magnesium - relaxes the body - great for mild stress or stress that causes moodiness
• Omega 3 - great for anxiety. You may need several thousand mg. It usually comes in 1-2000 mg gelcaps. You can use any source (fish oil, flaxseed oil etc)
• Melatonin - great for quieting racing thoughts at bed time. Melatonin is a natural chemical in the brain that signals the body to go to sleep… can be bought in supplement form and is non habit forming. Take at the same time every night to go to sleep. I prefer the extended release kind.
• Valerian - herbal sleep aid - I use a Valerian/hops mixture

Depression

• 5Htp - increases serotonin levels in the brain. Seratonin is the chemical that makes us happy.
• St. Johns Wort - natural anti depressant

Diet

• Cut out caffeine - caffeine causes a reaction in the body that mimics anxiety. Withdrawal can be horrid - replace coffee or soda with…

You have perfect, soft, sweet fingers that I want to gobble up even now at your very mature age of 7.
You would forget your head if it weren’t attached… but you are oblivious and so cute going about it.
You’re smarter than you teachers and you know it.
You can build cool stuff out of a tape player, a jump rope and a lighty-up-thingy and you explain how it works in great detail.
You orchestrate who’s getting you what for your birthday by calling each family member, nation-wide one by one from my back seat on my cell phone on the way to school. Every morning.
Your gray eyes sparkle when your dimples shine. Your gray eyes just like mine.
You still have a really cute giggle. I hope it never goes away.

There was a while there that I was just ’surviving’ through each day. You didn’t know that… you couldn’t know that. I was…

I haven’t updated very much lately on my depression. I think I’ve been so neck deep in other stuff that it’s escaped my mind. That could be taken as a good sign.

When I quit the petri dish, I halved my anti-depressant dose successfully. I went from 20mg to 10mg a day with no issues. I’m back up by a few mg as of two days ago because there was too much ‘crash’ if I forgot my meds for over 10 hours, which, because of the whole absent-minded-professor part of me, I do fairly frequently.

For a while, I was considering the possibility of being off meds completely. It’s been a year since I’ve been on them. I was kinda excited about the possibility, but scared too. I don’t like where I was when I had to start taking them. And that ’self’ comes raging out when I ‘crash’ after…

I commented to my husband the other day that I have noticed that now, after being medicated for anxiety and depression for a few months, that very slowly, I have begun to desire things that I had shut out of my life for a very long time. I said that it was as if parts of me were healing. He said ‘healing’ would imply injury… and I said that I think that anxiety and depression did injur me somehow.

Luna bars for women rock! I was looking for something that was as quick to eat as a cereal bar - with more nutritional content. I picked one of these up yesterday to try it. Im not a big fan of 'nutrition bars'.. they usually taste like shit flavored cardboard… but this one was really good! It didnt make me all jittery with too much sugar, it put something in my stomach and I have energy :) I tried cherry covered chocolate. They cost about a dollar each.. Im going to go back and get more :)

I'm working on some web development stuff for my day job today. Im stoked about it. THIS I love doing.. smile. I'm hopefully going to be doing more of it in the near future. They invested in DreamWeaver for me so I'm taking that as a good sign :)

Today is AWESOME :) Just thought…

So.. depression is real. It’s not a mood, its an emotional state of being with underlying chemical reasons. Some people have chemical problems that make them prone to depression. There are medications for that.

I dont have a permanent chemical condition or anything.. Ive been depresed before but I think everybody gets there sometimes. It doesnt make it any less real. Depression really is a misfire of sorts. On the other hand, I think everything is controllable somehow. So while I AM depressed and it’s very real.. and not to belittle those feelings.. I havent really been helping the situation. With a little bit of thought, its obvious.

There were two causes - emotional stuff Ive been dealing with in the last month and the second job. From thsoe two things sprang other things that snowballed and I have a cycle.

I took on a second job. That takes extra…

Dear Diary,

Im in a very familiar mood. Ive been in this mood before. This poem begins to describe what its like to deal with the haunting of past relationships. Imagine what it would be like to deal with the haunting of a past self. A self that is hurt and angry and injured. past every turn, there I am. Around every corner, over every hill, there I am. This mood was triggered.

Survivors of abuse, depression and addiction have what are called triggers. People, places, events, words, things that trigger a response from the individual. It cant be helped, it isnt a logical response, it isnt a concious response it is simply a blind response to a percieved threat. I am a survivor of abuse, depression and addiction. I dont suffer from them, I survive them. Yesterday, today, tomorrow and for the rest of my life, I will survive. I have…