I’ve been
hiding.
When my life
takes a steep dip, I hide. There are a few people who hear about it but mostly
I keep to myself. When I can’t think, feel, or research my way out of
something, I feel as if I am totally lost.
I know,
logically, that it’s ridiculous. I need to be outside, get in the sun, visit
with the horses, and be with family and friends who truly love me.
I need to
write. A lot. It might be the very best medicine for me but when things get
really bad I can’t say anything nice, at
all. In the moment there is no, “Hey, this horrible thing happened and here’s
how it worked out.” No, it’s all horrible and not getting better. (Boy that
sure sounds like Loreli doesn’t it? I can’t imagine why we trigger each other
so much…)
This newest
version of hell started immediately after I wrote this
post about Daniel. Loreli was so angry that Daniel was getting the
attention he deserved. To her it meant that life was unpredictable and scary.
It took me a long time for me to truly come to terms with my own phrase, “Manipulation
is a cry for help.” Loreli was, daily,
begging for help with her behavior and manipulations. But, being human, and
tired, and not taking care of myself enough, I had just had enough. I didn’t
want to have to go back to the beginning again/Level One, that was really hard!
Looking back
I think, “Sure Level One is difficult, but nothing
is as difficult as living with a child who feels so unsafe that they are
completely out of control!” If there is a person living in the house who feels
unsafe, no one feels safe.
Loreli
spiraled out of control. She went from screaming, yelling, and slamming doors
to growling and acting aggressively. Next up was lying, cheating, and stealing.
She was flipping out and I was too scared to do anything about it. Scared that
doing our version of Level One wouldn’t work again. Scared that I didn’t have
it in me to do that again. Scared of doing it all on my own. Scared that Daniel
was being traumatized again, just when I had started to work on that with him.
Scared that this was going to happen over and over and over again for the rest
of our lives. But when Loreli’s behavior got really bad, and she hurt Daniel,
hurt Onya, and tried to hurt Midgie all in the space of a few days, I knew I
didn’t have a choice. She was so frightened that she had come to the edge. She
was throwing out every behavior she knew in order to make me sit up and take
notice. I did. We went back to Level One. This time I typed it up and gave her
a copy so she would know exactly what was going on.
With all of
that fear, anxiety, and depression swirling around inside of me I began having
chest pains and weird aches and pains in my body. I went to the doctor and had
a CIMT test.
This is an ultrasound of the carotid arteries in the neck—it shows how much
plaque is lining the arteries. I was half expecting them to rush me in to
emergency surgery because I was so clogged. When I went into see Deb, my nurse
practitioner, she told me I had the arteries of a 46 year old. Being 45, I was
pretty happy about that. We talked about some other things and suddenly I found
myself blurting out, “I’m pretty sure the stress of my life is going to kill
me.” Deb, bless her heart, looked at me, took me seriously and said, “We need
to look at lessening the stress in your life.” I looked back and said, “I can’t
get rid of this stress, she’s my daughter.” Deb asked me to go eat lunch and
come back for a “Myer’s
Cocktail IV”.
It took
about an hour and I felt amazing. Calmly energized. I could THINK again. The
anxiety had lessened. The depression had lifted. It was incredible. That was a
Friday afternoon.
It lasted
for 24 hours.
Saturday
evening and all day Sunday I was back to fear, anxiety and depression. Monday I
had another IV.
It lasted
for 4 days.
I’ve had 6
now and I’m up to every 2 weeks. Deb’s nurse says, “We are just filling in all
your potholes. You should be able to get these once a month eventually.”
The fear,
anxiety, and depression are gone. I’m able to think, respond, and act in a
positive way. I had no idea I was so riddled with anxiety and depression. I
thought I was slightly prone. It wasn’t until I had the relief the vitamins and
minerals gave me that I realized, “Oh my God! I’ve been depressed and anxious
for the 5 years that Loreli has been home.”
I’m very
good at hiding that part of myself most of the time and I’m a master at smiling
and laughing so no one usually knows—things I’m working on.
Look what
happened when I finally let my guard down and told someone the scary truth
without a smile or a laugh…
Someone
helped me.
And it was
good.
