Hiding

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.