Life for today...

Audience Questions: please leave comments in the comments!

What are some things that you suggest? What are some things that you do to manage your anxiety, depression, and stress?

 

I have a few things on my mind today but I am only going to rant on one...I had someone ask me why I never talk about what I am really feeling. Why do I always hide the tears behind the laughs? Why do I hide the sadness behind a smile?

 

Why would anyone want to pour their heart out to someone for them to say the common, typical phrases that, let's face it, everyone says. Examples:

"Are you ok?" 

No, you moron! If I was ok, I wouldn't be crying, posting DAILY on Facebook about depression and how it AFFECTS ME, driving 220 miles round trip for therapy once a week, taking happy pills, or looking for other ways to manage my depression

"How can I help?"

This one is a big issue for me... People say this then NEVER follow through. Yea there are the select few that do, but 9 times out of 10, NOPE! Here is a small list of things that I need...

• Help paying for a service animal, because driving 220 miles every week is kinda killing the bank account.
• Time daily out of my house, but that means child-care, which I cant afford. Having a job would be ideal, but it has to pay enough to cover child-care.
• Real help with my PTSD, OCD, anxiety-disorder, stress-disorder, and recurrent depression.

 

"I'll pray for you."

I know this one shouldn't bother me so much. I mean, it's prayer... but I have found that the more people say this the less likely they are to really do it. There is a really simple way to fix this. The moment you think about praying for someone, DO IT THEN! Don't wait!



Most people say these things without even thinking because it is the nice, polite thing to do. But this is a whole other blog rant that will be left for another day. My point for today's blog is to let you all know how I managed through today.

My day TODAY



My day started off bad and only seemed to get worse... until I decided on making a few changes. My DD (Dear Daughter) woke up far too early this morning and I woke up with a migraine (PastTense was a big help) and so much tension in my neck I couldn't turn my head (Deep Blue Rub helped, but I'm still sore). After getting my DD back in bed, I managed to take a little nap. Woke up closer to 11:30a.

Now, my older two kids wake up before me and they get their own breakfast. If I don't make something the night before it's either yogurt or cereal. They were already awake once I got up. Got them all dressed then went down to make lunch... Making lunch is a little different for me then it is for most people. Those of you with OCD can probably relate a little bit with this. Making lunch involves a few extra steps... like dishes, counters, sweeping, moping. Which is why everything for actually MAKING lunch is prepped the day before. Throw it in the microwave and feed it to the kids as I am do all the cleaning that I need to in order to manage my anxiety. I typically end up cleaning for 30 minutes before I can wrap my head around "it's time to eat!".

This is the point where the anxiety is a level 10 from fighting with my DS to eat his vegetables, my DD to sit and actually eat, and my other DD to not shove the entire bowl full of beef stew into her mouth at one time. So, to help myself calm down, I decide to send them all upstairs to play while I clean up more downstairs. I didn't clean the whole time, I actually decided to do some yoga while the kids were "playing". I use the term loosely because I have to stop what I am doing AT LEAST every 15 minutes to break them up from fighting.

The yoga really helped... until the next disaster. After sweeping and moping the kitchen/dining and living room there came the other daily chores. It has been a busy day, but this is every day. Come 5:30p, when my husband called to let me know he was on the way home, I was ready to explode again so I did another round of yoga and then ate dinner.

Thoughts and feelings



I am the one who does the vast majority of the cleaning and cooking in my home. My husband helps where he can, but more often then not, I do it all. It is hard. I wish I were the kind of person who could sit in a room where it didn't have to be spotless clean. I wish I could just relax. But neither my body nor brain allow me to when there are things that I feel need to get done.

I try to keep a to-do list and try to only do what is on that list. I try to only do so much work in a day, but I cant manage to relax until everything is done. With three kids, two dogs, and a soldier in the house, the cleaning never ends...

It isn't just cleaning either. When my kids get along with each other my days are easier... when they are fighting, I want to set my whole house on fire. When I have a lot of things to do in a day, it is safer for everyone around me if the kids are sleeping or no where near me. The stress of having too much at one time is never a good blend. My habit... I tend to push too much into one single day so I don't have to do anything extra on the days my husband works. This ends up back firing on me because I end up freaking out on my husband and kids. Anxiety truly sucks!

I want to be a normal, happy, loving person. I want to be able to live, eat, and breath like a normal person.