Traumatized as a Child

As foster parents, we see the results of true trauma in our children.  It reminds me daily of how very fortunate I am that my scars are minuscule and were unintentionally inflicted.  Oh, I was traumatized alright!  Just not in the ways you might immediately think if you are in the foster parent mindset.

The Big Scary Barn

The Barn that Moo-ed - It looks innocent enough, right?  A fun little barn with cute little animals and farmers and such to entertain a young child for hours...  Not I, my friends!  That stinkin' barn let out a "moo" louder than fighter jet every time you opened the door.  If my animals couldn't fit in the hayloft, they just had to hang out in the elements because you'd better believe I wasn't about to let whatever giant monster cow that was hiding inside out of there!  Here I sit, a 38-year-old grown woman, and I'm having heart palpitations just thinking about it.

Oh, How Sweet...

The Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Movie - Sure...  Rudolph and his little girlfriend look all sweet and adorable.  They lure small children in with his shiny red nose and make them feel sorry for the poor little guy when the big reindeer make fun of him.  Just when you're feeling comfortable watching and are fully invested in cheering the sad and lonely mammal on despite the odd claymation setting, they throw this in your face!

What the HECK?!?

WHY?!?  Why would they DO that to unsuspecting little children?!?  That is seriously uncool.  To this day, I flip the channel to something else...  Anything else...  any time this made-for-television movie comes on.  That googly-eyed abominable snowman still gives me the heebie jeebies, and you'd better believe I will not be subjecting Bug and Monkey to this kind of childhood trauma.  Not ever!

The Face of Trauma in the Making

Spit-Cleaning - There are certain things that I swore I would never do to my children.  Licking my fingers to clean their faces was one of them.  I still remember the feeling of slimy fingers to my face as my mom scrubbed away at one thing or another.  I think she must have missed the memo declaring spit-cleaning must stop by the age of 2 (3 at the very latest) in order to ensure those memories remain locked away and never remembered.  I remember watching in horror as Ryan Seacrest did the unthinkable to Idol contestant Haley Reinhart one fateful evening and spit-cleaned red lipstick off of her face in front of millions on live television.  If that isn't trauma, I don't know what is!  I can almost guarantee that poor girl still has nightmares.  I know I do, and I haven't been spit-cleaned in well over thirty years!

Can't Believe I Did This to My Baby!

Yes, I was traumatized.  Fortunately, not enough to need psychiatric intervention...  I was lucky in that my mother never once took me to see Santa Claus at the mall.  "Lucky," you might question, "Don't all children want to see Santa?"  I urge you to take a look at what I did to poor Monkey for his first Christmas, and tell me if this looks like "he wanted to see Santa" to you.


What about you?  Do you have PTSD flashbacks from seemingly good things gone wrong from your early years?  Please tell me you do so I don't feel so weird about sharing mine!  Lol!

Panic Face

I received a panic-stricken phone call from my mother this morning.  She was calling to do a sanity check on me.  :-)

To be fair, I can't say that I blame her.  After all, she was the one who came to my new apartment several years ago to unpack me while I sat in the middle of the living room floor crying for absolutely no reason.

She and my dad have bailed me out of more impulsive decisions than I care to admit (thankfully, the "bailing out" has never been jail-related! :-).  My "impulsive episodes" tend to be financial.  Like moving from Texas to Oregon because it was pretty.  Moving back to Texas a year later because no one stopped to help me when I got a flat tire.  (If I had been home, I would have had my flat tire changed, the tires rotated, and would probably have been provided dinner while it was happening!  Texans ROCK!!!)  I've moved an hour and a half away from work back to my hometown because I was sick of living in an apartment in the city and just needed some peace and quiet.  That move lasted 8 months, when I got sick of commuting three hours a day and I moved right back in to the same apartment complex that I had just left.  I've dropped out of college to work full time.  I've quit jobs to go back to school full time.  Yep.  Most of my more impulsive decisions made when I'm off my meds tend to be what we refer to as my "Multi-Thousand Dollar Brain Farts," so I can't really blame my mom for panicking when she saw my last post about the possibility of purchasing a six bedroom home so I can take in troubled teens.  :-)

I hope I was successful in assuring her that, while I may be a little touched in the head, I am not stupid.  No, I have absolutely no intention of buying a large home in the country where I can rehabilitate teenage gangsters through handbell choir music (although, how cool would that be if it actually worked?!?).  While I am considering renting a house (that I can afford) close to work, and possibly increasing my fostering age range and number of children slightly, I'm not doing anything until I've been on my new medication for a couple of months.  I'm pretty sure everything is going to be just fine.  I did, after all, finally find something to wear to Monkey's 1st birthday party on Sunday, so the world is no longer coming to an end.  ;-)

Time to Take the Happy Pills!!!

I've struggled with anxiety, depression, and bipolar tendencies my entire adult life.  The past couple of years though, have actually been pretty good, even with all of the insanity and emotional highs and lows that come with foster care.  I weaned off of my meds, and haven't had to take any kind of medication for nearly two years!

Lately though, those feelings of wanting to snap the heads off of anyone who dares to look at me funny slight irritability, having a burning desire to quit my job and open a group home for troubled teens impulsive thoughts, and moments where I burst into uncontrollable sobs because my Diet Coke has gone flat inappropriate emotional responses are back.  The good thing about all of this is that after 20 years of dealing with it, I've pretty much learned to recognize when I'm in need of medical intervention vs. just being an emotional "girl."  Crying during sad movies and Hallmark commercials = Perfectly normal "girlie" response...  Having a full-on hyperventilating, forced to breathe in and out of a paper bag, feeling like my heart is going to explode, panic attack because I don't know what I'm going to wear to my 1-year-old's birthday party = Not so much.

So I made an appointment to get back on some anti-crazy meds.  I figure I should probably do that before I go and do something completely irrational...  Like buy a six bedroom house...  or take in several teenage gang members and live the dream of driving around in a Partridge Family bus while making music with my new little family...  or move to Fiji and live in a shack on the beach while making a living by selling handmade flipflops made out of seashells.

Fortunately, my current impulsive ideas are more along the lines of wanting to break my lease and rent a house that I can (mostly) afford, take in one specific teen, possibly open up to a sibling group placement with one baby and one older sibling, and perhaps buy a minivan.  :-)  And course, attempt to promote my lullaby singing career on YouTube.  Monkey tells me I have talent in the lullaby singing department.  And I did successfully serenade an entire ER full of people (although unintentially) with my musical rendition of James Brown's "I Feel Good" during a recent trip to the children's hospital. ;-)

If I still want to rent a house and take in multiple kiddos after I've been on my meds for a little while, I'll probably do it.  But until I know it's not just Bipolar Girl talking, I need to try to avoid the multi-thousand dollar brain farts if at all possible.  :-) 



I Survived...

Well, I survived my first visit with the loony doctor. I was fine all morning, and did really well for the first 10 minutes or so. No anxiety attacks, no hysterical crying...

We talk about my hysterectomy. We talk about my family history. We talk about my issues with food. We talk about things that I've done during my "manic" periods. I did REALLY well until he asked me, "How do you see your life in the future?" Not a hard question... But I LOST IT! I know how I want my life to be, but I basically see myself alone and miserable for the rest of my life. I started bawling like a baby.

Source

Then he asks me, "Do you feel like life is worth living?" (DO YOU NOT SEE ME BAWLING HERE?!?) I take his question to mean, "Are you suicidal?" and my answer was, "Well, I'm not suicidal or anything." But he says, "That's not what I asked." I'd never thought about that before. I sat there for a minute and realized that it really just depended on whether I was on an high or not. When I'm on a high, I think I change the world with my smile and scathing wit. I can do anything I want. But most days, I kind of feel like "what's the point?" I eat, I sleep, I pay bills. Whoop-dee-do!

After going over a rundown of all of my history, he said I definitely sound like I have bipolar tendencies. Definitely severe depression and anxiety issues. He's changing my medications all up. He wants to get me on a broader range of medications to try to help with the depression, anxiety, mood swings, and my manic episodes. He wants to concentrate on the depression and anxiety first because that seems to be giving me the most problems right now. And lucky me! I get to start seeing him once a week until we get the medications regulated.

He also said that he's changing things up from what I'm already on quite a bit, so there's really no telling how I'm going to react until I've been on them for a couple of weeks. If I'm more loony than usual, just tell me so I can tell him. And THEN (lucky me again!), he's going to see about getting me on a mood stabilizer if I keep having the manic episodes. Hopefully I won't need it. But heck, I'll take ANYTHING if I start feeling like a real person again!

So... I braved the unknown. I bawled in front of someone and the world didn't come to an end. Then I came back to work and made Delma cry because I was still weepy. I'm sure they all appreciated that. But at least now I know that I can talk to a shrink and it won't kill me.

Pardon Me While I Freak Out a Bit...

AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!! FREAKING OUT!!! FREAKING OUT!!! PANIC ATTACK!!! PANIC ATTACK!!! HEART RACING!!! CAN'T BREATHE!!! SHAKING!!! AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

Thank you. I feel better now.

I did it. After 10 months of putting it off (well, more like 15 years), I just got up the nerve and called the shrink. It took about 30 minutes of pacing and three or four attempts at dialing the number, but I actually did it! Those people don't give you a chance to back out either! They picked up BEFORE the first ring, and scheduled my appointment for first thing tomorrow morning. YIKES! I was thinking I'd have a week or so to psych myself up for it! Now I'm having a freaking panic attack!!!

I almost didn't call because I've been on a pretty good high the past few days. I'm feeling GOOD! I want to go back to school! I want to get more tats, dress like a hoochie-mama and dance on bars (just ask Michele and Sasha... I expressed my desire to do just that on Saturday!). Just this morning I had a sudden urge to ask Jake to take me to the shooting range and teach me how to shoot! Where the heck did THAT come from?!? Sure, I'd been watching Law & Order: SVU, but why would that give me the sudden urge to want to shoot at things?!?

Then I got an email from my mom this afternoon telling me all about a relative's latest "freak out" (we don't get this mental stuff from any stranger, that's for sure), and I realized that I was going a little loony myself. Table-dancing and dressing like a streetwalker are NOT "normal, sane" things for me to want to do. So I got up the nerve, and called. And NOW, I actually have to go!

So yes. I am FREAKING OUT!!! But hopefully the psychiatrist can figure out once and for all why I'm having these ridiculous mood swings and doing some seriously stupid things. Let's hope I don't back out of my appointment. Wish me luck. ...and wish the shrink luck. ...and I wish all of you luck! You're gonna need it having to deal with me.

Thank you for all of the support and encouragement. I definitely appreciate it!

Fearing the Journey

I found a quote when I was going through my journal that really hit home with me. It was something that I'd read in a book called "The Locket" by Richard Paul Evans.

"The most difficult of decisions are often not the ones

in which we cannot determine the correct course,

rather the ones in which we are certain of the path,

but fear the journey."

As I've been struggling with whatever this craziness is that's going on in my head, I've known that I need to talk to someone. I know that I need to see a professional who can actually diagnose me and help me work through this. In the past 10 months I've gone as far as getting pre-approved through my insurance, and then something stops me dead in my tracks. ...the fear of the journey... the fear of what might happen if I'm diagnosed with something that would actually label me as "crazy"... the fear of actually having to answer questions that I've never answered before... the fear of breaking down in front of someone (for the most part, that's something that I've pretty much managed to keep to myself until now)...

So I put off making the appointment in the hopes that this will all go away on its own. I've had manic-depressive tendencies since college (maybe before). I'll suddenly freak out and make major life-altering decisions without thinking about it and then suffer the consequences. (Like having an anxiety attack and packing up and moving an hour and a half away from work because "I JUST NEED SOME QUIET DAMMIT!!!") Then I'll sink into a depression so low that I use every ounce of strength that I have to function for the eight hours a day at work that I sleep for 20 hours a day on the weekends.

Up until this past year, the ups and downs of the roller coaster had been fairly far apart, so I didn't really notice it as much. But now, my mood can change from one minute to the next without warning. I'll be on a total high thinking that I can change the world with my smile alone, then someone will look at me funny and I'll want to tear their limbs off. After that, I'll realize that I'm being irrational and I'll start to cry. Then I think, "Screw it! Let's go to Happy Hour, girls!" It's gotten so bad that I don't even recognize myself anymore. Which brings me back to the "fearing the journey" thing...

I know it's completely ridiculous. I know I'll feel better when I'm diagnosed and can get on the right kind of medication and treatment. Rationally, I know I'll have a better chance of being able to adopt a child once I've gone through treatment and gotten everything under control. But my biggest irrational fear is that the social worker doing the adoption homestudy will read my medical history and fail me on the spot because I've been diagnosed as "crazy." So I sit paralyzed in fear of the journey and of what might come of it.

I am trying. I do realize that I need to get help. I know I'm not going to get better on my own. "The most difficult of decisions are often not the ones in which we cannot determine the correct course, rather the ones in which we are certain of the path, but fear the journey."

Shaking Depression

I'm trying... I'm trying so hard to shake this depression that I've been in for the past year. The battle between logical reasoning and my knee-jerk emotional reactions to situations has definitely taken a toll on me. It's difficult having reactions that are so completely out of proportion to what they should be. "It's a flat Diet Coke for crying out loud! It's NOT the END OF THE WORLD!!!"

I try to hide it as much as I can, but I completely break down when I'm alone. I make jokes about being "crazy" because I'll lose it otherwise. My normal, organized OCD personality is completely gone, and it's all I can do to force myself to check the mail or take out the trash. My house is a mess, my desk is a mess, my purse is a mess, and at this point, it's all so overwhelming I just want to throw it all away and start over. (I actually got a new checking account so I wouldn't have to balance my old one.)

I know so many of my friends and family have been worried about me, and I really do appreciate all of the support even if I can't always show it. Just know that I'm trying to shake this. They're not kidding when they say that depression affects everyone. I know how worried you all are. I'm trying... Just bear with me a while longer. The doctor is working on me, and I'm doing my best to work on myself...

Impulsive Tammy Strikes Again!!!

Yes… I've gone and pulled one of my "let's make a life-altering decision in the blink of an eye" moves this week.

We all know how I get fidgety when I've been in one place too long. I need big changes to keep things interesting. I've been feeling that way since Christmas, and the Zoloft hasn't made it go away, so this week I decided to do something about it. My lease at my apartment is up at the end of the month, and the rent was going up AGAIN. I'm sick of paying what amounts to a mortgage on a crappy apartment. I'm sick of the noise and the sirens in the city, and I just want some stinking peace and quiet.

So brilliant me, decided that I can get more for my money in the country where the only noise I'll hear is the birds and the crickets (and the backfire of big cowboy trucks, and the occasional rifle shot, of course. That's okay... Cowboys are sexy. ). I went to my apartment office this morning, put in my 60 day notice, met with a realtor, and signed a lease for a GORGEOUS 3 bedroom, 2 bath BRAND SPANKING NEW (so new that it's not totally finished yet) duplex in Springtown of all places. And the rent is only $135 more than I pay for my dinky little 1/1 apartment! (Grammy did manage to convince me to try renting first. My original plan was to buy a house! Impulsive Tammy can be reasoned with a little bit anyway )

Before you all make fun of me for moving back to the place I couldn't wait to leave, bear in mind there is a Kohl's, Hobby Lobby, Lowe's, Home Depot, Kirkland's Home, Target, etc. not 15-20 minutes away now. No more having to drive 45 minutes to get to something good. I can have all of my stores nearby, but I can have some stinking peace and quiet while I'm at home. It will probably take some getting used to though. I already panicked a little because there was only one deadbolt on the door, and it can be opened from the outside. What happened to needing three locks??? I have the "safety" deadbolt that locks everybody out at the apartment! I have a feeling I'll be calling Jake and Sam for a while because I'm freaked out by the silence at night. They'll have to come sleep on my couch like the old days. Only this time, THEY can protect ME.

So, as of Friday, May 25th, I will once again be a resident of my hometown.

I think this life-altering, impulsive decision will turn out better than my $40,000 brain-fart when I up and moved to Portland. But then again... I never think my impulsive life-altering decisions are a bad idea at the time. Check back with me in a few months after I've been driving an hour each way to and from work every day and have spent $40,000 in gasoline alone. I might have changed my mind. But for now... I'm thrilled silly about living in a "nearly" house!

Wish me luck! (And if you are an able-bodied male-type person, give me a call! I can put you to work! )