Category: ME

D-Day

If there was ever a night to allow myself an “out” this would be it.

But as I sit in my bed, listening to some trance music that Jon has playing while he codes, working on a project for a contract that he’s taken “on the side”………I don’t want to give myself the “out”.

It almost seems like that would be “too easy”….let me escape into some dumb show or waste more hours on my phone….which is what I did while waiting for Jeremy to finish counseling, which also happens to be when I locked myself out of the van. Would you like to hear that story? I sure hope you said yes…..

You see, we have two sets of keys for the van….my set which has the key fob attached and Jon’s set which only has a key. I ALWAYS hang my keys up on the key hook close to the front door….that way I ALWAYS know where they are. (The inference here – in case you didn’t catch it, is that keys get lost in our house, but not by me…) The only time I ever “lose my keys” , is when someone else uses them and doesn’t put them on the hook when they walk in the door.

So tonight when I went to take Jeremy to his counseling appointment…they were not on the hook, as it turns out, Geli had inadvertently taken them with her to my sister’s house when she left to go babysit. (She’s driven the van earlier in the day – totally helping me out, I might add.) Not the end of the world, cause I could just use Jon’s, right?

We drove to the appointment, got out of the van and I clicked the latch to auto-lock the doors. I paused briefly for a moment, feeling like something was weird or off; but shrugged it off and carried on. I dropped him off after connecting with his counselor and headed back out to the van….half way across the parking lot, I reached into my pocket for my key fob to unlock the doors and realized that I had Jon’s keys.

………………………….!!!!!!!!!

I panicked briefly, but quickly pulled it together and messaged Jon. While I waited for him to respond, I messaged Gelica. Fortunately, my sister’s house is not too far away from where the counselor is and Geli did in fact have my keys – which is what I had assumed – she dropped them off and YAY! I was no longer locked out, BUT….normally, I would drop a kid off and then go home for half an hour or so before coming back to do pick up…it would have been pointless to leave because I’d get home and then immediately have to turn around and come back.

So I sat in the van and wasted half an hour on my phone. So stupid…….

I’ve shared all of this lovely, ever so intriguing story because really, I’m not sure what to say about the fact that Josiah was officially diagnosed with Autism today.

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It’s not unexpected. We took him to get assessed for Autism because we really did suspect that he was on the Spectrum. Having said that, its one thing to “think” and another to “know”.

Nothing about him changes. Its exactly the same as when Jeremy was diagnosed. Jeremy is Jeremy and always has been. Josiah is Josiah and always has been. Getting the diagnosis gives us common terminology to be able to discuss his particular challenges and strengths with the professionals in his life…like his teachers, for example. It affords us the ability to communicate effectively and to put plans into place to help him succeed. It also allows for funding to help him work through and learn the skills that “normal kids” pick up without being taught.

So, I’m not upset. I’m not devastated. But, it is tough to hear that your child has a neurological deficit that affects his socializing skills and abilities. He will be given lots of extra opportunity to practice and learn skills that may not come naturally, and I have no doubt that he will be a successful young boy, young man and eventually grown man. But it’s still tough to hear that he struggles, that he will struggle and that this is something legitimate. To hear that our concerns are valid…….it’s tough.

I’m still processing and I’m hoping to be able to process through it all a little more, maybe I’ll even have a moment to process some more tomorrow.

Listing Heavily

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I have this skewed idea that unless I have something amazing to say or some point to make or something else incredible that it’s all a waste of time.

Which is ridiculous, given the number of times that I’ve come on here and just blathered away.

And basically, it’s what I’m about to do right now.

I’ve been thinking about “writing” all day today. I’ve been musing about “this” topic and “that” topic. Wondering about whether I should write another poem or share on a topic dear to me, or whether I pick a journal prompt and write about that.

I’ve basically been stalled and hung up on the fact that all my thoughts are stuck inside of my head. Which was sort of the point of me wanting to write MORE…….

So, here I am……last thing at night…..sitting in front of my computer…….struggling.

That seems to be the soundtrack of my life these days. Everything’s a struggle.

And I hate it.

I have this desire that people will see me. Will see my life. Will see how much I’m struggling and yet…

I want to be able to encourage. I want to be able to see the positive. I want to be able to share the light in dark situations. I want to find the positive amidst all the crap…..but it takes a whole lotta shoveling to be able to find those tiny bits of positivity.

I keep looking.

An intense situation arises and I want to sit down and cry; but I attempt to shift my focus to find a positive within the negative situation…..

And as much as that’s a good thing…..I think that what I’ve ended up doing, is not allowing myself to acknowledge the crap. It’s like I want people to validate how tough this “life” of mine is yet, I don’t think that I’m allowing myself to really absorb it all, to acknowledge or validate the fact that this is tough…..like really, really tough.

Now, I’m not talking about wallowing…..or maybe I am…..I don’t really know, yet…..But I think that there must be something to this…… to this idea that I feel overwhelmed and as soon as the emotions get overwhelming, I shut it all down.

Did you read what I wrote yesterday?

Breathe
Shut it down
Try again another day

Ya….that’s what I’m talking about……….I start to feel and then….I shut it all down.

But I know better….

Even that statement…..why am I belittling myself………I know that you can’t just shut the negative emotions down…when you shut down your emotions…you shut them all down – the good, the bad and the ugly.

And maybe that contributing to why I’m feeling a bit……blah…..these days. I’m not really excited about anything. I truly believe that just straight exhaustion plays a huge role….but how much of the whole happiness/sadness yo yo am I missing because I’m doing everything within my power to hold myself at an even keel, even thought this ship feels like she’s listing hard.

Would I feel better if I grieved hard for the the life I imagined?

A part of me is just so scared that if I allow myself to “let go” and truly feel – that my ship will capsize and sink (to continue with the ship analogy).

And that scares me more than anything…….

Unraveling

I’ve been feeling so very, very frustrated.  I love to write.  I love to use words to tell a story, to share emotion……and yet I’ve been feeling so………blocked, shattered, fragmented…….

I don’t even know what the right words are.  But, I want it to change.  I’ve been seeing an incredible counsellor who is such a blessing to me and my family.  And I’m hoping that I’m working through/on some things that are contributing to this…..to this……to this frustrating time.

But,  I’ve decided that I’m going to write…..I’m going to write something each day (that I can) {you like that little “out” I just gave myself?}  and hopefully, maybe this will help me to start unraveling some of this mess inside of myself.  So here goes….

My thoughts are jammed up, crammed up

Within the confines of my mind

Desperate to be sorted

Knotted like a ball of twine

The harder I pull

The tighter it gets 

Choking off breath

In its fierce grasp

Panic sits there

Mocking, taunting, hurling insults

That I can barely process and yet…

Each one lands with a jab

Piercing through the armour of exhaustion

More pain, more wounds, more healing needed

Drawing from an already depleted account

Breathe!

Shut it down!

Try again another day.

#microblogmondays 9

(null) This picture has nothing to do with anything except I love this little boy.

***********

I am EXHAUSTED but do you know what I did today…….nothing physical.

Literally, I sat all day. I took Josiah out to the psych evaluation and then sat and visited a friend. I picked him up for lunch and sat through lunch and then I dropped him off and sat and waited for the second part of the eval to finish. Then we walked for 10 mins, while we waited for Jon to arrive and then we sat and discussed the last 7 years of Siah’s life.

I was already so done even while I was waiting for the second half to be finished and I think that I figured it out……the stress is absolutely brutally wearing.

I already knew that.

And before you tell me “just don’t stress”…….it’s not a conscious thing. If I could just stop. I would.

Today felt like 6 hours of insanely intense stress……..and now we wait to hear the results of the assessment and the scoring of the tests.

Hopefully we will, soon, have more answers and a better understanding of how to help this sweet boy of ours succeed.

#microblogmonday 8

So I had this bright idea that I could get up early and go for a run before I would normally even get up…….I’m not entirely certain whether it was a genius idea or the stupidest thing ever.

I hate mornings…..with a passion.

My little boys need to be at school at 8:35am. I consider it a win if I crawl out of bed before 8am.

I try my hardest to do EVERYTHING the evening before: lunches packed, backpacks packed, outfit picked out, coats and shoes ready to go…..

That way….we get up, get dressed, brush teeth, eat breakfast and head out the door.

When I run, I typically do so after I drop the kids off at school, but I find that “the morning” is taken up by eating breakfast, checking social media, dawdling around….and then there is the post run shower and by the time that’s over, it’s almost noon.

I figured that if I didn’t think about it too hard and got my running gear ready to go…..I could POP out of bed at 6am and run for half an hour and then still have time to shower and be available to help the kids by 7am.

That’s a whole extra hour than I normally have…….it’s got be to a good idea, right?

I went to bed at a decent time and managed to sleep for 7 hours – Yay me! The alarm went off at 6am and I’ll be honest…..I did not just jump out of bed. I really contemplated not doing it but finally jumped out of bed at 6:18am.

I threw my gear on and was good to go for 6:26am. Yay me. It wasn’t as bad as I anticipated but it wasn’t the same as running during the day or in the evening when I’m more warmed up and limber. I’m still running really slow and taking it really easy since the whole “shin splint” episode. Things are slowly getting better and I’ll be back at it in no time, I’m sure.

I was excited to finish at 7:01am and ran up to take a shower…..I was a little later than I originally planned but still WAY earlier than usual.

During my run I had a thought flash through my mind……as awesome as it is to be done the run and to have extra hours in the day – what that really means is more hours to clean the house. While that’s awesome as far as actually taking care of my home, I hate house cleaning.

I was also a little nervous about being hungry all day or the dreaded 3pm crash.

I really wasn’t too hungry, but man!!!! By 3pm, I was BAGGED! I’ve managed to make it through the evening, and I’ve gotten a TON done today but I’ll be heading off to bed sooner rather than later.

I’m still trying to decide if I’m gonna try another early morning run on Wednesday.

Oh and I managed to freak the crap out of Jon and the kids…..NO ONE is used to seeing me up that early and it really threw them all for a loop. Throughout the day, I had different ones asking me what was wrong? What was up? And what was I thinking?

From that standpoint, it’s nice to shake them all up once in a while. Gotta keep them guessing!

A Fairly Regular Week Around Here.

IMG_9079I have these brief moments of clarity. Unfortunately, they are clouded by the fog of chaos and exhaustion that is my life these days.

This past week has been particularly trying and yet, it’s really not any different than any other week around here.

Jeremy had an epic meltdown on Monday night….what that means is that he fought against everything we said and needed and asked him to do starting at 3:30pm. It exploded at 6:30pm, with him huddled in a sobbing, screaming ball on the kitchen floor, begging us to leave him alone and to not touch him. All of this while trying to get the two little boys through their evening chores and headed up to bed……which is it’s own gong show of happiness. We finally got Jer settled enough. He had a great chat with Jon and was able to clearly speak of what was going on for him. It’s just too bad that it took 3 hours of intense energy and chaos to get us to that place.

Tuesday morning (and most every morning) involved a great deal of wrangling to get Josiah to school. He has a lot of anxiety and getting him to school in the mornings involves a tremendous amount of creative thinking and fast talking to movitvate and challenge him to actually make it to school. Tuesday afternoon, I picked Siah up from school and took him, Judah and Xandra to our family Dr. Siah has a few warts on his hands and has been getting them frozen off. He had a massive anxiety attack thinking about getting them frozen off and ended up making himself sick in the waiting room of the Dr.s office. He puked 4 different times and managed to hit the garbage can for 2 of those…..the other 2 required a lot of paper towels and a fair amount of apologizing on my part. I finally promised him that we would just “show” the Dr his warts and that I wouldn’t make him get freezing. After that, he didn’t puke any more and miraculously recovered…..no more puking that evening and he ate well and had no issues. I HATE ANXIETY!!!!!

Wednesday was a quiet day…..I remember thinking how weird and bizarre it was to not have anything crazy going on. Jon did have to work on his second job that evening so I solo parented the bedtime routine and it’s just not as fun as it sounds like it could be.

Thursday was a crazy day. Last week I got a call on Tuesday asking if we could come in to the orthopedic clinic on Thursday for an appt with Dr. Pike – an orthopedic surgeon – who does both pediatric and regular orthopedic care. He specializes in arms, shoulders, wrists, hands……This is the surgeon who will follow Geli into adulthood. I couldn’t make the appt for last Thursday because all the appts are in the afternoon on Thursday’s. This means that I have to arrange pick up from school for Josiah and babysitting for Judah. Fortunately, my mom was able to come this week and watch Judah and pick up Siah. Before my mom got to my house, I managed to tidy the house, do the laundry, clean the kitchen, make a batch of chocolate chip cookies for an after school snack, put together a roast beef for my mom to throw in for dinner, and a quick note with pertinent details for my mom regarding that afternoon.

I was exhausted before even leaving the house. I remember thinking to myself,

“Why don’t I have any help?” That was quickly followed by,
“I try to do it all by myself so that I’m not a bother for anyone.” Which was followed up with,
“But I’m one breath away from breaking…..I can’t do all of this.” And then,
“Why do you try to do it all by yourself?”
“Because I don’t feel that I’m worth……….. bothering people.”

I had a lot more thoughts, but that one hit me pretty hard. I needed to leave for the hospital so we wouldn’t be late and so I filed that thought for later….

Angelica’s appointment was for 1pm and I was really hoping that we’d be quickly in an out before traffic started. There was a surgery that called the dr away just before he came to see us….which means that our quick appointment turned into a 2 hour affair. Which is not bad for “hospital time”.

The long and the short of that appointment, is that Angelica will definitely need surgery. If fact, her shoulder is bad enough that if she was in pain, they’d replace it now. The surgeon said it was “really ugly.” Once again, the comment we keep hearing is, “You’re not in any pain?” It looks bad enough that they expect she should be in a lot more pain than she is. We are so incredibly thankful that she is not in pain. And because she is not in pain, we can put off replacement surgery. She will most likely be looking at both a shoulder replacement and an elbow replacement but it could be a while, yet. This is great news and frustrating, at the same time. Geli has limited mobility in her shoulder and her elbow has a short range of motion. It doesn’t fully extend and won’t fully contract either. She has learned to compensate by reaching with her left arm if something is high above her or by using her right arm, if she needs to extend her arm straight out. It’s still awkward, but we choose to be thankful that she is alive and has both arms to be able to use. We are incredibly thankful that she is not in pain because living with constant physical pain is a horrible, horrible thing to have to do.

We finally headed home…..arriving just in time for me to pick up Jeremy and take him to a counseling appointment. He had his appointment from 5-6pm. I dropped him off, connected with his counselor about a few issues and insights from that week and headed back home to grab a bite to eat before I headed back to pick him up.

His counselor is so kind and thoughtful; and asked how I was doing. Truthfully, I don’t even want to answer that question because I am not doing well. I think I hit breaking point a long time ago and I’m desperately hanging onto the belief that this is a season and it, too, will pass…..I’m just very tired of existing. I’m very tired of all the issues. It’s been a very long time of chaos and conflict; and I’m not so sure I see it ending anytime soon. I gave her a pat answer….and then I answered truthfully and then I cried; then I pulled myself together and took Jeremy home to finish off the evening.

Friday morning brought it’s routine school related challenges although this time, it was Judah who decided to have a flip out. He did not want to go to “school”. He wanted to stay with me. He was clingy and whiney and so very unlike him. He typically fusses about not wanting to go to school…..I think mostly because that’s what Siah does and it must seem like that’s just what you are supposed to do in the mornings……but when we get to school, he goes in and is so happy to see his teachers and friends. He kisses and hugs me and heads off for the day without a second glance. He was SO UPSET. It took about 15 minutes to settle him and I was really confused about why he was doing this…..I even questioned just taking him home with me, because it was so very out of character for him.

Friday afternoon, I picked up Judah from preschool and then picked up Siah. Siah’s desk looks like a recycling bin. It is so full of random bits of paper, junk and garbage. I go in about once a month to scrape his desk out. I put all his pencils and crayons back into his pencil box and stack his duotangs and exercise books. I throw out all the garbage and collect the “treasures” to take them home. He struggles with the “messing with” of his treasures and would just rather live in the chaos – on the best of days – Friday was not one of the best days……..

He melted down in the classroom. Tears, yelling, crying, pleading…..he was anxious that if he brought the 500 origami creations home that they would get destroyed or lost or somehow messed up. He just wanted to leave them at school, but when your collection is shoe box sized and stuffed in your desk…..it just needs to come home. We finally managed to get his desk tidied; the creations in an actual shoe box and him out the door. The real fun started once we got in the van and he refused to put his seat belt on because he “HAD” to take the box of origami back into the school. He screamed at Judah for fussing at him. He screamed at me for everything. So much yelling and pleading; and zero grasp of the reality that it was not going to happen. It took 15 minutes. I have it on video. I’ve been recording “events” for when we go for his assessment at the end of February. It’s so much more than just a normal upset or frustration.

By the time I finally got him calmed down enough and we headed home, I was exhausted…done. We fed the kids frozen pizza (cooked, obviously) and sat and watched videos.

Saturday was the anniversary of Nathaniel’s birth and death and was just a low key – stay at home day. I’m ever so thankful that the kids held themselves mostly together.

This is not really an “out of the ordinary” week. Maybe the fact that I don’t have an actual “incident” to report for Wednesday or Saturday might make it memorable in a positive way….but it all feels less than positive.

And the biggest hit for me this week….bigger than Jeremy’s meltdown, bigger than Judah’s flip out, bigger than imminent surgery, bigger even than Josiah’s epic flipout…..is that fact that I don’t feel worthy.

I feel worth less…..

It’s a pretty crappy feeling.

Why?
Why do I feel like this?
Why do I see myself as worth less than others?
Why?

I don’t know…..but I think I need to figure that out.

My Journey with Food Addiction (part 2)

So, I gave at lot of the back story in my last post, and I’m still not finished “setting the stage” so to speak…..

The article I mentioned yesterday says this,

“The idea that a person can be addicted to food has recently gotten more support from science.

Experiments in animals and humans show that, for some people, the same reward and pleasure centers of the brain that are triggered by addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin are also activated by food, especially highly palatable foods. Like addictive drugs, highly palatable foods trigger feel-good brain chemicals such as dopamine. Once people experience pleasure associated with increased dopamine transmission in the brain’s reward pathway from eating certain foods, they quickly feel the need to eat again.”

While I didn’t understand that I was attempting to get “high”…..that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. This last year has been the most intense as far as this goes.

When I started taking Anti-Anxiety meds back in November 2012, something shifted. During the Cancer Era – I had been having a glass of wine at night to try to relax…..when I started taking the meds…..I didn’t need to. It was incredible. I felt amazing. I got pregnant about a month later and went off the meds for the sake of the baby. It was pretty close to the WORST 12 weeks of my life. Not only was I anxious about possibly miscarrying the baby, but it wasn’t a planned pregnancy, and it would mean we would have 6 kids – and on top of the chaos we already had…… Add into the mix that I had just experienced the most amazing moments of medicated peace and calm and the insanely high intensity levels of anxiety I was now experiencing was in sharp contrast to that. I did traumatically miscarry that baby, and ended the night with a trip to the ER in an ambulance. The only positive to that particular night was that I started taking the anti-anxiety meds again. I was so hopeful that the peace and calm I had felt before I got pregnant was just a wait away…..

I’m not sure why it didn’t happen like that. Maybe the 12 weeks of terror did a huge number on me…..maybe the trauma of that night messed with me….all I know is that I needed to increase the dose and then again and then again and then again……I was drinking something most every night….not to get drunk, but just to take the edge off…it wasn’t working……Food was always something that made me feel good. I didn’t really see that, but looking back, I was definitely eating for comfort. Ice Cream, Chocolate, cookies, cakes, sugar cereal (not all at once, at least not usually)…..Jon would ask me how I didn’t feel gross after eating all that junk….but I didn’t. Not right then anyway. I’d feel horrible after, but it was more “shame” from the fact that I’d eaten over a day’s worth of calories in a few minutes. But, I couldn’t seem to stop myself and it was definitely a comforting thing, and really….my life was so stressful and I felt like I was breaking……..surely I deserved some kind of a reprieve from the overwhelming feelings that I was feeling.

I remember over this past summer, thinking to myself that I HATED food. I was so sick of the fact that I had to eat and I wondered if there was some way that I could just take supplements so that I wouldn’t have to go through the brutal cycles of eating and overeating and under-eating. I just didn’t want to have anything to do with food any more.

I must have realized that there was something triggered by food but it was in no way a conscious thought. Just fleeting thoughts that 20+ years is a long time to have been dealing with this “food issue”. Especially when it was required for sustenance. I remember thinking, “How do I deal with something that I require? Life would be so much simpler if I could just avoid it all together…….”

It got so bad. I was drinking something every night and eating huge amounts of crap and it wasn’t working…..it was like I’d become immune to my “drug of choice” and increasing the amounts wasn’t helping….I was starting to think and dream about actual drugs…..both prescribed and illegally obtained. I’ve never done drugs aside from the ones prescribed to me, but I wanted to. I thought about it. I dreamed about it. I was searching and hoping for something to blur or numb the emotional, mental and physical intensity of my life………..

And like I said in my last post, I don’t even remember how I started reading about Food Addiction, but I did….and it was like a whole new life started…….

A photo posted by Xangelle (@pattic) on

October 20th is a day I will probably always remember…….it’s the day that knowledge became power for me.

My Journey with Food Addiction (part 1)

It’s said that knowledge is power and when it comes to food addiction and me, that saying is so true.

Here is a decent explanation of Food Addiction and how it relates to me…….(just click on the underlined words)

I’ve struggled with my weight for a really long time…..I’ve had issue with food for even longer. I remember sitting down as a child/preteen/teenager and pounding back cookies or chocolate bars or candy or to a lesser degree chips…..any kind of junk food specifically those with sugar and/or flour.

I’ve never really understood people who could take “just one”. As far back as I can remember, it was kind of an all or nothing deal. If I had a bag of M&M’s….I’d eat until they were gone…..and it was never the small bag – always the BIG ONES. I’d never just buy 1 chocolate bar…it was 3 or 4. I’d grab a handful of cookies and most likely head back for a second or third handful.

While I was a teenager, it never seemed that big of a deal because I was a tall, big framed person and weight wasn’t ever an issue for me.

I was 170lbs when I got married and definitely was not overweight by visual standards.

I still struggle because according to different standards like the BMI or other weight calculators, I was overweight based on my height vs weight ratio….but in no way was I overweight back then……I was thin, I modeled. I firmly believe those standards are flawed…

As far as my weight goes, I did ok until after I had my second child and then things started changing……I didn’t lose the weight as fast as I did after having Angelica. Literally, 10 days after having Geli, I was back in my pre-pregancy clothes and I could see my hip bones and everything. It was not the same after having Alexandra and from then on I began to actually “struggle” with my weight.

But this whole issue is about SO MUCH MORE than weight……and that’s where the “knowledge is power” aspect really comes into play for me.

I remember my sister telling me about a friend of hers who was eating a certain way and she briefly mentioned “food addiction” when she was telling me about this “way of eating”. I briefly looked into it but mostly because I was desperate to lose weight. I didn’t particularly “like” the food eating plan and so I dismissed it…..after all, I wasn’t an addict and I most certainly wasn’t addicted to food…I only had 10 pounds to lose and then I’d be happy……

I’ve spent a huge portion of the last 20 years dieting or eating according to a “food program”. I’ve eaten low carb, sugar free, fast metabolism, 3 day diet, and so many more gimmicky eating plans to try and lose weight. And while some of them worked for a bit, in the end……I’ve gained the weight back and felt more miserable and like a HUGE failure on top of it all.

I think that there have been 2 periods of time over the last almost 20 years where I’ve been close to a healthy weight. Neither lasted very long and between the different traumas and stresses in our lives, its been a brutal battle.

2014 has been an extremely difficult year for me and yet……..it’s been an amazing year.

We are exhausted.

And that’s putting it mildly.

Over the past 10 years, we’ve had numerous job changes and losses, a stillbirth, 2 second trimester losses, an early miscarriage, the long desired arrival of Josiah, a crazy long, difficult and exhausting journey to an Autism Diagnosis, children with special needs, cancer and the birth of our sweet Judah in the middle of it, serious Mental Health Issues, and 2 BIG house moves…..there is more that I’ve not accounted for, but that’s enough….it’s just too much. We are tapped out.

I feel like I’ve been fighting a battle for a long time. I have been…….. but what’s worse is that I really didn’t understand what or who I was fighting.

Earlier this year, I committed to 100 days of investing in myself. When I look back, I see that I was searching for answers and that I was close to finding them but just not quite there….

See, in the past, my focus has been for the quick fix….

– If I lose 10 pounds, I’ll be happier and then I can go back to doing whatever I want.

– Ok, realistically, I should lose 20 pounds, but that’s a lot and so difficult so if I eat no/low carb for a few weeks, I should loose a ton of weight, and then I’ll be happy and be able to do whatever I want.

– OK!!!! So I should probably be REALLY SERIOUS and just go for an entire month and hopefully lose more than 20 lbs and then I’ll be happy and can do whatever I want……….

It was all about losing the weight as fast as possible – which for me typically meant no sugar, no fruit, no carbs……just veggies and protein….and then something would happen and I’d “cheat”………. cause everyone deserves a cheat now and then, especially when you’re being SO GOOD. That cheat would typically turn into more than just a little treat and BAM…….soon I’d be stuffing my face with whatever I could find.

The “100 Days” challenge was difficult for me and yet amazing, when I look back on it. I’d decided that it needed to be more than a quick fix. I needed something longer term, because the quick fixes were not working. I needed a shift from “short term/quick fix” thinking to something that was more a “lifestyle/long term” plan.

So I started back in February….on Valentines Day to be exact…. my plan was no sugar, no gluten, low carb, only natural foods that I could eat in whole form or combine to make something. I’d started running in 2013 and planned on combining that exercise with my food eating plan to be able to lose weight and really get control of my life which felt so chaotic and out of control.

It started out pretty good. I started 2014 at 230 lbs…..

Towards the end of March, I was doing pretty good. I was down to 208 lbs. I’d run over 100 km in the month of March….and then I stalled.

March-April-May…nothing shifted and I was getting frustrated. I started eating things that were outside of my chosen allowable foods and my running slowed down and by the start of summer….I crashed. it probably didn’t help that I was anemic over the summer.

Summer of 2014 was an absolute out-of-control, gong show. I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I didn’t exercise. I felt lousy. I was trying to just survive. It was so bad, that even walking upstairs to my bedroom was a colossal effort and so once I came down stairs, I avoided going back up until I had too. Lotta couch time over the summer and anything I did do, came at a huge price as I’d crash the next day.

Every time I walk upstairs now, I flash back to how bad it was over the summer and I’m amazed at the difference from then till now. It’s pretty drastic. I went up on my anxiety meds and even added another one into the mix. There were days that I contemplated hospitalizing myself because I could not get the anxious thought under control and I’d spend the entire day fighting thoughts….crying…..it was pretty bad.

September’s are always like a new year for me….a new start……so I kept looking forward to September and the kids going back to school and routine and…….when it came…..everything was still brutally difficult and nothing changed except that I didn’t have the kids home all day…..I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t. I was so exhausted. Just existing was difficult….it was bad!

I went to give blood in September. I’ve been donating blood since I was 18 and while it’s not been as regular as I’d like and been broken up by pregnancy, breastfeeding, and different meds that I’ve been on….I could finally give and so I did….only to be denied because my hemoglobin was too low. While at the time I felt pretty embarrassed to be denied, that was the start of something amazing…….like the catalyst that kick started this next phase in my life.

I went to my dr and asked for some blood work. I started taking iron…..went and saw my naturopath, got a few supplements…… Finally towards the end of October, I started to feel a bit better.

I honestly cant remember why or how the whole concept of food addiction came to me but right at that same time, I started doing some serious research and reading about food addiction.

It was like my whole world exploded into tiny shards of hope and shame, exhilaration and denial…….

Morning Musings

So, This is the first in a LONG time that I’ve pulled an all-nighter. I have absolutely no idea with the issue was other than, I WAS WIDE AWAKE!!!!! I think that I dozed for a few minutes as Judah was falling asleep (for the second time) around 11ish and then…..I watched every hour cycle through. SO AWESOME!!!!!

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But, the sky looks amazing. My kids are all still sleeping. (Thank God because it’s only 5:45am and no one has had any meds yet. And I’m desperately hoping that Jon wakes up soon and makes some coffee…..) I’ve managed to lay around for 6 hours….when do I ever have that luxury? I scoured IMG_7339Pinterest for all those ideas that I have but never have the time to look into. I put a ton of books on hold at the Library. I’ve found a Summer Reading Log for Siah. I’m dressed and made up for the day and have only the slightest hint of a headache.

I feel like its going to be very necessary to “HAVE A PLAN” and to “KEEP ON MOVING”. I’ll admit that I’m just a little nervous that if I slow down at all, before tonight, that I might just crash and that would not be a good thing. It’s hard enough staying on top of my little monkey’s antics, without being tired. Throw in a night of no sleep and BAM! Mommy better have a plan.

I think I’m going to make everyone tidy up a bit (and change the wifi password so that they know I mean business) and then we are gonna get out of here. I have no exact plan, but I think I have almost an hour to figure it out before they start to wake up.

Do you have a plan for getting through the day after a tough night? Any tips from you shift workers, or those who regularly pull all-nighters? I could use a little help today.