Last Sunday marked your 15 month birthday and holy cow, you're a big one! Your daddy took you to the doctor and you are officially in the 96th percentile for weight at 28 pounds, and the 61st percentile for height at 31 1/2 inches. I have qualms about the way they measure you, especially because the first time they did so, a week after you were born, your measurements told us you shrank... by two inches! So I always wonder about Miss Nurse's measuring skills when we visit. But my own measurements mark you at 32 1/2, so maybe we can say you're a happy 32 inches?? Either way, you're a bruiser. And you act like one too!
You are always running places and can't ever seem to stand still. This reminds me so much of myself. But you sleep like the dead, which reminds me so much of your dad. You have your mom's hyper-focus when you're concentrated on a task, but you have your dad's mischievous gleam in your eye that tells me you're about to do something really naughty. Which usually turns out not to be that naughty, but I'm always wondering how far you're willing to go.
When we say no, you have learned that we mean no. You know that mom has the big, loud voice when you are touching the burners on the stove, and you know that dad has the pushover voice that doesn't change when you run out into the street. Haha. But seriously, Eric needs to work on the formance in his voice.
You love to throw things off your food tray, and it kills me. We have given up until a few nights ago, when we started to ask you "All done?" in sign language about every bite. When you weren't "all done" you pointed to the dish that held the food we were giving you. When you were all done, you smiled and nodded!!! It was incredible to watch and thus far, our dinners have been much more pleasant.
You are starting to become fascinated by books, which warms my heart! I love reading and I hope that you will learn to love it too! You love your big picture books, or your touch-and-feel books. The other night, you took your book and set it down across the room. I then asked you to pick up your book. Normally, when I ask you to pick up your milk, or your toy, you do right away. When we asked you to go pet Kinnick, you did. When you close the door you do. But you didn't go get the book, and it dawned on me that you don't know what a "book" is!!! Hilarious! So we're working on that.
You are breaking out new words every day. "Kinnick" is "kit." Dad and mom are staples now, and usually in that order, which breaks my heart slightly. You say "dat" and "dis" for that and this. You point and try to say things. I try to talk to you like a little human being as much as possible, and the dr. said you are doing just fine developmentally.
In the last month, you had FOUR teeth pop through, and I can see two more bottom eye teeth coming in. Poor guy. We gave you homemade waffles, which the batter held one lone egg and you didn't have a reaction. So I think I feel better about the allergy and I hope you're growing out of it.
You are the most fun in the morning, and I love waking up to your squeals. You are a happy, funny, silly little boy and I love that you are learning so quickly. Like the other night, you learned that if you walk around teh tree, the bark covers the whole thing. And you walked and walked and walked around that tree, and then your dad and I laughed and laughed and laughed when you finally straightened out and couldn't, for the life of you, keep your balance! HILARIOUS to watch!!!!
I love you so much, I never even knew it was possible.
(In other news, it's my dear friends' due date today. Dad, please watch out for her and I hope Sydney makes a speedy, safe entry into this world. Induction is Thursday if she doesn't show her head by then!!)
Friday, August 16, 2013
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Rock Bottom
PTSD is born from fear. It's natural for people to feel the "fight-or-flight" response when faced with fear. In people with PTSD, that "fight-or-flight" response is changed, or damaged, and essentially, becomes simply,"flight." In a lot of cases, "flight" during PTSD episodes is simply dissociating.
You don't know when you've hit rock bottom, until you've seen rock bottom in hindsight. In my case, rock bottom was October 15, 2010. I had had several dissociation episodes at school, and after a horrible meeting with a counselor that worked for my school, I remember calling my best friend. I couldn't stop shaking, crying, or getting "out of my head," so-to-speak. I can't remember what I said, but I can't imagine it was a great conversation. When I got home from school that day, I relayed my day to Eric, again, shaking, crying, and essentially, feeling like I was losing my mind. In hindsight, on October 15, I had already lost my mind. I had lost it to PTSD.
I don't remember the conversations I had later that day, I don't remember what I did. But I will never forget the intense fear that I felt. I couldn't stop my mind from racing, I couldn't stop moving about my house, and I couldn't focus on any one task. I just wandered aimlessly, crying, shaking, and wondering if maybe someone should take me to hospital. To say I was emotionally distraught would be an understatement.
I felt like I was staring at the shambles that was my life. I once was confident, I once was excited about teaching, I once was a person people wanted to be around. With PTSD, you don't succumb to fear. Instead, fear envelopes you. It's not a shallow fear, it's a deep-seeded terror that you absolutely, cannot escape.
I don't remember if I ate dinner that night. But I do remember after dinner, there was a knock on my door. Sitting on the couch, my anxiety was sky-high, and that knock sent me running into the kitchen. I remember looking in at myself - my eyes red from crying all day, my clothes hanging off me because I had lost so much weight. My hair a mess from dragging my fingers through it all day and my make-up long gone. I stood in the kitchen, hiding from the front door, terrified of what that knock would bring.
I remember hearing Eric let someone in as I stood huddled against the kitchen cabinets, hands cupped around my mouth and nose, breath held. Who was it who was it who was it? When my best friend rounded the corner to my kitchen, I remember losing it. I sighed out a huge breath and instantly began convulsing with sobs that wracked my body. She carried a basket of goodies, like bubbles for a soothing bath, and a mug with a smurf on it that said, "I Love ME."
I think in that instant, when she saw me, she knew that no basket was going to fix what was going on in my head. So she hugged me, and held me, and told me I was ok. She had driven 45 minutes on a Tuesday night, to simply make me feel better. But the basket, the hugs, the pats on the back, wasn't enough ammunition for the war I was waging in my head.
I was able to calm down enough to talk to her. I don't remember what we talked about, but I remember she didn't stay long. Sometimes, I wonder if it's because what she saw scared her. It scared me.
When she left, Eric and I talked about going to the hospital. I felt like I was losing my mind. Instead, I called into work, sick, for the next morning, and told myself, and Eric, I was going to make an appointment with the family doctor the next morning.
I cried throughout the night, barely slept, and the next morning, made that appointment. I truly believe that appointment is what saved me. When I finally met with the doctor, I remember telling him that I thought something was wrong with me. Something was very, very wrong with me. I remember him probing me with questions, and I remember finally telling him everything that was going on. I started from the beginning, gave him the Reader's Digest version, and he patted me on the knee. He told me he'd be right back, and from there, left me, curled up on the exam table, still crying. When he came back, his exact words were, "We're going to get you in to see someone who will be in your corner." And with that, he made an appointment for me to see a psychologist across town, and filled a prescription for what a friend jokingly calls, "Little Blue Crazy Pills."
In hindsight, that was the worse day of my life. People will say the day they lose a loved one, the day they lose a job, the day they lose a pet is the worse day of their life. But the worse day of my life was the day I felt like I could not get away from the immense fear I felt. It was overpowering, more-so than the grief I felt the day my dad died, and the days thereafter.
After several appointments with the psychologist, psychiatrist, and a lot of more Little Blue Crazy Pills, it was determined that my fear stemmed from self-fulfilled prophecy. If someone tells you something enough times, you begin to believe it. For three years, I had been told I was a horrible teacher, a horrible person, and I should leave. And I began to believe it. From there, that thought bubble grew until it was consuming my entire world and all thought processes.
My psychiatrist wrote on a piece of paper, "This situation does not define me as a teacher or a human being." I took that piece of paper and copied the mantra on post-it notes. Bright orange post-it notes that adorned any place I would look in my house. On the mirror in the bathroom, by the closet where I dressed in the morning, at the bottom of the stairs, and tucked safely inside my wallet.
As time went on, as I was exonerated, and as I began to take down the beasts that had taken root in my mind, those orange post-it notes began to lose their stickiness. As they fell, one by one, off the mirror, wall, door, steering wheel, and anywhere else I had posted them, so did the monsters that lived inside my head.
The mind is a powerful thing, in the fact that even after fear had enveloped it, it was able to bounce back. My confidence returned, my personality returned, and a love for life returned.
In hindsight, October 15 was rock bottom. But with rock bottom comes another direction, and really, the only direction.
Up.
You don't know when you've hit rock bottom, until you've seen rock bottom in hindsight. In my case, rock bottom was October 15, 2010. I had had several dissociation episodes at school, and after a horrible meeting with a counselor that worked for my school, I remember calling my best friend. I couldn't stop shaking, crying, or getting "out of my head," so-to-speak. I can't remember what I said, but I can't imagine it was a great conversation. When I got home from school that day, I relayed my day to Eric, again, shaking, crying, and essentially, feeling like I was losing my mind. In hindsight, on October 15, I had already lost my mind. I had lost it to PTSD.
I don't remember the conversations I had later that day, I don't remember what I did. But I will never forget the intense fear that I felt. I couldn't stop my mind from racing, I couldn't stop moving about my house, and I couldn't focus on any one task. I just wandered aimlessly, crying, shaking, and wondering if maybe someone should take me to hospital. To say I was emotionally distraught would be an understatement.
I felt like I was staring at the shambles that was my life. I once was confident, I once was excited about teaching, I once was a person people wanted to be around. With PTSD, you don't succumb to fear. Instead, fear envelopes you. It's not a shallow fear, it's a deep-seeded terror that you absolutely, cannot escape.
I don't remember if I ate dinner that night. But I do remember after dinner, there was a knock on my door. Sitting on the couch, my anxiety was sky-high, and that knock sent me running into the kitchen. I remember looking in at myself - my eyes red from crying all day, my clothes hanging off me because I had lost so much weight. My hair a mess from dragging my fingers through it all day and my make-up long gone. I stood in the kitchen, hiding from the front door, terrified of what that knock would bring.
I remember hearing Eric let someone in as I stood huddled against the kitchen cabinets, hands cupped around my mouth and nose, breath held. Who was it who was it who was it? When my best friend rounded the corner to my kitchen, I remember losing it. I sighed out a huge breath and instantly began convulsing with sobs that wracked my body. She carried a basket of goodies, like bubbles for a soothing bath, and a mug with a smurf on it that said, "I Love ME."
I think in that instant, when she saw me, she knew that no basket was going to fix what was going on in my head. So she hugged me, and held me, and told me I was ok. She had driven 45 minutes on a Tuesday night, to simply make me feel better. But the basket, the hugs, the pats on the back, wasn't enough ammunition for the war I was waging in my head.
I was able to calm down enough to talk to her. I don't remember what we talked about, but I remember she didn't stay long. Sometimes, I wonder if it's because what she saw scared her. It scared me.
When she left, Eric and I talked about going to the hospital. I felt like I was losing my mind. Instead, I called into work, sick, for the next morning, and told myself, and Eric, I was going to make an appointment with the family doctor the next morning.
I cried throughout the night, barely slept, and the next morning, made that appointment. I truly believe that appointment is what saved me. When I finally met with the doctor, I remember telling him that I thought something was wrong with me. Something was very, very wrong with me. I remember him probing me with questions, and I remember finally telling him everything that was going on. I started from the beginning, gave him the Reader's Digest version, and he patted me on the knee. He told me he'd be right back, and from there, left me, curled up on the exam table, still crying. When he came back, his exact words were, "We're going to get you in to see someone who will be in your corner." And with that, he made an appointment for me to see a psychologist across town, and filled a prescription for what a friend jokingly calls, "Little Blue Crazy Pills."
In hindsight, that was the worse day of my life. People will say the day they lose a loved one, the day they lose a job, the day they lose a pet is the worse day of their life. But the worse day of my life was the day I felt like I could not get away from the immense fear I felt. It was overpowering, more-so than the grief I felt the day my dad died, and the days thereafter.
After several appointments with the psychologist, psychiatrist, and a lot of more Little Blue Crazy Pills, it was determined that my fear stemmed from self-fulfilled prophecy. If someone tells you something enough times, you begin to believe it. For three years, I had been told I was a horrible teacher, a horrible person, and I should leave. And I began to believe it. From there, that thought bubble grew until it was consuming my entire world and all thought processes.
My psychiatrist wrote on a piece of paper, "This situation does not define me as a teacher or a human being." I took that piece of paper and copied the mantra on post-it notes. Bright orange post-it notes that adorned any place I would look in my house. On the mirror in the bathroom, by the closet where I dressed in the morning, at the bottom of the stairs, and tucked safely inside my wallet.
As time went on, as I was exonerated, and as I began to take down the beasts that had taken root in my mind, those orange post-it notes began to lose their stickiness. As they fell, one by one, off the mirror, wall, door, steering wheel, and anywhere else I had posted them, so did the monsters that lived inside my head.
The mind is a powerful thing, in the fact that even after fear had enveloped it, it was able to bounce back. My confidence returned, my personality returned, and a love for life returned.
In hindsight, October 15 was rock bottom. But with rock bottom comes another direction, and really, the only direction.
Up.
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