that's the way it goes, it'll all work out

Thursday, 10/19/17, 4:46pm, 9:22pm

This post is going to be written at various different points. Right now, RG is supposedly working on homework on the loft... dunno if that's actually happening at all... TK is doing a "brainy" type game on my phone because he already accomplished the couple things he was supposed to do after school including going over "rainbow words"- words he needs to learn to recognize and then spell (good 'ole 1st grade stuff, right?). Poor RG certainly has harder homework, being in 4th grade and all, but then you throw ADHD on top of all that, it's hard. He is on medication again, not sure if I've gone into that on my blog, but I also don't care to give you every detail of his medical care since he is a minor and all, so whatever. Anyway, his new med is helping but then it doesn't last all day, so when he comes home from school is kinda the medication wearing off period. So yeah. Homework isn't the easiest thing.

So that's what the kids are doing, and we're currently waiting for my parents to come by. Nasser is on a business trip in San Diego, has been since yesterday morning, but then he comes back late tonight, so YAY! It's good that it's a short trip for the first one in over a year (have I mentioned he hasn't done a work trip since last August... mostly because of me? yeah...). Mainly just because it's good to kinda get used to the business trip thing slowly at first again. And you know, I'm still going through treatment and all... just had one this past Monday.

I should address the depression that I had end of last week... I think I kinda freaked out about it because it was the exact 3 and 4 days before my next treatment, and it was sorta what the doctor had warned to watch for. But then Saturday and Sunday were totally decent days, so it's not the same as what he was talking about. Likely it was just some depression that hit, randomly, and kinda hard, maybe worse so because it had been awhile and worse still because I freaked myself out over what this depression "meant" and what was going to happen with my treatment because of it.

So really... it's ok.

Also, just something small I need to correct, because yeah, perfectionism coming through here. A couple posts ago I told you how many posts I had, but the number I gave was my total published plus drafts. And that's not really fair. I should have only given the published number because that's the official one, which is currently 188. Not a huge huge difference, but enough for me to care about.

So... things have been going decently well this week, despite treatment, despite Nasser's business trip. I'm not trying to put my expectations too high while he's gone, I'm not really doing any cooking with him gone, because I don't want to trap myself into any triggers. I'm keeping it easy. Yesterday, we just hung out, after school, we ordered Domino's delivery for dinner, RG was doing a lot of homework after dinner, then I attempted to get the boys to bed early, which basically just ended up "on time". But it was good. I felt a confidence boost in handling everything myself, which I really needed. I had decided that trying to go somewhere in order to get together with other people would end up too stressful for me... it honestly took a long time and a lot of discussing (with various family members, and Nasser, and my therapist, and myself) to figure out what I was going to do. And then I figured today, being the second day of the trip, would be a good day to have my parents over.

I'm definitely hoping RG finishes his homework before dinner today. He worked on homework last night, after dinner, but then still had stuff to finish this morning. Ugh... stressful. It shouldn't be stressful for me, I'm not the one with the homework, and yet it still is. Sigh.

Oh. I have to share something RG made for me yesterday, when he wasn't doing homework (apologies for the continuous talk of homework). Anyway, he bought this multi-color pen at the school book fair yesterday, and started off drawing snowflakes on my arms (because he remembers my obsession of doing this on myself for tatoo ideas... I have vague memories of writing a post with pictures of these at some point but cannot seem to find them to link to so we're outta luck with that here). At some point, I was like "Ah, this is just too painful. I think your pen is not meant for skin; it's meant for paper." So he drew me this...

*heart melts*


Ok, so I'm going to tell you that right now it's much later... after 9pm... boys are in bed and I am too but wondering if I should finish up this blog post (!). So since I mentioned how RG is now on a new medication, I should also mention that silly, trying to remember everything me, this morning, completely forgot to give him his med. And he had a total meltdown at bedtime since his homework wasn't finished and it sounds like he probably had more homework to finish because he didn't have his medicine today. So that made me feel really crappy, and give him some extra time to work when it was truly past bedtime, and I reset the alarm clock in their bedroom to be a bit earlier so he can wake up earlier and hopefully finish in the morning. Honestly he works decently well in the mornings... new energy with the new day, etc, I guess.

I'm impressed that I didn't totally melt down when I realized I had forgotten RG's med this morning. I guess I was slightly triggered, but I kept my calm, I comforted RG during his meltdown, and I tried to find some solutions. And I still kept moving toward the goal of getting the boys to sleep... it was later than I would have liked, but it all worked out in the end.

Alright, it is barely past 9:30pm, but I'm .... going to sleep. Because I do that, especially since getting this CPAP to sleep with. I dunno, it's like maybe I am catching up on all the sleep I missed for so long. Well, until next time, dear readers.

and all this time, thought I was in control, but fate she held her own

Friday, 10/13/17, 7:21pm

Oi. Well, yesterday afternoon/evening and today evening have both turned out to be not so good. Honestly, I'd had quite a streak of good days, even longer with only a few "meh" days mixed in, but days since a true depressive episode... it's been like 2.5 weeks. I had to check my mood tracking app- Daylio- to figure out when it was, because I couldn't remember. Oh and since the beginning of September, I'd only been having one bad day at a time. It's been awhile- over a month- since having this happen two days in a row.

Although, I should take a step back. It hasn't been all bad days today and yesterday. Yesterday I had a really good morning/early afternoon with friends, helping one of our friends get ready for a full year of traveling with her family (woah!!), and the bad mood didn't hit until later in the afternoon, after a large argument with the kids. I lost my patience with them, I reneged on our plan to go outside because I felt like they weren't listening to me (big surprise there right, with kids? though at the time I just felt like a complete failure because I haven't done much parenting in awhile- between treatment[s] and lots of depression, etc), then it just felt like a big screaming match with a bunch of crying in between. Finally I gave up, let them watch a show, and hid upstairs in my bedroom to cry more and feel like a terrible parent/person.

This evening isn't nearly as bad as yesterday's big big depressive episode. That hit... hard. Really hard. And it lasted pretty much the entire evening and I only got slightly better before going to bed, although I still wouldn't call it a recovery by any means. And maybe some of it being so bad was the fact that it had been awhile. I was certainly being really hard on myself with the parenting stuff, but it's also hard not to be when I haven't been doing it regularly.

Today during the day was pretty good. Kids had off, as did all their cousins, and we went with most of them to the science museum in Denver, which was fun, but fairly crowded. I actually think I did rather well, parenting wise, today with lots of stubbornness at various points from both kids, but especially from TK. But then at TK's soccer game, I mentioned to Nasser that I think really packed days might not be the best thing for me right now, like I think I'm having trouble handling that and really need more me time during the days. I was feeling more on edge, although not triggered truly yet. What really felt triggering, after dinner, was an argument with Nasser. Obviously, I hate arguing with him, and thinking about it now, after spending time typing away, I feel much more relaxed and think I could probably talk much more calmly about things with him. But before starting the blog tonight, I told him "I'm done, I'm going upstairs."

I am worried though. I'm worried I really can't handle busy days. I'm worried because my next treatment is on Monday, and the doctor had warned to watch out for any major deterioration the 3-4 days before treatment, and now of course I have these bad afternoon/evenings suddenly exactly 3 and 4 days before treatment. I'm worried about Nasser's business trip next Wednesday and Thursday. I'm worried about my parenting skills. I'm worried that the only reason it feels like I've "gotten better" is because I've been so hands off with parenting for so long. I'm worried about my ability to handle anything really, including just generally... my life.

There's all these things I want to improve about me, about my life, about my parenting skills, and really we own a bunch of specific books that address many of these things I want to improve (at least like 4 or 5 or so that have been on my list for some time). And yet I still haven't gotten myself to sit and read. Maybe one issue is I don't really know where to start. And I'm still afraid of my cognitive ability to actually do it. Then I have treatment on Monday and I did notice with my last treatment that I had some of the short term memory loss again in the days surrounding treatment, so I feel like I need to be careful with that as well. It's... hard... really hard. It's hard to not be able to do all the things I want to do, many of the things that I feel would help. I mean there's the whole exercise thing too, right? I'm so completely out of shape right now, that everything I attempt feels really hard and really... just... confidence bursting.

Maybe it seems like I'm just coming up with excuses. And maybe I am doing that because I'm currently in a bit of a hole. It's not like I want to be here. But, sadly, my depression isn't completely gone, despite however much better I have gotten. It's hard to be hit with it again after quite some time, and to feel, I dunno, really shocked by it happening again or something.

If this does last the next two days, then it will be a big thing to talk about with the doctor in terms of treatment frequency. We'll figure it out, and clearly he mentioned it as a possibility, so clearly this is something that happens to people. I shouldn't (and I will try not to) feel bad about this happening. It's just... I hate to feel like we're taking steps backwards. I really don't want that.

I will briefly note that today is Friday the 13th. Unfortunately, it's no longer something I can get excited about in any way over the creepiness or whatever of this day. Adam was killed on a Friday the 13th. So it's forever going to feel sad, bad, and ominous (but real ominous, not silly ominous).

Anyway. I will try to end with some happier things. Some pictures from our museum trip, again with only most of the cousins. The missing two were next door at the zoo, but we didn't end up seeing them at all today. (PS- after writing and adding the below, I do feel a bit better).

Starting with some fun pictures of the five of them outside the museum...

The three youngest cousins, including TK, playing in the space exhibit play area, and walking together, super cute. TK is the youngest of the three, but he is within 5 and 6 months of the other two.

I got a pic of the five cousins plus my sister and brother, all checking out this satellite table that you can move around to different areas, plus zoom in. So we found all our houses on it.

At the Expo for the Denver Rock n Roll Half Marathon (plus other distances but the people I know are doing the half. I'm not doing it- are you crazy??? We were there for my sister and brother to pick up their packets). This is what happens when you tell five kiddos between the ages of 6 and 9 to "pretend to run". They each have a different interpretation of what that means. Super, super cute.

With the Geico Gecko, because of course. They all got these neck gaiters for free at the expo and then wore them the rest of the time because they all thought they looked super cool.

we're coming to the edge, running on the water

Sunday, 10/16/16, 9:43am

(Side note at 1:40pm, I was all ready to scrap this post, because I got to a lower state and I thought I sounded too optimistic here, if that gives you any gauge of how I'm doing... whatever. I'll post it anyway and hope that it's hopefulness at the end picks me back up.)

For a little while now, I've been less interested to blog when I'm in a crappy mood. I feel like I've had to force myself to blog during a low, whereas I used to feel a need for the blog before. I think it probably has a little to do with the fact that I do share my blog more widely now and more people can know about my lows.

I think I was calmed into a lull when I first started with the blog. At first I only shared with people who were super close to me, who weren't going to judge me. But as I've shared more, and more widely, and become more and more vulnerable, it's become more scary. People have said things with well intentions that still sting, and people have said things with judging intentions (not many thankfully!). And it's scary to know that I've just signed myself up for anyone and everyone to judge me, my self care, my treatment of my depression, because apparently we do that with mental health, more so than we do with physical health. It's really weird how we do that. I mean I suppose we judge people who refuse to see a doctor, for whatever the reason, but with mental health, we really judge people on "how hard they're trying". I mean, for crying out loud, I do see a psychiatrist and a therapist (pretty damn regularly), and I exercise and blog and seek support from those around me, and sure, maybe I don't practice mindfulness as often as I should, but I'm TRYING.

I don't know why I feel the need to start off so defensively.

I suppose it's in preparation to say, I'm not entirely sure that this new medication IS working as amazingly well as I initially thought. It's not a miracle drug. And I suppose I never really thought it would be. But I think it did kick in, right around the end of my last period, while we were in Bermuda, and everything felt really great for awhile. And it was this nice long stretch of wonderfulness. And even though I was talking about how I don't want to take that as an expectation of the future, I must have still done that.

This weekend has been super busy for us, in comparison to a lot of recent weekends, and although it's all good things, it's taken a toll on my mood. The anxiety and depression crept into my day yesterday, despite a really great day Friday, starting with a beautiful bike ride with a friend,

a birthday party for a nephew, and quality hanging out with Nasser time after his work trip this week.

(Sorry had to share those pictures). (ARGH, I am not supposed to say sorry. So with the habit I'm trying to form as suggested by Nasser, I will say instead, I love you blog, for allowing me to get distracted with sharing the good stuff, in the middle of sharing the bad stuff. Because that's how I roll).

Yesterday was tough. At many different points. It was also good at many different points. Nasser and I got through a tough discussion about the way we were interacting with eachother and we talked about me trying to cut politics out of my life a little bit since it works me up a bit much. We also had RG's choir concert. Did I tell you he's in a choir this year?? Yeah, I love it. Anyway, I wasn't about to back out of his first ever concert that he was super nervous about, because of some effing depression, so I rallied. But maybe my eyes were a little red and puffy. And I didn't talk much to anyone else. And we really didn't do much afterward with people but it was ok. RG was in a bad mood for awhile about the long day, and dinner plans, and his itchy pants, and he was probably exhausted. Of course, at bed time, he couldn't stop talking with me about the concert, and singing bits of songs, and he seemed to love the choir again.

But then after the kids went to bed, the depression crept in again. I can't even remember what triggered it initially, but it was worsened when we were watching one of our favorite comedians (one we saw live together as one of Nasser's and my first dates back in the day) make several jokes in a row about how psychiatrists aren't real doctors. Oh man that hurt. It was like a blow to the stomach, but I guess more a blow to the brain. Your disease isn't valid. It's all in your head. Just snap out of it. That's the stigma I get faced with in our culture all. the. freaking. time. I'm sure I notice it more because those words scream out at me more than they do other people. I was terrified to watch any other shows or comedians or whatever for fear that there would be more mental illness trivialization.

Today is a bit busy as well with another nephew's birthday party this afternoon (my sister's birthday was yesterday, the nephews' birthdays are this week, a day apart from eachother, and my dad's birthday is next week - October is a busy month for us!!), and I am trying. This morning isn't super easy because Nasser is taking a few hours to play video games with friends who don't live here, online. I've felt better about giving him this time more regularly, since playing with other people is better for him than playing alone, plus it gives him social time with these friends. Normally it's fine, but today the game it a bit more violent with the zombies, and the killing, and the gore, and we're not letting the kids watch. They've gotten some of their own video game time in, hence the ability for me to blog. But I needed it. Already the depression had crept in this morning with me yelling at Nasser for sleeping in, ALL THE TIME, which he really doesn't do. Then he held me while we practiced some mindfulness/breath concentration together to try and prevent me from crying. I still cried, but maybe it wasn't as bad as it would have been had we not practiced.

We decided some verbiage around mindfulness practice. It is a practice, just like yoga. One that, I believe, allows for no existence of failure. If you practice, you will likely get better at it, and you're doing it. You can't be bad at it, there is only the possibility of not practicing it. If you find yourself with wondering thoughts, you simply try again. If you are in a balance yoga pose, and your raised leg falls to the floor, you simply take a deep breath, and try again.

I suppose that's exactly life. You fall down those holes. Maybe you get stuck sometimes, having trouble finding the way out, but we all stop and help eachother along the way. Thank goodness for that.

I feel the seasons change, the leaves, the snow and sun

Tuesday, 10/11/16, 9:45am, 12:10pm

ARGH. ARGH ARGH ARGH.

I stupidly hurt my finger. I rammed it into an edge on the towel rack when I went to dry my hands, and the fingernail tore, badly. It's split diagonally down the center, about a 1/3 of the way down. Oh it's ugly. The pain has gotten better, with advil and time, but I'm still frustrated.

I am so tempted to add a picture here, although it's covered with a band-aid now and I don't know that my readers would appreciate the gore. Hah.

Even though typing is probably not the best thing for the nail, I'm attempting it. Because I feel behind on the blog and I miss it.

This weekend... was... great. I ended up having a girls weekend in the mountains. These were women I've been friends with for a long time. All of us are moms, we all have kids of similar ages, some of the group met in birthing classes or around then, and two of us are sisters.

5 of the 6 of us carpooled up in, none other than, a minivan.

Half the group joined some of my family (my brother-in-law plus kids, my brother plus kid, 2 of my cousins) on a 14er on Saturday. (For those outside of Colorado, a 14er is a mountain that is 14,000ft or higher).

It was fun, tiring, humbling, and tough. I did not summit (I was having a really hard time with the elevation and shortness of breath which made me feel panicked, and I was starting to have trouble keeping a sure footing on the loose rocks), although we think I made it above 14,000ft elevation, probably within about 100ft of the summit, so I call it a win. :) We had some amazing views, and got really close to some mountain goats who had no fear around us.

me at my highest elevation of the day, admitting defeat 

Someday I will attempt it again, maybe after I get into better overall shape and better altitude shape. Need to be in more of a regular habit of going up to altitude before I attempt this one again.

Before the 14er group of the ladies weekend passed out of exhaustion Saturday night, we made it through a delicious dinner out, some apple pie sangria back at the condo,

we rocked out to some dance music with our awesome speaker setup,

and we played a fun game all together.

I feel like I keep getting breaks from the kids, breaks from regular life, lately, and yet I just seem to keep needing them. I guess that's life in some respects, or maybe life for me right now. While I continue to figure out living with depression, and anxiety. Maybe someday I'll have it more figured out, but right now, I feel like I have a long way to go.

Although I made it through the weekend feeling wonderful, the depression and anxiety hit yesterday when I was faced with the reality of Nasser leaving for a work trip for several days. I'm working on it, struggling but trying to allow myself the break now that I hurt my finger. Normal activity seems to be re-injuring it a little and I'm nervous to drive later tonight for choir. Still don't think I'll end up at urgent care for this, but we'll see.

I am done typing for today though. :-(

but I still haven't found what I'm looking for

Thursday, 04/07/16, 8:28am

I've been needing to blog. I tried writing a post yesterday, but never got enough focus to finish it. It doesn't help when I can only get a paragraph out every 6ish hours.

I like to blog/write during the day the best. I'm at home with TK during the day, until RG gets off the bus at 2:44pm, so it's a little tricky to fit in the time. It works best when I give TK something to totally occupy his time while I'm writing, and a fair amount of the time that ends up being screens. But I weigh that with the benefit I get the whole family gets from my blogging and it's worth it. But occupying TK is just part of it; if we're out of the house all day with activities, I often don't get the time. But then occupying our time with activities, getting TK and me social time and outside the house time, is all really important too. And then on top of the blogging time and the social time, I always want to fit in exercise time when I can get it. Sometimes I can do a workout DVD while TK plays with dinosaurs or we can have a "dance party" with awesome 80s music, and lately I've been getting lots of runs due to the influence of Audra, my sister. She is stay-at-home as well, and her kids are very close in age to my kids (oh and they are all boys), so we hang out together a lot. Lately, she's been training for a speedier half marathon, and her workout plan has her running 5 days a week. So, that's got me running about 3-4 days a week, either with her (often with her pushing both our boys in the jogging stroller) or switching off with her (while the other one watches the boys at one of our houses). It's been great to have that running influence in her and the support to get workouts in during the week.

Speaking of running, I've decided to be pretty ambitious this year. I signed up early for an olympic distance triathlon in June. And I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to try for a half marathon (my first) in the fall. I still want to do that, but I've since added some running races as part of the training somewhat. I'm signed up for a 10-miler on Mother's Day and the Bolder Boulder 10k on Memorial Day. And I might actually do a virtual half marathon over the summer if the 10-miler feels ok. I have in the back of my mind some concerns over pushing it into injury, but I'm also trying to be very careful to listen to my body, ice if ever needed after bigger runs, foam roll and stretch often.

I've loved having specific races to look forward to and this year I'm getting more serious about training for things. Last year, I did my first sprint distance triathlons, which were great, but I was already in reasonable shape for surviving the distances and I really didn't train all that much. I want to much more this year, and really I have to. I am definitely not as comfortable with the olympic distances for the triathlon, and I cannot just run a half marathon on a whim. Although I'm getting closer to being able to do that! ;)

Yesterday, and a little the day before, I was having some of those life inadequacy, no confidence feelings. Having no engineering job has definitely contributed to those feelings. Being at home with the kids is great, it's rewarding, but it's often rather thankless. There are a lot of days where I feel totally unproductive and I seem to accomplish nothing. But that comes with the territory, and days where I feel depressed, I sometimes need to let go of the expectation that I do accomplish anything. And that's ok.

I'm not sure where I'm going with my blog post, but that's also how I've been feeling about my life right now. Feeling a little lost and like my goals are just floating around me, some of them really distant and out of focus. Some of them feel really selfish right now, but I also recognize that I need a little bit of that too. Being good to myself comes back in my easier struggle with depression which then makes me a better mom and wife. It's weird, a lot of people ask me how I'm liking being at home. And I don't want to tell people, yeah I like it more because I'm being selfish a lot and taking care of my needs as much as possible. But to some extent, that's a big reason why I like it right now. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the time with the kids, I'm so glad to have a more relaxed schedule for RG completing homeowork, for being able to volunteer for things here and there in the school, and I think that my being at home the last 7ish months has really improved our children in a lot of ways. And all those reasons are huge for the case for me being at home. But that selfish bit, that's a nice perk.

So this may come as a surprise to my longer term readers, but would you have guessed that I wrote as much as I have above without mentioning that Nasser is on a work trip this week? Normally I feel the need to blog about it before, during, at the end because I am stressed out beyond belief at the idea of him being away and leaving me all the responsibility. But this trip has been amazingly different. He left early Tuesday morning and is coming back really late tonight, so 3 day trip. Pretty typical for San Diego. BUT, now that I've survived a week long India trip, 3 days doesn't sound too bad. And although he's really busy with meetings, he feels so much more accessible on this trip because he isn't sleeping most of our day. And of course, he just feels so much closer. Regardless, the fact that I was more confident before and during this trip, shows amazing progress. :)

Since this blog post is all over the place today, and feels a little like I'm just catching up and reflecting on the state of my life right now, I have one bit of bragging to do.

RG wrote a short story last month and submitted it in this young authors writing contest. It was an optional thing to do, and it was awesome to watch him work on it and complete it. It was a good 3 day project, typing away on my chromebook for a good hour or so each day. He wrote it in Google Documents, added a Google image, and the only thing I really helped with was spelling and grammar here and there. It was a little stressful at times when he still had a ways to go on the last day before the story was due, but it was really fun. Anyway, his story ended up being selected (!!!), along with several others, to be read aloud by professional actors in a couple little performances in Boulder and Denver. The first one is this weekend, and we're so excited.