Tag Archives: Children

My scale was ruling my life

Yes, I said it. My scale… a 20 dollar, digital box that I would stand on every morning ruled my life. The number that came up would determine if I have a good or bad day. It sat so perfectly on my bathroom floor and could strip me of any amount of joy in a matter of seconds.
Each morning I would remove all my clothing. I did not want anything adding even an extra ounce to me. And regardless of what it told me I would exam myself in the mirror and go over every area that I felt needed improvement. My back, my legs, of course my stomach. Nothing was flat enough, thin enough, good enough.

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I was a pro at dieting. I would go on any fad diet I would hear about. I would think to myself, “they need me as a spokes person, I make this look easy.” But the truth is I made it look sick. I didn’t realize how sick at the time. I could go three days at this point without eating. Friends starting voicing concern. Telling me I was getting scary thin. Yet there were still others who I wanted to notice and didn’t. I could not eat without throwing up and I knew people saw me and heard me. I wanted them to care… wanting (maybe even needing) that attention intensified my illness.

I was also in a depressive state. I could feel and see my life unravelling around me. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I was going through a divorce and I would cry and cry. My sons would visit and I couldn’t keep it together. The hardest thing was seeing them afraid. It was at this point that I knew they needed to stay with their father until I could pull it together. And to add to it, missing them caused me to mourn for them. It got to where I would hide in bed and wasn’t eating at all. My heart hurt, my body was weak. I wasn’t even sure why I was still here… It was God’s grace that kept me alive. I didn’t feel I had a purpose anymore. I had become so self involved I was only thinking of myself the majority of the time. Something needed to change. Anorexia had consumed me and it was killing me mentally and physically.

To be continued…

Cancer threw me into depression

I gave up.
I am not completely positive when it happened… if it was a week later or weeks but somewhere along the way I gave up.
I did not plan for skin cancer to impact me the way it did.
After a biopsy, PET scan, and bloodwork I found out that my cancer was caught early and not as serious as it could have been. I mean stage 3 skin cancer is nothing to mess with. Especially when your lab results show that it is ‘brisk’ (fast growing).
BUT stage 4 means it has gone into your lymphnoids and chemo is necessary. I was lucky and able to rid my body of the intrusion by the hands of a surgeon with no further treatment needed.
When I think about it there are people who have gone through so much worse. I even became angry with myself that it affected me the way it did.
I froze. It wasn’t overnight. I just knew one day I woke up and I was overwhelmed. Everything overwhelmed me. Dealing with doctor appointments and tests all while driving children to work and school and no help made me feel so anxious. Taking my sixteen month old son with me to appointments didn’t help matters either.
I was tired. So tired I was comatose, zoned out with my head nodding trying to stay awake enough to monitor my children. All I wanted to do was nap. I was experiencing extreme fatigue.
And I wanted to cry but had somehow convinced myself I was not allowed to. Well, because I had to be strong (I was even told by someone) it is really not that big of a deal.
But… If it was not that big of a deal why did I feel paralyzed? And no one understood and no one offered help.
I am not even sure I realized how bad things had gotten until about a week after my surgery. It was almost like I had woken up and saw all that had been neglected. 
I stopped fixing my hair and wearing makeup. The house was a wreck. Laundry was piled – not just in the laundry room but in every room. Junk piles of mail and school papers were stacked everywhere and toys cluttered the rooms and everything had collected dust. Where had I been that I let everything go?
I realized what had happened. I do not know how I did not see that I was in a depressive state until it had passed. I thought I was coping. I thought “I got this!” Man was I wrong.

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The Price Tag of Freedom

It was something we never talked about growing up. It was hush hush in our house except for the prayerful cry that came from my mother’s bedside in the middle of the night. She was grieving and begging God for a miracle. Even at five years old I could recognize it. My dad had been away serving in the military but he was home now. He was not dead but to my mother he had died. He was now a man we no longer recognized.

My dad told me what happened a few years ago…

“It was a normal day. We would get up and run drills and go through training. We would prepare in case there was a war. This particular day I was having a hard time. I had gotten a letter from my mother a few days prior with news from home that was hard for me to know about. All I could think was that I wanted to be home. Everyone was homesick. I was stationed in Germany at the time and we were preparing for a drill.  We were suited up with equipment and given directions. This drill used toxic gas. We went into a building and we were supposed to put our gas masks on. I fumbled with my mask and I was slow at getting it on. By the time I had gotten my mask on my eyes were burning and I could not stop crying.  We were directed out of the building and my sergeant was yelling at me to get myself together but I couldn’t control it. I was sent to the medical building where they rinsed my eyes out.

Then two days later I had a massive stroke. I was paralyzed on one side of my body and I could not walk. I had to go in a wheelchair. I was in Germany and there was no one there. No family just me. Then the military decided to send me home. I was lucky because the feeling came back into my body and I was normal again but something happened to my brain. They said I had a chemical reaction.”

My dad is a paranoid schizophrenic. After discussion with some family members the accounts above are true. There are some facts that are left out but this is his recollection of the events.  I share this with you because we do not know if the toxic gas or the stroke could have caused the schizophrenia or if the overall event was the trigger. I believe that this tragic event triggered schizophrenia in my father but because of our family history he was already vulnerable to the disease. It could have been triggered at a different point in his life if this had not occurred.

People who have been through a stressful or traumatic event, such as the death of a loved one have a higher risk of developing schizophrenia. However, a positive major life event such as winning the lottery can also trigger schizophrenia in some vulnerable people. There are also some environmental factors that can contribute to schizophrenia but there is a higher probability that a person already has a predisposition to the disease. Yet with study, scientist are discovering that genetics does not necessarily mean destiny. These means that there is hope for my children and yours.

 

(Image Source: Debby Tsuang, M.D., M.Sc., University of Washington/VAPSHCS, Special thanks to Dr. Kristin Cadenhead, UCSD)

(Image Source: Debby Tsuang, M.D., M.Sc., University of Washington/VAPSHCS, Special thanks to Dr. Kristin Cadenhead, UCSD)

 

If you are concerned that you, or someone you know, may be developing schizophrenia please contact a health professional. You are not alone.

Do you have a story about a loved one or yourself that was hurt in the military? I want to share your story. Contact me by completing the form below. 

I feel helpless

Sometimes the anger fills me up. Sometimes I get frustrated at my dad and then I am angry at myself for feeling angry. It can be a never ending cycle.  

My father has a mental illness. At this point my dad who is 59 years old seems to have the understanding of a teenager. It is such a hard thing to explain. I don’t know if this is caused from him taking so much medication over the years for his schizophrenic episodes or if it is part of the progression of his mental illness.

He seems to keep getting himself into trouble. He calls me and he is upset over the next thing he has gotten caught up in and I feel helpless.

I feel helpless that he won’t listen to me and nothing I say changes his actions.

I feel helpless that I reach out to those I think are there to help him and there isn’t much that can be done.

I feel helpless that I am always concerned for my dad’s safety and wellbeing but there is nothing I can do about it.

I feel helpless and how I feel really doesn’t matter.

My father has lived with my family in the past but moves around a lot because of his paranoia. Right now he is back living with my grandmother – his mother. She is elderly and she gets extremely upset at him. They constantly argue because she wants to help him make good decisions and he seems to defy everything she says.

There are a lot of people over the years that have taken advantage of my father. One female had him returning stolen items to Wal-Mart and getting the cash in return. He also purchased her a car and took out several payday loans for her. He was sending her money while she was in jail and supported her and her family when she got out. She continued to tell my dad she would marry him while she was seen with other men.

Another woman mistreated my dad so badly that she would pull his hair and force him to do drugs (my father had never done drugs or alcohol). She did horrible things to him as he gave her money every week and drove her anywhere she wanted to go. She ALSO made promises of marriage to my father.

This last female also has a mental disability and is younger than I am.  I am talking over 20 years younger than my father. My dad was married to her at one point but he feared for his life so they divorced after a little boy was conceived. This boy is now 10 years old and is also mentally disabled. This female blames my father saying his genes were bad. There have been constant fights as my dad has gone back and forth. She dangles the carrot (so to speak) in a constant effort to get money from him. The sad part is I have a brother I barely know and more children are involved.

I have come to the conclusion that my dad is lonely and I cannot control what my dad does. I talk to him and try and reason with him but that doesn’t seem to work. So, right now I just love him and I pray. I pray that he will make smarter decisions and that he will just be happy. I just want him to be happy because I know, really, that is what he is truly searching for.

And I pray that I can let go and stop being angry at my dad, at these women, and at myself and just be the supportive daughter that my dad needs me to be.

Me and my dad

Me and my dad