i'm a survivor

i've been thinking a lot lately.

(i know...i can almost hear the "oh, great"s and eye rolling that must be going on.  at least from hubby, who teases me about the phrase because it almost always involves me asking for money or changing plans or something to that effect.)

the truth is...i've been thinking about myself, about who i am, who i've become, and what i've been through.  where i am now.

i miss my blog.  but i'm having a hard time coming up with things to write about, or time to write it in.  take now, for instance.  what do i write about?  while my children are pretty much amazing and my husband definitely has the hottest rear end in the world, i'm sure the rest of you don't want to hear about just that.  and due to neglect, i don't even know how many readers i have left.  (so if you're reading this, thanks.)

there have been a lot of changes in my life, especially within the last six months.  many of which i'm not at liberty to discuss, whether out of respect for others they concern or a desire for privacy.  it's kind of been a hard six months in a lot of ways, but also good in that i feel like i'm climbing out of the hole.

i saw a new doctor, which is good.  i hadn't seen a med doctor for far too long because our insurance changed and i didn't want to look for one.  (i HATE seeing new doctors...rehashing the history...trying to get comfortable and trust them...especially in situations like mine, where there is a ton of very uncomfortable history to deal with.)  my therapist recommended one, however, and so i finally called and made an appointment.  it was long overdue.  the doctor i'd seen previously told me that i wasn't bipolar, i just had a hormone imbalance.  she put me on progesterone and a bunch of supplements and told me everything would be better.  things did get better for awhile, but not by a whole lot.  then (stupid me) i stopped taking the progesterone.  bad idea.  i went back on it....did a little better....still had issues.  big, angry, sobbing, mood-swinging issues.  suffice it to say, my family wanted to throw me out the window.

new doctor tried very hard not to roll his eyes and very tactfully told me while he didn't have all of the information my previous doctor had, he found it very difficult to believe that i had a progesterone deficiency.  (i pretty much got the feeling he thought she was an idiot.)  he then proceeded to tell me that from everything he had heard it was very likely i'd been dealing with bipolar disorder since the age of approximately 13, if not sooner.  combine that with the PTSD and typical teenage angst, it's no wonder i had so many issues.

so....double the dose of my mood-stabilizer (lamictal) and add in an SNRI (effexor), life is sunshine and roses again.  i'm happier and have more energy than i've had in who knows how long (if ever).  hubby even told me to tell my doctor at my follow-up that he doesn't want to strangle me anymore.  (this news was met with relief....both on my part and that of my doctor, who wasn't quite sure how to handle it, heehee.)

only problem...side effects.  stupid, horrible, nasty, hateful side effects.  headaches.  dizzyness.  more headaches.  fatigue.  (more energy and fatigue...go figure.  but it's happening.)  yawning.  (i know, weird, right?)  and headaches.  since i already suffer from debilitating migraines, the daily headaches are not well-received.  i am hoping that they will start getting better soon.  apparently one in ten patients on these meds experience headaches.  yuck.

so where was i going with this?  oh yeah....blog.  life changes.  all that.  back to the blog.

i got an email several months ago from a doctoral student at purdue (personal blog here), who is doing her dissertation (professional portfolio here) on trauma and blogging.  my blog was one of several she's chosen to use in her studies.  i'm really excited about this.  it made me really analyze my blog and the purpose it has served.

first, as an outlet to me.  a really important one.  when trauma made it physically impossible to speak...i literally could not get words out....my fingers would still function on a keyboard.

when i needed someone to listen, i had a whole network of fellow survivors, family, and friends.  people who were there for me, who really understood what i was saying, because they've lived it, too.

i also have a place that encompasses me.  maybe someday, in thirty or forty or fifty years, this blog will still be out there for people to read, maybe even my children. 

my story has provided hope for others.  this is so humbling to me.  i decided a long time ago that if i had to live through hell, i might as well make it worth something.  so i took my personal hell and put it out there for the whole world to see, hoping that someone else out there would read it and feel not so alone.  since i started this blog in 2008, i have received so many comments and emails from people telling me thank you, that they have hope for themselves because of my healing, that they don't feel so isolated.  isolation is a terrifying place to be....so if i can offer one person a feeling of connection, then that is pretty amazing to me.

it's been a kind of documentation of my healing.  the ups and downs.  the moments of blackest despair, when i wasn't even sure life was worth living, when i was convinced i would never be happy again.  the days where i was content, the nights of anxiety and fear, the help i got in therapy.  the participation in blog carnivals and groups, research on child abuse, the ability to think and feel.  and, ultimately, the regaining of my strength and power, the taking back of myself from my abuser.

so here i am.  i don't believe my journey of healing will ever really end, but having put most of the abuse behind me, i have myself to deal with.  my lack of self-esteem, the bipolar disorder and the impulsiveness and mood-swings that come with it.  medication, therapy, doctors....a lot more future to deal with, even though i've got twenty-six years of past behind me.

four years ago i never, in a million years, could have predicted i'd be right here, sitting at my kitchen table, having lived through everything i have.  three years i ago i never would have seen the happiness i've found in the past few weeks.  two years ago i would have had a panic attack just thinking about approaching my abuser.  one year ago i was really dealing with the abuse....

....and now here i am.  imperfect.  flawed.  but optimistic.  cautiously happy.  hopeful.  still struggling with wrapping my head around this bipolar thing, but i've accepted it.  i don't like it, but i accept it.  i'm still kind of embarrassed by it, even though it's not my fault, but that's a discussion for another day.

my name is cornnut.  i'm twenty-six years old, i'm a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a blogger, an artist, a student, a pianist, and a survivor.  because i truly have survived.

(now you can go sing that destiny's child song, because i know you're all hearing it in your heads.)

(and if you made it this far into this horrendously long and rather disjointed blog post, thanks.)

hubby sent me a link to this article called "the total perspective vortex." i found it extremely interesting and wanted to share it. instead of just posting the link (since i know many of you won't click on it) i figure i might as well copy it here so you will all read it.

The Total Perspective Vortex

Written by Christopher S. Putnam

(originally published on 14 June 2007).

Most people think of the “mentally disordered” as a delusional lot, holding bizarre and irrational ideas about themselves and the world around them. Isn’t a mental disorder, after all, an impairment or a distortion in thought or perception? This is what we tend to think, and for most of modern psychology’s history, the experts have agreed; realistic perceptions have been considered essential to good mental health. More recently, however, research has arisen that challenges this common-sense notion.

In 1988, psychologists Shelly Taylor and Jonathon Brown published an article making the somewhat disturbing claim that positive self-deception is a normal and beneficial part of most people’s everyday outlook. They suggested that average people hold cognitive biases in three key areas: a) viewing themselves in unrealistically positive terms; b) believing they have more control over their environment than they actually do; and c) holding views about the future that are more positive than the evidence can justify. The typical person, it seems, depends on these happy delusions for the self-esteem needed to function through a normal day. It’s when the fantasies start to unravel that problems arise.

Consider eating disorders, for instance. It’s generally been believed that an unrealistically negative body image is an important factor in the self-abuse that characterizes anorexia and bulimia. A 2006 study at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, however, came to a very different conclusion. Here, groups of normal and eating disordered women were asked to rate the attractiveness of their own bodies. They were then photographed from the neck down, and panels of volunteers were brought in to view the photos and rate the women’s appearances objectively. The normal women, as it turned out, evaluated themselves much more positively than the panels did, while the self-ratings of the eating disordered women were in close agreement with the objective ratings. The eating disordered subjects, in other words, had a more realistic body image than the normal women. However, it is important to note that the study was based upon the broad concept of “attractiveness” rather than body weight specifically—while the eating disordered women may have rated themselves poorly because they felt “fat,” their weight was a controlled variable and not the basis of the volunteers’ assessments.

Studies into clinical depression have yielded similar findings, leading to the development of an intriguing, but still controversial, concept known as depressive realism. This theory puts forward the notion that depressed individuals actually have more realistic perceptions of their own image, importance, and abilities than the average person. While it’s still generally accepted that depressed people can be negatively biased in their interpretation of events and information, depressive realism suggests that they are often merely responding rationally to realities that the average person cheerfully denies.

Lear's Fool speaks wisdom disguised as madnessThose with paranoid disorders can sometimes possess a certain unusual insight as well. It has often been asserted that within every delusional system, there exists a core of truth—and in their pursuit of imagined conspiracies against them, these individuals often show an exceptionally keen eye for the real thing. People who interact with them may be taken aback as they find themselves accused of harboring some negative opinion of the person which, secretly, they actually do hold. Complicating the issue, of course, is the fact that if the supposed aversion didn’t exist before, it likely does after such an unpleasant encounter.

As one might imagine, these issues present some problems when it comes to treatment. How does one convince a depressed person that “everything is all right” when her life really does suck? How does one convince an obsessive-compulsive patient to stop religiously washing his hands when the truth of what gets left behind after “normal” washing should be enough to make any sane person cringe? These problems put therapists in the curious position of teaching patients to develop irrational patterns of thinking—patterns that help them view the world as a rosier place than it really is. Counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s justified because what defines a mental disorder is not unreasonable or illogical thought, but abnormal behaviour that causes significant distress and impairs normal functioning in society. Treatment is about restoring a person to that level of normal functioning and satisfaction, even if it means building cognitions that aren’t precisely “rational” or “realistic.”

It’s a disconcerting concept. It’s certainly easier to think of the mentally disordered as lunatics running about with bizarre, inexplicable beliefs than to imagine them coping with a piece of reality that a “normal” person can’t handle. The notion that we routinely hide from the truth about ourselves and our world is not an appealing one, though it may help to explain the human tendency to ostracize the abnormal. Perhaps the reason we are so eager to reject any departure from this fiction we call “normality” is because we have grown dependent on our comfortable delusions; without them, there is nothing to insulate us from the harsh cold of reality.

the mother i want to be

i scrapbooked last night. while i couldn't sleep. i did some pictures from last april and may. i was amazed at how much little buddy has changed. he has grown up so fast. i feel as if i'm missing it, when he is right before my eyes.

will i remember exactly what it is like? will i remember his little wave, and the way he is when i walk into his room in the morning? will i remember the way he climbs on me to give me hugs when i'm sitting on the floor? will i remember how he pulls the laundry out of the basket or how he tries to chew on my cell phone? will i remember that little face he makes at me, when his eyebrows go up?

i am looking forward to his getting older. i'm excited for the day he tells me he loves me. i'm excited for him to be able to feed himself and dress himself. i can't wait to be that proud mamma at the school christmas program. i'm excited to see who he will become as he grows up.

how will he remember me? when he is an adult, how will he look back at his childhood? will he remember a mom who is a total basketcase (which i am), whose behavior is completely erratic, who loved him but wasn't capable of taking care of him the way he needed? will he remember a mother who was there for him, emotionally and physically, who made sure he had everything he needed, who loved him and taught him well?

when i look back on my own childhood, it was a mess most of the time. my mother, whom i love, is bipolar. she wasn't diagnosed with bipolar disorder until i was 17, but she suffered from it for years. her behavior was extremely unpredictable. her mood swings nearly unbearable. i know my mother loved me. but she could not provide the support i needed sometimes, because she was emotionally incapable of doing so, not because she didn't want to.

last night i was talking to my mom. i haven't told her anything about my recent struggles with depression or my flashbacks. but she could tell. twice she asked me if i was ok, both times i told her i was fine. then the third time she said, "are you sure you're okay? you sound really down." so i told her. i told her i've been having nightmares, and flashbacks, and struggling with depression. i told her i was going back to counseling. (tomorrow, by the way.) and instead of the reaction i thought i would get, that i've gotten so many times (we have provided every opportunity for you to get help and you just don't seem to want to work at it. now you are going back to counseling and you should have taken advantage of it when you were at home with us), i was shocked. do you know what she said to me? "i'm so glad you're going back to counseling. and please know that i am here for you. if you ever need to talk, you can always call me, no matter what time." she said that twice.

i am so glad my relationship with my mother is better now that i am an adult. but it saddens me that we didn't have that when i was growing up. not all of it was because of her mental illness. part of it was mine, too. my depression, my anger after being abused, and the fact that i didn't want to understand her issues. she has come a long way since i was a kid. she is still off the wall a lot, she complains (and yells) almost all the time. but at least she tries so hard to be understanding and supportive.

my greatest fear is (and has been for a long time) that my kids will think about me the way i thought about my mother when i was a kid. when i was little i was terrified of her. when i was a teenager, i hated her. (most kids hate their parents, i get that. but i'm pretty sure my issues went further than most.) even after i grew up and moved out, i couldn't stand her. my friends know how crazy she can be. most of them were scared of her, too, i think. so will i be like that? will my mental illness interfere with my ability to be a good mother all of the time?

i'm so proud of my mom for everything she has done to change. i'm proud of her for continuing to work on it in her own way, even though she can be difficult to be around sometimes. i'm grateful for all of the good things she has taught me. she taught me a lot of good things, mixed in with the bad. i know she did her best now, now that i am a mother, now that i am dealing with some of the same issues she has.

i hope that i can overcome this. i hope that i will be able to find the resources to fix myself. that i will find the strength to do so, and the desire to keep it up even when it's hard. i hope that i can be a better wife and a better mother. i hope that my son will not remember a mother who is depressed all the time. i hope that he will remember the good things i did for him, the way i loved him with everything i had. i hope we can have a positive relationship throughout his entire life, not just when he's an adult.