July 30th, 2010 | 
Author: I am so excited. It has been about 8 months or a bit longer since Daniel gave up the bottle. Well gave up is a bit of a lax saying but I will use that. In my post The Bottle-My Nemesis it explains how much we had to work to get off the bottle. During all of this time I have been trying to teach Daniel how to drink from a real straw. He has not been able to comprehend how to suck up, the only thing he has been doing for all of these months is blowing bubbles. Now blowing bubbles in itself is very good and I have praised him for this accomplishment but since his sensory issues have not made it possible for him to drink from a normal cup, we have had to continue the Honey Bear cup. (I put the link of where we found them so you could see a picture.) The Honey Bear cup is squeezable and allows the child to be in control of the amount of fluid that they retrieve into their mouth. The straw is a flexible clear plastic tubing like instrument. It looks much like the tubing for ice makers on refrigerators. The secret is ensuring to keep the seal between the straw and the hole on the lid.
So what caused Daniel to finally be able to drink from a regular straw?
I cannot answer that question. He makes huge strides all of the sudden and they always come after several weeks of not so good times. Yes, indeed since the first of July Daniel has been having some rough days and he has gotten very frustrated on several occasions. Now when he starts to have a rough time I just continue to remind myself that he always has a big breakthrough with something after wards. The reason I have to remind myself is because when he starts to do behavior that he has done in the past I get a little scared. I see all of his progress and then to have him seem to go backwards for a time puts a little doubt in my mind. It’s my own issue, it throws me. I do the same thing with everyone, with David if he is slightly out of character, I begin to ask questions. What is wrong with you? Why are you doing that? What is going on?
I can’t help it.
I do the same thing with Daniel. If he begins to act differently, I begin to have all of these questions flood my mind and then begin to fear that I have not done enough for him. I have gotten a lot better with this but the thoughts and doubts still come, they just don’t last as long. I focus my energy on observing our current situations and if there have been any changes. I have learned to support Daniel through the situations and wait. This time his frustrations were not everyday, they were off and on. They only lasted for short periods of time. What is funny is that during these times I feel this need to push him to try new things too, maybe because the pattern has been that he does something major while he is having these hard times. The day he drink from the straw he had a couple of moments that day. However, it did not stop him from playing with Ariel and Joshua.
He plopped right down in the middle of them playing and joined right in.
Either Ariel or Joshua had an extra cup on the floor and Daniel was playing with it. I said “Hey, Daniel why don’t you take a drink?” He started laughing and Ariel said “Yeah, Daniel take a drink.” I said “Daniel watch Ariel do it then you do it.” Ariel showed him, which she has done time and time again, but this time he did it. I started jumping up and down and saying “Yea! You did it, Daniel you did it!” Everyone joined in and he was so excited. He kept drinking and then said “I did it! I did it!” He has now given up the Honey Bear cup and is drinking from a straw cup. Not only did he do that but at the store the other day, Ariel insisted on getting peanuts….in the shells.
Let me just tell you, I do not like peanuts to begin with but in the shell is even worse!
We got them because she doesn’t usually ask for specific food items and I decided I could sacrifice shelling these darn peanuts for my kids. I guess. 
We got home and I put a bunch of peanuts on the table and we all worked on trying to shell these nuts, Daniel wanted some too. He tried to crack the shells but was having a bit of a hard time. He asked me to do it and as I opened them he ate them. He loves them! They all do. And now for the past three days I have been shelling peanuts and thinking to myself “How am I going to get these guys to eat peanuts already shelled?” I think I have a plan, I can use the lack of patience in 4 and 5 year old to work in my favor, I hope. It is all worth it though, Daniel trying new things and Ariel and Joshua having fun. The peanuts are actually a great family time kind of thing.
We all sit at the table and talk while we work on those peanuts.
I love it when my kids surprise me with their accomplishments and help me to break out of my own mode. The straw and peanuts are two other examples of how I never know what they will try next or what is possible. They remind me that we should always try new things and challenge ourselves always. It is very easy for me to challenge our kids and think of new things for them but they help to remind me that I need to do that for myself as well. Challenge my thinking, my molds, the foods I eat, and the places I go. I find it very easy to stay in my secluded world, eating the same thing everyday, doing the same things and forgetting that there is this whole huge world out there for all of us to explore. I go through explore spurts myself, sometimes I want to consume everything I can about this world we live in and other times I never want to leave the screen of my computer.
It is a good time for exploring and when I feel I have explored too much, I will come back to my screen.
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Pretty much all of my childhood and young adult life is a fog when I think of social situations. I can remember certain events and every detail about them but over all I cannot remember kids I went to school with or many people who I had worked with during my young age of 16 up to my early 20′s. I do remember many people who I spoke with and socialized with to a point and I did have friends but I do not remember how we stopped being friends. I don’t have any recollection of why we stopped hanging out or talking. I am under the sneaky suspicion that it was my doing some how. Either I just dropped off the face of the earth in their world or they got sick of me.
I do recall several people who I just stopped talking to.
I just didn’t return their phone calls and I let them go. There were several times where my anxiety caused me to never speak to them again. I have a phone phobia for sure, I always feel like I am calling at the wrong time or something. I do not want to interrupt anything or be bothersome. I also get all freaked out when they say they will call me, I need a time. I try to insist on a time because otherwise all day long I am thinking about when they may call and I can’t get started on anything because if they call then whatever I was doing will be interrupted and I will not be able to focus on the person at all and I admit at times I get quite annoyed by that. We finally just stopped answering the most days because David and I both have phone issues and surprise phones calls affects our family in a big way.
Although, when people call me unexpectedly and it is family or they sound in need I will drop whatever and call them back.
The thing is though, that has given me the control over the calling, I have had time to process and now can communicate and make the adjustments for the day to be able to talk on the phone. Some would say I am being a control freak but it is not about that it is about the disruption of our family schedule and social anxiety that no matter what, I will experience even if the phone conversation goes well and I feel that I was understood and I that I didn’t make any social mess ups. It takes a lot for David and myself to talk on the phone, it really stresses us out. I have another whole phone post that I need to write. It goes way back to childhood, me and my phone phobia.
As for my social skills, well most people would never even know that I have any issues.
I learned from the best. At the age of 16 I was hired on as a cashier at a Target store. I knew retail, my mom had worked for Air-Way and then it was bought out by Target. She would have to bring me to work many nights and I loved to help clean up, they called it zoning. She was in the clothing department and I loved being surround by the clothes in the middle of those circle racks. It was so cozy and comforting, however I was not supposed to go under them and would get in quite a bit of trouble for doing so. I have fond memories of working there. I loved working but I hated anything to do with customers. My customer service, lets say lack of, was always getting me into trouble. I am not one who believes that the customer is always right, but I was conditioned into thinking so.
Eventually I was able to work a job there that was just filling the shelves.
I loved it! The merchandise had order, the empty spaces had to be filled, and any over stock had to be put away. The items all needed to be put in their proper places and neatly. I transferred to a different store and was promoted to charge back, I love it too. Eventually, transferring to the stock team, unloading trucks, stocking shelves and putting away over stock. Then to a position that was called pull team at the time which used a scanner to scan the lows and empties on the floor and then it told you where it was in the stock room so I could pull it and fill the shelves. Thinking of that job still makes me smile. I loved it, I genuinely enjoyed doing those things. Eventually, I was promoted to front end, the worst time of my career and then promoted again to the sales floor in several different departments and ultimately to a management position.
I was pretty happy with that because I was over the backroom and logistics of the store, no customers.
Once I had to start dealing with customers as management I began to hate my job. During all of these positions I learned a ton about social skills. However, there was always my attitude problem. Just as in school, I always got in trouble for my “smart” mouth and that did not change in the work force. I came across very aggressive and hateful to my peers and to management at times. Most of the time I had no clue that I was behaving in a negative way, there were times though that I didn’t care, I knew that they wouldn’t get rid of me, I was a fantastic employee. I always got excellent reviews on my performance but would score low on my appearance and attitude. I hate socks and I even got written up for not wearing socks one year because it was policy but I hated them so much I just couldn’t wear them.
I had been talked to quite a bit before I got written up but my manager was serious about disciplining me.
I wish I would have known then what I know now and I would have told her “hey back off I have sensory issues!” Ok, I wouldn’t be that rude but it would have been nice to let her know that I wasn’t directly being a pain in the butt, I seriously had issues with socks. (Still do) In every position I learned how I was supposed to talk to people, that I am not supposed to say certain things and that some of the things I say can be very hurtful. Many people thought of me as the girl who would just say what was on her mind, which is true but I was not doing it to be hurtful. I said whatever was on my mind because that is what I saw, felt, or understood from the situations.
One of the greatest things Target did for me was to give me social scripts.
Not only did I learn them from the classes they had us do but my mother worked her way up too through the company and became a store manager, she learned even more scripts which in turn she would say to me. She didn’t do it on purpose, what would happen was a certain situation would arise, I would talk to her and she would tell me the script without knowing that it was a social script. My mother learned social scripts too from Target and it made it very difficult for her to come out of them after she left. Even now she will still apply certain social scripts learned from Target to a situation and it is not the best thing to do. I don’t stick to the scripts as rigidly, I am not sure why, maybe because I had more freedom as a child and I really like to entertain and be funny so I improv much more.
Target had team leaders and management go through training constantly.
At one point it was called Target University and it went through everything. We trained on peer situations, customer service, human resource issues, dealing with vendors, diversity, sexual harassment, management styles, what type of personality we were, how we learned best, you name it we did it. Through all of those training sessions we would have to get into groups, play out scenarios, get up in front of the class and role play, answer questions, get tested on what we learned and let our peers evaluate us. At first I was a nervous wreck, I would have panic attacks before hand but once I saw that this gave me a platform to act, I started to really enjoy them. I could excel at this stuff and take what I learned and apply it to my job and then get even better at my job. I still would have anxiety afterwords but when it comes to work my anxiety has always gone to the side because when I have a job to do nothing else stands in my way.
I really enjoy working, it gives me purpose, routine, schedules and deadlines.
I liked having someone tell me when I needed to come in, how many hours I had to work, what I needed to get accomplished in the hours I was there and the sense of accomplishment I felt when I would achieve my goals. I really enjoyed Target because they had binders and binders full of policy and procedures for each department, each position in the store and through out the company, they were very organized. I did find it frustrating when a store that I was working in did not follow the rules. Myself or someone would get trumped by management, but overall it was very comforting and reading those manuals gave me a lot of the information that I still use today in my social situations. Without Target’s training I am really not sure how well I would have done in the work force. Being that I have an “attitude problem” and I say things to my peers and bosses that are not always appropriate.
Thanks to Target I was trained in social etiquette and diversity, among many other things.
I have several posts waiting in my queue. I have written a ton, trying to help me process the things I am going through right now. I cannot get my mind to cooperate. The right side and the left side of my brain seem to be in the middle of a serious battle. And they just will not write what I initially plan on writing. I am getting side tracked and I go in completely different directions. I find myself writing and I have no idea why I am writing whatever it is I am writing. This is very frustrating, my head is fuzzy and chaotic and no matter what I try to do to help me, it just doesn’t work.
My brain and body are just not working together.
I am quite clumsy lately and getting overloaded very easily with sounds and textures. I am misreading David and other social situations, more so than usual. I feel so tired and it drives me crazy because when I get like this I feel lazy. I have so much to do and my body/mind will not do it. I am fighting against myself and I don’t want to. I am sad for no apparent reason and it is driving me crazy.
Oh, well I do know that this doesn’t last long and I know it will be better soon.
Hopefully all of the things I have waiting in my queue will make sense when I go back to them. Maybe they are just crazy rants and I will question whether or not I left the planet for a while only to return to a mass of ramblings and insane rhetoric in my queue. There is a lot going on in my life right now so maybe I just need to cut myself some slack and just rest.
The other day I had an idea pop in my head to make a museum in our school room. I knew I wanted to do some thing being creative; that involved a positive association for school stuff and try to get Daniel involved with using more textured items and to work with his hands. Daniel loves the museum, so I thought maybe he would want to participate if we made our own. It turned out to be a great success. All of the kids loved it. We went through several of our books on art history and their children books about art and went with it. I was so excited with their creations and also that Daniel participated with all of them.
After their creations had dried, we set up our room and had an exhibit ready for showing.
David was our guest of honor. All of the kids were so proud of themselves and loved showing David around and telling him how they did it and what inspired them. They named all of their creations and I made cards with the titles and their names. I dressed up and served chocolate covered bananas and water, we are on a limited budget. We are a museum in need of serious funds. This was a great day and I plan on keeping with the theme each month doing a new exhibit, next month I think we will be doing a dinosaur exhibit or maybe Lego’s, I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I will ask the kids what they want to do and go with that.
As we did each project I was amazed at how much Daniel really wanted to participate.
He did have to take a break for a while then come back and we all hit a bit of a sensory overload because of all of the textures, smells, drawing, gluing, and cutting. Overall though it went very well. There was a moment when I felt helpless watching Daniel trying to draw his butterfly. He was trying so hard and getting frustrated. He was using a picture diagram to help do the drawing, the struggle between his brain and his hands was both familiar and painful. He almost lost it but I rubbed his back and told him that it was alright we can try again and I turned the paper over and asked him if he wanted to try on this side. He did and I have a picture of his butterfly below. I told him how proud I was of him for trying and it was a great butterfly.
Here are some photos of the exhibit.
I have been going through my posts and I just realized just how revealing I am. As I read through them about myself it feels like a movie playing in my head. I feel like I am reading about someone else’s life and everything that they are going through, feeling, seeing and experiencing. I know exactly what they are talking about and I recognize everything but somehow it feels like it is not me. Then I will have that moment, the one where all of the information that I just read consumes some part of my brain and the revelation of the emotions and information is all about me. I have that gasp of reality and I feel helplessly naked.
I am EXPOSED!
What do I do then? Get all of it down, off of the blog? Shut her all down and pretend like I never existed? Flashes of people flood my mind and I think what on earth could they think of me and what they just read about me? Many other thoughts consume my mind and I shake my head, getting back to my normal frame of mind. As I let these thoughts go back into their chamber of anxiety in the back of mind, I remind myself that I am not exposing anything, really. This is me, this information is mine and I share it freely with those I speak to in person, via email or my blog. I freely expose myself and I always have. The only thing I truly fear is how others will respond to my freedom and honesty.
I don’t even think about it until I realize that someone other than myself has read my blog.
I don’t really think about what I write or what I say, I just say it. It doesn’t occur to me that others would find it to be very revealing or open. It’s me, but here is what I find interesting, it doesn’t feel like me at all. I am so disconnected from myself that what I write and what I am experiencing right now feel like two different worlds even though I am writing exactly what I am feeling. Does that even make sense? I have always had that experience, it feels at times that I am outside of myself watching my life through the words I write. I connect to myself when I reread what I have written. It all sounds rather insane, but it isn’t. I am not sure I can describe it properly.
There are times, like my past journals, that I cannot read for a long time.
When I reread my writings the emotions and feelings are too close and I feel as if the movie is playing right at that moment. There are some things that I am still not ready to relive. There are other things that I am quite embarrassed of, like when I read something that I have written and it was wrong. If I find out later what I thought was happening, actually was not what was happening I only felt it or perceived it that way, I get a sick feeling. There is nothing I can do about it now and what I felt at the time was real so I use those moments to help me with similar situations now and instead of thinking I know what is going on, I ask. This saves me much pain and confusion.
I think it is good to be exposed.
I think it is good to be open and honest, although I try to be considerate of others, I cannot guarantee that I will not say something offensive to others. The main reason for this is that I have no idea what is going to offend a person so there is nothing I can do except continue being myself. If I offend or hurt someone, hopefully they will do what I do and ask what I meant or tell me that it was offensive. But if they don’t; oh well, I am clueless.
I am clueless and exposed!
I admit I have my moments, I have gotten much better and calmer, especially now that I have learned about ASD and Sensory Integration. In the past I would well up with rage and at times get violent but I didn’t know why. (Many of the things that I am writing about are from my past, my children and David have not experienced this from me.) Things that seemed quite silly would set me off and after my whole moment I felt better but others were left with this feeling of confusion, anger or hurt themselves. I thought this was normal because that was the way my mother was also. We both would be much worse if we drink alcohol. There were several nights of us fighting, one occasion ended very violently, I blacked out and woke to my mother on the floor and me choking her. She had come after me in a fit of rage and I started to protect myself, after I came to so to speak I realized what I was doing and got up immediately and ran.
She chased after me and wouldn’t stop but then she kicked me out of the house.
I was 15 years old and only allowed to take what I could wear on my body and I was not allowed to take anything that she had gotten for me. I went item by item telling her who gave them to me or if I had purchased it myself. Then out the door I was sent at 12 am, running down the high way. I called my boyfriend at the time after I had run clear across the city. The next morning my mom didn’t remember anything and wanted me home ASAP. I didn’t want to come home. This all started because my mom came home late again, drunk, I had been watching my little sisters and was pretty upset that I was always at home with my sisters so I am sure I had an attitude, she dropped a glass in the kitchen and it shattered everywhere. She looked at me and said “Clean it up!”.
I said “You clean it up, you did it!”.
And the game was on. My mom still doesn’t have memory of this night, but there are several like this with either my mom being like that or myself. We have always been very honest with our feelings and at times we have misunderstood each other which would escalate in rage. That was the only time it was ever that violent though. When I was a child, my mom was pretty aggressive too, though that was how she was raised and she was a million times better than her dad but she had her moments, now that we look back; a lot of them were triggered by sensory issues, social anxiety and the stress of being a single mom. It doesn’t make it ok, she does not feel that it was right but she just didn’t know any other way at the time.
As I grew up, those moments terrified me thinking what kind of parent I would be.
I never wanted to have children unless I could be sure that I was going to be able to stay home with them and not have anger issues. I did not want my children to ever go through that. And now that brings me to my meltdowns, I have them but I no longer throw things or freak out to the point of blacking out but I do get overwhelmed and angry, especially at what seems to be unjust. My children do not get my meltdowns directed at them. Sure they get in trouble, I have yelled at them to stop or have told them that is enough when they won’t stop; but when I am in a full-blown meltdown I leave. I will leave the room, I will go to David’s office, I will go outside, I will do whatever to ensure that my children do not get the brunt of my inability to control myself.
I know it sounds like I am in control but I cannot always control my mind to make it stop.
I have to ride the thing through, in some cases I need to hit things, slam a door or two, jump on the trampoline, run, work out to some crazy Tae Bo work out. I need something to get it out, I would never do anything to my kids but I do not want them to be around me like that either because I am easily aggravated and could say something mean. I can feel my mind going into that mode, before I was unaware of it, I just thought I couldn’t do anything and I condemned myself for being an evil person. I know that I am not evil and the only reason I say that is because others have called me evil when I’ve had a meltdown. I am sure my actions seemed quite evil, like when my ex-husband lied to me about paying all the bills for months, and it turned out he had not.
I started yelling and screaming, I tossed my bookshelves over and threw my books all over the place.
I couldn’t stop, I just kept yelling at the top of my lungs “YOU ARE A LIAR! A LIAR! I CANNOT TAKE ALL OF YOUR LIES!” There was no calming me down until after I was able to get it out. I didn’t talk to him for the rest of the evening, I went to my room and read and listened to music. The next day I was fine and I was over it. My mind had begun to think of options as to pay for these bills and when I spoke to him he was angry. I didn’t understand why and I thought he was overreacting. I couldn’t see until the last few years, reading about similar situations through the eyes of ASD that as a neurotypical that could be very upsetting. (I still think he was wrong so I am not all that compassionate about the lies but I am about my behavior.)
When I say freak out it could mean many things.
I could shut down completely and have no words. I can’t speak, while slamming doors, cabinets, whatever that may be in my way. It could be me jumping up and down screaming, hitting a wall – in the past I have punched walls, it’s been a long time since I did that but the last time I did I hurt my hand very badly, storming out of the house, throwing things, turning up my music as loud as possible and singing and dancing until all of the rage leaves or I cry. Full blown hyperventilating crying that won’t stop. Recently, I described how I was overwhelmed in my post Sigh, when I do yell or scream they are not directed at my children and I do not do it very often at all, just like the most recent episode it is under extreme panic mode but David is always there and I usually snap out of it quickly when I see or hear my children.
When I am feeling the reactions of my mind start to build up, I get away from the kids.
If I happen to yell or something…like the other day I had too much sensory overload and social stress, Joshua was crying, he too was feeling the same thing, but I needed him to stop crying. I had to put my hands over my ears and all I could say was “Stop crying! Stop crying, please, please stop!” I then changed what I was doing, I held Joshua and we both just rocked. After we both calmed down I explained to him why mommy was saying that. Ariel was helping and said, “You know Joshua when we get overloaded and our brain isn’t right, that is what mommy felt.” She is so great. He understood and told me that he was feeling it too. We all just needed a break from people, places and change.
The majority of the things I am writing about here are from the past.
I haven’t really had meltdowns like I have described for a very long time, they mainly got better when I met David. Having David has made it much easier to express myself. I have the freedom of telling him why I am upset, or if I don’t know why, he is very supportive of that as well. Having a husband who has accepted me and allows me to say whatever is on my mind without condemnation, guilt or reprieve has made my meltdowns much less. I didn’t realize how much worse it is when you are unable to express yourself. Having to hold it in for fear of rejection, being ‘institutionalized’ (that is another story) being called crazy, among a few makes a huge difference. The main thing that has changed my meltdown issues is that I am heard. David hears me, he lets me say whatever and it is valid. He has helped me see that it is ok to have emotions and express them and I have taken what I have learned and use it for our children.
Our kids have valid reasons to them for being upset and it is ok, but it is how we express it, not that we are expressing it.
Accepting Daniel during his meltdowns has made a huge difference, giving him a different way of expressing it has helped all of us tremendously. He is able to use his words better to communicate his feelings but there are times when he either isn’t sure why he is upset or doesn’t know how to communicate it but instead of hitting he is still using the “growl method” and it’s working! Ariel and Joshua are starting to understand how to communicate their feelings as well. They will share with us why they are angry with us, sad or happy. They explain it especially when they are angry. Ariel: “I am very angry with you mom because I want to paint and you will not let me.” They are also getting better at telling each other, Joshua: “Ariel, you need to stop touching my Iron Man’s because that makes me angry.”
It is pretty funny but it has helped us not have fighting matches in our living room.
I am doing much better, I have not had any panic attacks which is good; just little moments of anxiety here and there. On Saturday we went to the museum, they had a Narnia exhibit which was ok, but they didn’t even have Aslan so it was not that impressive. However, the museum is the one place that Daniel loves the most out of going to the beach or the park he will choose the museum. I find it rather ironic since there is much sensory overload with sound, people, smells, change in exhibits but he loves it. Though I am not that surprised because the museum was one of my favorites as a child as well and my mother and I spent a lot of my childhood in the museum. The day before Daniel was full of anxiety and running around being very chaotic but he kept saying “We are going to the museum”.
We had to continue to tell him that “We are going to the museum tomorrow”.
He would then repeat that and go in a loop and say we were going to the museum. I know this was part excitement, anxiety and scripting but it made for a lot of chaos. The morning of, he was completely different. In the morning he was peaceful, happy and said “We are going to the museum today!”. He was great the whole day and very happy. The next day we went to church and he did great in there as well. I was in class with the 2-3 year old, I am always fine when I am in class with the kids but if I have to go to grown up church I feel out-of-place and awkward and have my anxiety moments. They had to change the kids theaters once again into completely different theaters, I was fine with it because one of my friends told me ahead of time that this was happening so I had several days to prepare myself and the kids and I have to tell you, I was so at peace.
I even had to go grocery shopping after doing class with the little ones and the social encounters I had.
I did fine even at the store, both of these situations usually require me some time to recuperate, but yesterday ended ok. Except for Ariel, she had a meltdown before church and two after church. I am beginning to notice a lot more social anxiety in her and when I see her in class she is always hanging out with the boys. The girls like her but she cannot remember the girls names, however she does remember several of the boys names. It could be because she has brothers and feels more comfortable with them. I myself have always had guys as my friends more so than girls, I relate to them better since they usually just speak what they mean and there is no hidden things or situations to try an figure out. Though I do not figure out that anything is going on anyway until I notice that some girl is upset with me and I do not know why.
I am working on getting these guys out and about.
I am planning on taking them to library events, the art museum has free opportunities on the weekends, I am looking into other options as well to help these guys get more children interactions. I just need to prepare and know when not to push us, if one of us can’t do it than we won’t, we will just try the next week. I put so much pressure on myself when I commit to something and then I think that I have to keep doing it, I am not allowed to have breaks! Balance, it’s all about balance and finding it for our lives. I have found that when I have a focus though, some sort of task or job that seems to trump my anxiety.
I am sure it comes out in others emotions or situations though that I am unaware of.
If I tracked this, I would most likely find that I actually was extremely stressed yesterday and now through this week it will manifest through me cleaning, feeling hyper, working out more than usual, eating maybe, or writing. Someway to help me cope with the suppressed anxiety that I didn’t feel like I had. As I continue to think of my anxiety I think of many factors that have led up to these past panics. I really do not want to go on medications and I think I will be able to handle the situations much better once I pin point certain things that can trigger these. Although, it is not a regular occurence anymore, I have anxiety but I have been able to learn how to help myself with that, it is when I have panic/anxiety that leads to my body, mind, and emotions being all out of whack.
Here are some of the things I have been going through since about the end of April:
1. David has lost several of his free-lance jobs, he has missed his deadlines for the one project he is currently working on and we have been very short on funds.
2. We have had to borrow from a couple of people in our family.
3. My mom started a new job that changed her hours and her income, not for the better. (Both the hours and money affect us because when her schedule changes it takes her months to be back to her normal self because of her own AS and we borrowed funds from her that we cannot pay back right away.)
4. Church started changing things around and I have been feeling more and more disconnected from the people there as I see them get more and more connected. (I feel like I am an outsider watching these social movies play out in front of me and I have no idea what is going on.)
5. I had a major roller coaster of emotions and misunderstanding with my dad’s side of the family. (That situation is much better but still a lot of confusion.)
6. David and I had our 7 years anniversary in June, his mom’s birthday, my dad’s birthday, Father’s day and Joshua’s birthday is at the end of the month. (I always get stressed when it comes to my dad’s birthday because I have to call him, he is a phone person, big time! It’s not that I don’t want to call him, of course I do it’s just very stressful for me to use the phone. I never know what to say, when to say something, the other thing is that people are always calling my dad, while we are on the phone people beep in about 10 times and that throws me off, A LOT! Plus I was not able to call him on his birthday because we have no minutes on our phone, the lack of funds to get them and our land line does not have long distance.)
7. My Grandma is coming into town this week, which is great but I have been anticipating this for over a month now. (It’s like how Daniel felt about the museum and the kids are all anticipating her coming as well.)
8. One of my sister’s here in town is pregnant, I am concerned for her health and the well-being of the child. She is in a relationship that seems quite rocky (not abusive but not all together healthy) and that gives me anxiety about her, the child, the father, oh just everything.
9. My other sister got married and then came back from the honey moon and demanded an annulment. (I still do not know why but it is all so confusing if I think about it my head spins.)
10. The weather has changed and my allergies have made my head very dizzy.
11. This does not include any of the children’s issues and the awareness I am gaining with Ariel and Joshua’s own sensory issues and AS traits that are being brought to light even more, I believe I am now seeing them because Daniel has progressed so much that my attention to those details in him are no longer distracting me as much. Both David and I have had the mind-set that Ariel and Joshua are fine, we have recognized things but they have been quickly trumped by whatever Daniel is dealing with.
Bottom line I am doing much better today.
Although, I have found that the slightest thing could send me into anxiety, for instance this week we are supposed to do several things, we have made plans but with my other two sisters those plans could be messed up because they are late and no one calls me or my and Grandma stay somewhere longer than expected and they don’t call me, we have a birthday party for Joshua and my cake doesn’t work right and Iron Man looks like he was in a blender or something! I am writing these things out so that I can be prepared ahead of time of the possibility of them happening to help ease my anxiety.
The funny thing is that my anxiety does not always stem from bad things, good things can trigger it too. Hmm…..
My last post Root of My Anxiety may seem a bit inconsistent since I am actually saying that change is good for me but it was changes that sent me into a panic. I am not being inconsistent, I have a meltdown or I am struck with anxiety/panic when I have no control over the change. If I make the changes, I have already gone through a process of scripting the change and using past experiences to help me with the change. There are certain things that I have no control over and I understand that things are subject to change because it is a new situation. I have anxiety but it does not feel like my whole world has been derailed and that my life is out of control.
I have already prepared myself for change.
The changes that send me into a panic are those that are unexpected, like when we went to Wal-Mart, the store had been the same since we moved here and then one day we walk in and they are remodeling with no signs, no indication that anything is changed and then items are placed in very odd places that make no sense. In a situation like that I am already spending a large amount of my energy on dealing with my sensory issues so to have sudden change makes the whole thing much worse. The same goes for church, it’s the exact same, I have everything set in place, nothing has changed for over a year and now all of the sudden they are making many changes, that do not make sense to me.
I am just trying to deal with my sensory issues.
I am trying to help my kids with their sensory issues and social issues for all of us, I already have a huge amount of stress before we even go, and that makes it even worse when there are sudden changes. Then there are the people, they constantly change as well. I understand growth in people, I expect that, but when there is personality changes that confuses me and gives me anxiety. If I am with a person and they act and talk a certain way around me but then are different when we are around others it makes me very upset. I first get angry and think them a liar, in the past I would cut them off because I hate liars, but now I understand that it is some normal thing for the majority of people. They act differently in front of different people.
There is one thing that still makes me angry though, when I see people act differently in front of authority figures, I can’t stand it!
See changes are not that bad when I am in control of them, I decide the changes or someone tells me ahead time so I can prepare. Changes are not bad if the means to the end is something productive, new, enlightening or developes me and helps me grow as a person. Changes are not good when they make no sense, someone else is doing the changing and doesn’t inform me. Changes make me panic when they seem to be constant and then put me on the edge of never knowing what is going to happen.
There are many things that I do not change.
I keep my house and how I have things displayed the same, I have pictures and all my hangings the same way, I have since I moved into my own place at 18, though they have changed they are still the same distance from ceiling to floor and they are still going in a linear flow throughout the house. I have my books all the same and in their order. I keep our daily schedule, if there is going to be change I plan ahead and put it on our calendar with pictures so the kids can prepare as well. If we are going to move I plan for months ahead and get my mind all prepared. I keep those kinds of things in a constant sameness as much as possible.
After thinking of these things, I do not feel that I am inconsistent at all, there is a consistency to my change and non-change scripts in my head.
I have been analyzing myself since this whole anxiety bout has happened, I have been rather confused at the length of this episode. I will start to do much better then I will start to feel the effects again. As I have been going through my feelings and trying to find a logical reason, I believe I have found the root. I was concerned with me freaking out at the sudden changes of church, which indeed they have left me feeling quite anxious but surely this was not the only reason. That just didn’t make sense to me. There are several other things going on in my life that are normal anxiety triggers that have come up during this time and I am aware that these are making my anxiety worse than usual since they are all falling at once.
But this isn’t like me, I am feeling cowardly, like a weak and insecure person.
People who know me, know that I may be a lot of things but those three things are not me. So what is this? Why have I been hit with such a large dose of anxiety and why am I unable to snap out of it or reason myself through it much sooner? Diversity. Yes, the answer is diversity, well lack of in this area that we are living in. In the last 10 years I have made major changes in my life from moving to various cities, being in relationships, getting divorced, coming to a new faith, changing jobs, getting married, having children and seeking to find myself to name a few. I have had a lot of change and I have been able to handle it, at times I actually did much better. The constant change made things easier for me because I was always doing something, working on something, seeking out new ideas and new knowledge.
The places I had the least amount of anxiety were in the areas, the places where I was surrounded by many different people.
The best church experience I had was in a college town – very intellectual, new people, old people coming back constant change but the change brought about new ideas, new stories, new visions, new information that constantly intrigued me and challenged me to learn. The last 7 years I have lived in two places and though they are across the country from each other they are exactly the same. The people do not change, there is no challenge here. When I compare these two places to the two places that I lived where I thrived, I see with clarity the difference. The two places that I was not attacked with anxiety as much or able to control it better were places that had many different people, different cultures and beliefs. They lived in the US but were from different countries. I was around people who loved to learn, loved the arts, and they talked to learn about each other.
They really talked about interesting things and were very accepting of everyone.
There was another place that I lived that was much like where we are now and that is when I slipped into a deep depression and I was put on Zoloft. I was also diagnosed with endometriosis which caused severe pain and took over a year for someone to believe me. I went through two emergency room visits and three doctors. Finally the last doctor told me about endometriosis and sent me to a specialist with in two days I had laparoscopic surgery and on my way to recovery. I haven’t had any problems at all after I had children. Very thankful for that because when you are in physical pain as well as having anxiety on top of it, there are really no words to describe it other than life halting.
As I have been working through all of this, I see a pattern.
I recognize that what I feel when I go to church here is the lack of diversity and that makes my differences stand out much more. Now that I have a family with different issues I am in a constant state of seeing how different we really are from others. When I am surrounded by people who embrace diversity of thought, beliefs and ideas, I find them to be more accepting of my quirks and unique thoughts on life. Being surrounded by people who are set in their way of life, who understand their own language, everyone seems to know how everything should be around here and if you want to be accepted you have to learn their ways. They are different in looks, income, social status but they have the same thoughts, same ideas, same goals and they see no reason to think that they should be challenged or questioned in any way.
I have anxiety because I cannot question.
I have anxiety because I am not allowed to be me without serious silent social discipline. The discipline are remarks, eye rolls, the blatant me being invisible and completely unseen by certain people. And I am not being paranoid, this time. How do I survive in a place that just wants everyone to be the same? And how do they know what they are supposed to be doing? Other people have moved here from different places and they still know the rules. I have looked and looked for the last three years in this area for groups, even outside of church, I have looked for people who may have a bit of diversity and I have yet to find them. I will still keep looking because there has to be some out there. There cannot be an entire city of people who are unwilling to embrace differences, right? Anyway, as I think of this it has actually brought a lot of peace to me.
I understand the root of this particular anxiety bout and I will make changes in my life to try to help me and my family.
I just felt like sharing the books I am currently reading. I find all of these people fascinating or the information very good for my purposes so I have included links to the books as well as the people so others who are interested could look them up easily.
1. High Fidelity By Nick Hornby (Just finished Juliet, Naked, I just found out that he has an autistic son as well, I had no idea before I read his books, while reading Juliet, Naked I looked into him.)
2. Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries through the Unique Perspectives of Autism
By Temple Grandin and Sean Barron
3. Born on a Blue Day By Daniel Tammet
5. Answers to Questions Teachers Ask about Sensory Integration By ~ Jane Koomar (Author), Carol Kranowitz (Author), Stacey Szklut (Author), Lynn Balzer-Martin (Author), Elizabeth Haber (Author), Deanna Iris Sava (Author)
6. Learning All the Time By John Caldwell Holt
7. Five Dialogues By Plato (Author), G. M. A. Grube (Author, Translator)
8. Various poetry books.
So those are what I am reading on any given day this week. I do rotate throughout the week whatever my brain is capable of consuming for that day, is what I read. I also read the Bible, usually daily unless there are too many inconsistencies bothering me between my understanding and the translation so then I have to go research the context then I go back to reading again. The question of the day is “Which translation of the Bible am I reading?”. I usually complete about 2-3 books a week if I have the time between doing stuff with the kids, the house work, just playing or if we have places to go. I would say 2-3 a week is an average. I should be finished with High Fidelity and Anthem any time now.