Missing Someone on Christmas

In my anxiety group last week, we talked about what makes Christmas hard for people. One thing that came up was remembering people we have lost that no longer share Christmas with us. Every Christmas, since my Grandpy died, I could still close my eyes and smell the Polish sausage as I walked through my Grandparents’ front door Christmas Day. My Grammy lived seven years after my Grandpy died, but it wasn’t the same. My Grammy hardly ever made traditional Polish food after the loss of her husband. In fact we lived with her after my Grandpy died because she didn’t want to live alone and my Grandparents had a three story house! Anyway, after my Grandpy died my Mom mostly made the food and it was more an American style Christmas. I do also miss my Grammy now; she would always give me lots of gifts. She really spoiled me. However, it wasn’t about the gifts, it REALLY was about the thought behind it. I would go shopping with my Grammy and if I said I liked something my Grammy would make a mental note and buy it later and surprise me. I was the whole memorization and surprise that made the gift special.

Now most of you that have been following my blog for a while know that my Uncle Dick died this past summer! He was my oldest Uncle and he was eleven years older than my next oldest Uncle. The reason being that my Grandparents were told that they would never be able to have children again! However after eleven years my Uncle Jim came along, followed by my Dad eleven MONTHS later, and finally my Uncle Bill five years later. Anyway, I never spent a Christmas with my Uncle Dick. I grew up in Chicago and we never traveled to New York during the winter months. And when we moved here to New York State we still didn’t travel the three hours to visit him because his area got a lot of snow. However, his was always the first Christmas card I received. Also as you know I would write to my Uncle Dick at least once a month. He had told me things I don’t think he told anyone else. So I was very close to my Uncle Dick.

Anyway, I had cried a lot when he died and then I seemed to heal. My Uncle Bill took my Uncle Dick’s ashes up way up New York State to the hunting camp my Uncles and Dad used as young men. Well, guess what? I get this little package from my Uncle Bill last week and I opened it. It was a sliver cross with some of my Uncle Dick’s ashes in it. Now first I want to say that is the most beautiful and thoughtful Christmas gift ANYONE has ever gotten me! However, I cried a cried a good hour. I cried because I missed my Uncle Dick, I cried because I wonder who is next, and most of all I cried because since this summer I had forgotten about my Uncle Dick. It’s hard the first Christmas without someone. Now I am not like other people that get to stare at an empty seat at Christmas dinner because, like I said, we never spent Christmas with him. However, he was still part of my Christmas tradition.

I heard it once said that it is good to feel pain after someone has died, it means that we truly had a connection with that person. I feel like I had a strong connection with my Uncle Dick and that I still do. My Uncle Dick led a good life, but didn’t find Jesus until the last decade of his life! I know he is in Heaven and I ask him to pray for me. I know that one day I will see him again. However, I also know that from time to time I will hurt. One of the things with a mental illness is to realize that we still have emotions and being sad and being depressed are too VERY different things. Yes, you can get depressed over the loss of a loved one. However, that you need you doctors help with. Being sad and realizing it is healthy is a good thing. In fact I think that grieving in a healthy way to ease depression and symptoms. So anyone missing anyone on Christmas I understand. However, our Savior was born on Christmas to save us from death. Remember!

Christmas

First I would like to apologize for how long it has taken me to post a new blog. I don't have many followers, but I have faithfull followers! I also wanted to tell the Medcaffs that I am praying for there son Brandon. If anyone else wants prayers let me know because that what I do. Anyway, here is a poem for Christmas for all of you.

Christmas
By Amanda Robin

You scurry in your busy malls
For just the perfect gift.
You wonder to yourself.
Why am I not there?
It’s because I can’t
Stand to be in a crowd.
A crowd I think
Is judging me!

You hurry to
Dance recitals,
Parties,
Christmas Carols,
And holiday movies.
And still you wonder
Why I am not there?
It because social engagements
Make me jump out of my skin.

You go to family gathering
Plates full of food.
Laughter resonating
Off the walls.
People connecting
With others they haven’t
Seen all year.
And still you wonder
Why I am not there?
Professionals describe
It as too much energy
In the room

However, I sit near my
Nativity scene
And pray.
I pray for peace in the world
Love in my heart,
And joy for you.

I already know what my New Year's resolution is going to be!

When my therapist said to me that singlehood is the greatest gift a young person could give themselves, (She thinks thirty is young, I guess it’s your prospective!), I didn’t truly understand what she meant. However, now I been thinking about an old saying. It goes, “Before you can love another person you have to love yourself!” I thought I did love myself. However, I haven’t been taking care of myself properly. There is the weight thing, being too tired to wash up at night, and not always tending to my Spiritual Life. So I have decided to take better care of myself. Not for God, not for my parents, and certainly not for a lover! I think I am entering a year of grace and at the end of it, I will truly love myself.

I want to talk about doing stuff for myself. They say when I baby is born until it is about two, it is ego centric. Only worrying about its own needs! Why can’t we all be like that? It makes sense for a baby to worry about itself because it has to survive. However, as we grow older we do things for our parents and our friends. I can remember being three years old and all I wanted to do is be like my friend Sarah. It was so bad that there were three of us that hung out together, Sarah, Laura, and myself. Anyway, Laura and I would fight constantly over Sarah’s attention. My Mom even thinks my favorite color is red because that was Sarah’s favorite color. I still stick to my guns saying it’s red because of Elmo. However, there are so many things I did just to be like Sarah.

Next, you know what we grow into adolescence doing? I remember being thirteen and having the biggest crush on this boy in my CCD class (Sunday school). Anyway, I would put on make – up for him, dab on perfume because I think he would like it, and generally be nervous around him for being careful not to do anything that would make him not think the world of me. This continued for much of my life (of course not with the same boy or even gender.) The worst was just before I was diagnosed with my invisible disability. I was dating a very abusive girlfriend and I let her dare me to do stuff that wasn’t good for me. For example, I drive a very undriveble car (it was only meant for on campus and the doctor about a mile off campus) an hour away from my college, in the rain no less, to a ratty neighbor. It was very dangerous to say the least. I don’t know that if I had been in my right mind whither I would have been scared shitless or not. However, that is something I want to change.

Now I said that I don’t want to take care of myself not for God. My Lord is the center of all I do! However, I am a separate being from my God. I know my Father in Heaven will be happy for me when I am done. I also offer it all up to Him. However, I still have to love myself for who I am. So my New Year’s resolution is to take care of myself! I hope by the end of 2010 I will be happy with the person I have become. And I am not doing it to “find” someone. I just wanted to make that clear because I did say about loving yourself before another person. If I do find the love of my life at the end of the journey then it is a bonus. It’s just to say that I am doing this to find a lover is defeating the purpose. I want to be happy with me, for me, and by me.

Avoidance

There is an issue that I find common among people that happen to have a mental illness. It’s avoidance which takes many forms. However, what I am going to talk about is social avoidance. When I was first diagnosed, I was still living on campus and I was staying at the recovery house, after being discharge from the hospital. My friends from college wanted to see me, but I was avoiding seeing them. It happened that one day my best friend at college had her mother visiting her and she brought my best friend and her roommate, my other friend. Now her mother said that they were family. I was a little shaken when I found it was friends and not family. However, after our visit I felt better. Then when I came home to live with my parents and finish college in Chicago, I only had one friend to go out and do stuff with. My therapist at the time had a hard time convincing me to hang out with her. Every session it was like pulling teeth for him to get me to promise I would go out and do stuff or just even call her.

Gradually, I got more social. However, in 2006, I was hospitalized for the second time. (I am truly blessed that in the ten years I have had this illness, I was only hospitalized twice.) Anyway, I was inpatient a week and half before my graduation ceremony from college. I had already finished all my work and was accepted to get a degree. However, I came up with a million and one excuses not to go to my graduation ceremony. I had a therapist assigned to me in the hospital and the day before I was discharged he said to me, “If you are not well enough to go to your ceremony, then you aren’t well enough to get out of the hospital.” So you know what? I went and so far my college graduation was the best day of my life. I know there will be other best days like when I find the love of my life and make a commitment and if I every welcome a child into the world. However, for now that college graduation ceremony meant the most for me.

Now I can’t believe how social I am. The reason for writing this blog is because I just got home from one of my good friend’s house. I feel so comfortable with her, even though she doesn’t have a mental illness. I think that’s a part of avoidance too that when I first started feeling happy and well, I only wanted to hang around with people with the illness. It was like a safety net. Now in my life I have four very good friends. Two are mentally ill and it is o.k. to hang around with mentally ill people. However, I have two friends without the illness. I feel at ease around them and my avoidance is starting to go away. I think there is hope. St. Therese says, “It’s love, not time, that heals all wounds.” I think the kindness and compassion these people show me brings me a long way! And for the first time in a long time, I feel alive and free. It’s like I want to be out in the world and understand other people! I thank God and my friends that are healthy and good friends.

A long awaited thought!

First, I want to apologize for how long it’s taken me to update my blog. I don’t have many followers, but you are all faithful so please forgive me.

What happened?
By Amanda Robin

One day I was on top
Of the world
I was a promising,
Young,
Genetics major
With
A scholarship,
A loving boyfriend,
Fifty sisters to call my own!

Then I was in a place
That a judge
Decided
I was to stay for
72 hours.
I had lost my
Freedom,
Hope,
Love.

Now I live everyday
With a illness that
Limits me
In society
Life,
Career.

However, I have
My Freedom
Like never before
Knowing my limits
Hope
Knowing
One day there will
Be a cure.
Love of a group
Of people with
My illness
That know no bounds

Of understanding

Rewinding to the Past

I know that I have been writing what is going on right now. However, for the sake of my blog buddies I am going to back it up a little. Also I guess because this is so close to when it all happened. You see on November sixth it will be ten years since I knew that I had a mental illness. On November sixth of 1999 was the day that will live in infamy for me. It’s the day I was truly convinced I was going to take my own life! Yes, it’s true that since then I have had suicidal thoughts and I was even hospitalized in 2006 for that, but this was the only time I was ACTUALLY toying with the notion I would. It’s like the other times I didn’t want to, but I had the thought. This very first time, I was seeing myself DEAD.

Anyway, that night my R.A. took me to the hospital after I called the crisis line. They gave me two choices, I could either sign myself into the mental health unit or I could get court ordered. Well, I made a big show of things and finally I was escorted by four uniform police officers to the mental health unit. Now I knew there was something wrong before that, for about two months, I wasn’t eating, sleeping, or bathing. My friends on campus tried to help me. Then my mind started playing tricks on me.

Now, what this is really about. After my parents took me back home to Chicago from the recovery house two weeks later, I still didn’t know up from down. I would say I lived in a fog for the next five years. They had no idea what medicine to give me and they weren’t even sure of my diagnosis. I would have frequent panic attacks and had no skills to combat them. Sometimes they would get so bad, it felt like the whole world knew. What I mean is I remember one time I got a panic attack in the church my family belong to in Chicago and I walked out. However, when I was outside, I presided to talk to myself out loud, wiggle my hands like crazy, and pace up and down. Our deacon found me and took me to the rectory to calm me down. The usher, who didn’t know my illness, quickly told my parents that I was in the rectory and they needed to come quick. That was just one incident of many.

Well, what change all that? My parents and I moved here to New York. You can go on the NAMI page, New York scores higher than Illinois in mental health care. Actually, though for the first two years I lived here, I was still in that fog. My panic attacks had gotten so bad, that I would literally lie on the floor and pull my hair out. Sometimes they would set off schizophrenic episodes. In December of 2003 was when I first starting hearing voices. Before that all my hallucinations where visual, when they became audio, it scared the shit out of me. Then I decided to do something about it. I signed up to be admitted in a day program for mentally ill people. In the spring of 2004, I started at a program in Saratoga Springs called Friendship House and I learned a whole new way of thinking. A lot of times what I compare it to is that a mentally ill person needs to learn their manners again. It’s like when I was getting nervous before the whole world had to know it, thus scaring the ushers and later pulling my hair out. Now I take nice even breathes and do the trauma sequence of touch field therapy.

Yes, there is life after a mental illness, but it takes time. I will also point out that I wasn’t placed on a medicine that would really help me until 2001 and was off of it for six months prior to hearing the voices. I was trying a different medicine with the doctor’s care so I could lose weight! I guess that’s one of the reasons it’s scary for me right now, going on a new medicine. There is no blood test for a mental illness that they can give you and can say this is going to work for you! If you’re or someone you love is still in the fog remember, first the medicine, then the therapy, and then a new life!

Getting Personal

I have just realized that I usually talk in a general format and not about my personal life. Tonight I want to talk about what’s going on in my life. Particularly my new medicine change, I been on one medicine for my schizophrenia for three years now. It has made me gain so much weight! I have literally doubled in size. At first, I thought changing meds when it was first brought up to me, would be a vain thing. However, I change in front of the mirror in my bedroom and I think of what I used to look like. I’ve also decided that not wanting to reach three hundred pounds is not vain, it’s a health issue.

Since gaining all this weight, health problems have arisen. I have high blood pressure, pre – diabetes, and a worse injury to my knee (yes, Amber if I was only half my size and fell down your stairs, I probably wouldn’t still be in physical therapy). Now the high blood pressure and the diabetes runs in my family, but ALL of those in my family that have that got it at a much older age. Also my digestive system is pretty whacked out. Now I don’t think that it’s directly caused from my weight, but the medicine I am on makes me hungry. Now I do take responsibility here and say that I control what goes in my mouth. However, when you get hunger pains and want something your not suppose to have it’s hard.

I am a little scared trying this new medicine. My regular psychiatrist, the female Dr. L,. is out on maternity leave, but she has been encouraging me to try a new medicine for quite some time now. I trust her. She said before she went on maternity leave, when she assigned me to see another doctor in her place, that if I wanted to try the new medicine while she was away it was o.k. My temporary psychiatrist the male Dr. L. (their not related or married;) was very open to the idea of trying a new medicine. He just wanted to tell me the two medicines that are known for not gaining weight only have a twenty to a fifty percent success rate among schizophrenics. However, I still wanted to try it. The male Dr. L. told me that some of the older medicine is not known for gaining weight, but I said that I would rather stick to the newer generation of schizophrenic medicines.

Tomorrow will be my first day on the new medicine. You probably want to know what it is, but this is a public blog and I don’t advertise for drug companies. The important thing is I am living a fearless life and trying something new. I hope that you all will keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks for reading!