When do we let our parents go?

When do we let our parents go? I used to think it was an only child thing to want to protect your parents to the point that you make yourself sick. Then, through therapy, I learned about a thing called co – dependency. The first thing I noticed going to my first CoDA (Co – dependence anonymous) was that you could protect anyone in your life to the point of making yourself sick. It could be your spouse, parents, children, etc. I also learned it could be anyone, only children, people who feel they need commitments, people with an abusive past. I remember the first movie I saw about co – dependency It explained that if you have an alcoholic father and he comes to your school drunk and you make it your duty to apologize for him and clean him up then you have shame! Shame stays with you forever. Guilt is healthy, shame is not. For me, it’s when my Mom’s in the grocery store and she acts like it’s the end of the world that the bagger didn’t double bag the soda! I used to try to bend over backwards making the bagger feel better. Now I just walk away pretending I don’t know my Mom!

The reason I am bringing this up now is because my parents are filing for bankruptcy (Amber please don’t tell my parents you know, K?). Anyway, yesterday I tried tirelessly to sooth my mother so much that I got a panic attack! I made it my personal duty to make her feel better. Now I am not saying that you can’t try to cheer people up. However, it is when you make your feelings dependent upon another’s that it is co – dependency. I couldn’t even sit still. My Mom took her anxiety pill, but what I did was talk myself out it. I promised myself I would work on it. So you know? Yesterday I had went to bed thinking of how I was going to tell the lawyer that I needed to be in the consultation on the bankruptcy case! Didn’t learn my lesson. Sometimes it’s when we rest and refresh our body that we see the solution. Did you ever hear that “going to bed mad” is a good idea? Well, I did. And I really didn’t “go to bed mad” I went to bed still ashamed of my parents! This morning I woke up and made a decision. I am NOT going with my parents to the lawyer. I told my Mom and we made this compromise, I am going to stay out in the waiting room. I have even picked a fresh new book from my bookshelf to read. NOT MATTER what my parents say, I am not going in there. What makes me sad is thinking that if this had happened when I was eleven years old, I would have gone in there not knowing the difference and my parents would have let me! And I owe to that eleven year old girl, who was the ref. in many arguments, to NOT go in there.

Yes, ladies in gentlemen my co – dependency stems from my childhood. The biggest problem I have to under go in my therapy is realizing that I DON’T control everything. My therapist finally helped me figured it out! She said I feel like I am “God” meaning that I feel I can do things like love people enough so they don’t die is because my parents made that eleven year old sit down and make adult decisions on things that where none of her business. So now it’s 2010 and I am thirty years old. I have had some really crappy friendship in my past (see last entry) and my therapist had me write to my inner child how I would protect her from now on. I think that I have to promise her that I will STOP this co – dependency. I can see a scared little “Mandy” sat in her room, many nights, trying to figure out how to solve her parents’ problems and I can’t go back in time and fix that. However, what I can fix is staying out of the hospital by not holding the burden of the world on my shoulders!

Friends

Friends
By Amanda Robin

I thank God with
A heart full of love
That overflows like
The Jordan
For the friends
He has given to me.

It wasn’t always this
Way.
I used to stand
Like a lone statue
On the playground
All by my little lonesome.

It got so bad over the years
Repeatedly like nails
Continuing
To starch on a chalkboard.
That in college
I shelled out money
To buy friends.
They called it
A sorority
But I call it cult

Then recovery came
Like a breath of fresh air.
Then millions of friends
Came on the wings of Angels.

What happens after Christmas?

I wonder if after Christmas everything goes back to normal. I wonder if it has changed us at all. I mean for a lot of us Christmas is hard. We dread big family gathering and memories of people not joining us this Christmas season. I knew someone who was so concerned about how people would be hypocrites at Christmas. You know she had distaste for Christmas because of those only going to church on Christmas and Easter? My friend told me what happens the rest of time. I mean really where does God go? And she also felt that people were only nice at Christmas. My friend also wanted to know what was up with the rest of the year? Well, guess what? Her sister invited her to Christmas and she walked in the door and cried! Not just cried, but cried for a good ten minutes. I think the spirit of Christmas got to her, seeing her brothers and sister, nieces and nephews, and her dying mother. So what happens now?

Are some of us relieved that Christmas is over? Not more putting on a face and looking good. Are we sad because the spirit of Christmas touched us and now all we have is a little tree in our living room that needs to be taken down? I wonder is it different for people that believe it’s Christ’s birth? We are now ready to celebrate His death. We got more out of Christmas service than opening Uncle Buck’s present. Or is it harder because we don’t have the glory all around us, the promise of something new.

For me it has always been a little smoother transition from Christmas to ordinary time. The reason being is my birthday always falls twenty – seven days from the holiday. This year I am going to be thirty years old! I can’t believe it. However, today I got my first birthday card and I have to admit my tree is still up! It motivated me to take it down and to get ready for the third decade of my life. I can honestly say that I am looking forward to thirty. I heard it once said that mental illness gets better as you get older, but I don’t think it has to do with being older. It’s really the maturity that comes with age. I know several people “in the system” who have never matured and are still stuck in dark periods of the soul.

Living with a mental illness is about learning about yourself. It’s about knowing when your body is a little off. Did you know that you can physically feel something wrong with you before you actually experience a symptom mentally? I was taught to listen to my belly because that’s where I store my stress. When my belly feels all tight and like I am going to puke, I start some deep breathing. Others feel tightness in their neck, aching in their back, or tingling in their legs. Also it’s about heading off symptoms before they get worse. I remember being twenty – one going through my second schizophrenic break and now I know I could have stopped it. I had symptoms before, but didn’t tell anyone because I was afraid of going back in the hospital. I remember the first time I was responsible enough to say, “Hey everyone there is something wrong with me!” In 2006 I was feeling really depressed, I was twenty – six., I told my parents I wanted to go to the ER and I told the crisis nurse that I wanted to be admitted into the unit. It felt really good to be in control of my symptom and I didn’t hear any voices or see any eyeballs.

There comes time in everyone’s mental illness where you learn to manage your symptoms and know your body. I know some ready my blog have gotten a mental illness later in life so maybe at thirty you don’t know your symptoms. However, it’s the same principle with time, and the age that comes with time, you will. Christmas is over, but dealing with the real world isn’t. Let’s not be hypocrites and let's go out there and take care of ourselves. I know my New Year’s resolution was to take better care of myself!

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.