“Wake therapy, light therapy, diet and exercise cannot be patented, and they will not bring profits to the medical or pharmacological industries, but they can help the patient in a shorter time and with fewer side effects than drugs.  Considering the psychological suffering that depression inflicts – including ruined lives, destruction of families, homicide, and suicide – and the financial burdens placed on our healthcare systems – it is surprising how little notice is taken of these remarkable non-toxic therapies.”

(Here’s the whole article if anyone is interested)

This all sounds fascinating to me and really speaks to how I want to handle this but how on earth am I supposed to get motivated to do all of this when just the thought of shaving my legs gives me anxiety (no exaggeration)?

I know my therapist can help but he’s not here right now as I sit on the couch with absolutely NO desire to get up and do the laundry, pick up the house, do the dishes, clean the bathroom, get the kids dressed, get myself dressed, or deal with my crappy relationship.

I spent all of 20 minutes in his presence this morning before  he left for work and experienced him telling me loves me, I’m sexy, I’m beautiful, the fucking cat peed on the towel that was left on the floor in the bathroom, the fucking cat threw up in the bathroom, he needs socks (in a not nice tone).  I’m sure there were more examples of the roller coaster of emotions he throws at me on a daily basis.

So this is all pretty heavy shit while also dealing with depression. I’ve had some very very bad days and have been popping ativan to get through them. The kids drive me nuts and I absolutely hate that i feel that way which makes me feel even more depressed.

Business is looking up which is good but also comes with some pitfalls leading to stupid mistakes and aggravation I don’t need right now.

I need to write a letter to my husband (per my therapist) but the thought of doing it is so depressing and seems so difficult to find the right words.

I have no idea why but I know I started a different private blog after this one but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is. If anyone is reading this and happens to know of the other blog please let me know in the comments!! I know there was important stuff there that I wanted my therapist to know.

This doesn’t even do justice to the hard time I’m having right now. I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

I completely agree that this all boils down to a case of insecurity but man it manifests itself in such an ugly way sometimes and I’m the one who bears the brunt of it.

I am a very stubborn person.  I will dig my heals in if something isn’t going the way I want.  I oppose  him at every turn if for no other reason than to teach him that he can’t control me.  I never back down.  But I guess he’s a slow learner.  He just keeps nagging.

I have tried as best I can to not explain things or to try to have him understand my feelings.  I feel like explaining myself is in a way condoning his controlling ways.  He is always ok in the end with the things I do away from the family but leading up to it is a nightmare.  Most of the time now I don’t even say anything to him until I’m on my way out the door just to avoid a discussion. 

I agree that we have a bigger issue than the weekend getaway and it’s all about his control.  I just have no idea how to go about fixing it.  For now I’m going to do my best to ignore him and see how that goes.  If he doesn’t have an audience he won’t want to perform.  That’s what I do with my 17 month olds, maybe it will work for their daddy too.

I absolutely feel like the way he’s been treating me has effected my feelings for him.  I really don’t enjoy being with him and I actually dread the weekends knowing that we’ll probably get into a fight.  Sex?  UGH, it’s all he wants to do but I have absolutely no desire.  But I have to make sure we do it at least twice a week so he can’t complain but he still does.

I definitely don’t want the kids to learn that it’s ok to nag a wife the way he does but I just don’t know how to go about putting my foot down. 

It’s also hard because he will be so good for a few days…happy, carefree, playful but then the laundry will pile up and then he’s all over me and it’s like he’s been holding it all in and I have to endure The List Of Things I Haven’t Done which usually includes things that I was just about to do.

I ended up telling my friends about this issue on our weekend away.  It felt good to get it out.  Of course they were supportive of me.  The weekend was amazing filled with much vodka, food and boat rides.  Perfect!

Thanks!

Every year my 4 best friends and I go on a girls’ weekend away.  It’s always very affordable usually just needing to pay for food and adult beverages and gas.  We all look forward to this so much.

We always take Friday off from work so we can get a head start on the weekend.  The problem is that I don’t get paid if I don’t work.  He’s already told me that he didn’t want me taking the day off.  I just ignore him because there is no way I am going to make my friends wait around for me nor is he my FATHER.

Now, this morning i get an email stating that I should be grateful that he cancelled plans he had this weekend so that I could go away.  Excuse me?  I never even knew he had plans to go away this weekend and there is no reason on earth that we can’t both go away.  We literally have family members that fight over who gets to watch the kids.  So I’m supposed to be grateful??  That’s just sick and quite frankly it scares me that he can have thoughts like that.

Two weekends ago I went to a wedding a few hours away from home.  He was invited too but he’s such an old man that he didn’t want to go.  He made me feel guilty for weeks before that.  Saying that we couldn’t afford the gas or for me to stay overnight.  I made arrangements to borrow a more fuel efficient vehicle and stayed at a friend’s house so that all of his reasons for me not going were invalid.  But he still didn’t speak to me the day I left.

Anytime I want to go somewhere he will say “you don’t want to spend any time with your family.”

What’s with the guilt trips??

It’s even harder because one mintue he’ll say something like “you deserve a weekend away” and the next I’m getting this shit.

I’ve talked to him about how he makes me feel but he just says I’m dramatic and that he isn’t doing anything wrong.  Is he right?

A little background first…

My husband and his siblings and their father don’t talk to people in a nice way (their mother doesn’t seem to do this).  Especially each other.  For instance if you were to say something wrong by accident they would call you a dumbass or douchbag.  Most of the time it’s done in a humorous way and everyone laughs.  If you were to say to them that you thought they were being mean and that they should knock it off they say they’re just joking around.  They call their parents and refer to them by their first names (they claim it’s because when they were kids and they called their mom, every other mother would turn around but theirs so they had to get her attention by using her first name which I believe but still, it’s a little disrespectful). 

On the other side (I can only speak for my husband on this one, but I have a feeling his brother is the same way) my husband tells me he loves me literally 100 times a day.  So they’re not only jerks.

They also don’t talk behind peoples’ backs.  If you’ve done something to piss them off you’re going to hear about it.

None of their extended family talks like this.  Every one is very loving and respectful and caring and would NEVER tell their mother to fuck off (yes they do this on a regular basis).

My parents (I’m an only child) don’t swear let alone put people down or talk meanly to them.  That’s the way I was raised.  Our entire extended family is very loving and respectful and caring.  BUT, we talk behind peoples’ backs, basically because it would be rude to tell our grandmother she talks too much so we refrain and vent about it later.

My husband has always said that the difference between our families is mine is repressed and his is not.  Two different schools of thought. 

Now comes the hard part.  It’s something that I’ve known was coming since we got together but I figured I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.  Well, here I am.

My sweet, innocent babies.  I’m so worried about how this behavior is going to affect them.  They’re 16 months old and aren’t talking yet, but I know they understand what we’re saying because we ask them to get a ball or a binky or a shoe, they will immediately go find one and bring it back to you.  Today I asked my daughter if she wanted to take a nap and she walked right into her room and to her crib with her arms raised.  They know what’s going on.

When they were born, they were only 5 pounds.  They were tiny!  They were the same size as each other until they were about 4 months old when my son all of a sudden gained a lot of weight…but only in comparison to his sister.  He went from the 5^th percentile to the 35^th when she remained in the 5^th.  From that moment on he has been affectionately known as bubba, chubby, and big butt.  It really is tongue in cheek since it’s almost sarcastic.

This one is a little harder to hear and most of the time doesn’t come off as jokingly as the other stuff.  If my son cries (diaper change, clothing change, or any of the other million reasons a 16 month old who can’t communicate cries), they tell him to stop being a wuss-bag, or a queer, or gay or a girl.  It’s absolutely heartbreaking…on many levels.  Lately both kids have been whiny where they really never were before so it’s a big difference in behavior, which means they’re pointing it out so much more now.

Last weekend my husband was calling him a wuss-bag constantly.  I kept telling him to stop but he wouldn’t listen to me, saying that he didn’t understand what he was saying anyway.  He finally got mad at me for telling him to stop!! 

So this is an issue for me, but today my mother called and said she had to talk to me about something.  I knew it was serious because she never talks the way she was.  She went on to tell me that it really bothers her and my father when they talk to the babies that way (although we realized they don’t do it to my daughter).  I told her that it was an issue for me too but I have no idea how to handle it.

This is all so hard to mention without making my husband and his siblings sound like monsters so please try to understand that they are not.

So what do I do?  Me telling them to stop doesn’t work so I feel like my hands are tied but I refuse to have my children’s self esteem suffer because of this.

Me:  Guess not.

My post on suicide was written last October when I was in a good place.  Unfortunately after that things got a little dark again.  The holidays came, winter came, and I stopped acupuncture for insurance reasons.  I’m not sure which was the cause or if it was all three, but my hormones started to misbehave again.  I was even having a very hard time with my husband.  He had become very demanding and controlling and nagging.  I was afraid to answer the phone when he called because I knew he was going to yell at me about something.  His emails were short and mean.  I’m sure a lot of this was just my perception but it made me feel so bad.  I didn’t even want to go home after work.  Sometimes I’d park the car near my house and just sit there and cry. 

I talked to him about how I was feeling and asked him to be a little easier on me until I was feeling better.  He didn’t agree that he was being that way but he did get much better. 

Luckily I didn’t have any breakdowns like I did last August but I was definitely feeling overwhelmed with everything.  I kept wanting help with the babies but no one was available to help.  I felt like I was drowning and I didn’t like it.

I also knew something hormonal was going on because my memory started to go again.  Again, not baby brain.  These were severe lapses in my memory that scared the shit out of me.  I wasn’t aware of the memory loss until I would see a picture I took a week ago and not remember taking it.  That is not like me.  I am a photographer and when I look at a picture I took…even from many many many years ago I can see my entire surroundings including what is not in the photo.  I know if there was a building behind me, or if there were people near me, or what time of day it was, or if the tv was on.  I never thought about that before but when I started seeing photos that I didn’t remember the exact spot in my living room I was when I took it, let alone taking it at all I knew something was wrong again.

One of the things that bothers me the most about this time is that I don’t remember my babies’ first Christmas.  I have pictures and video but when I look at them it’s like I wasn’t there.  I can’t fully place myself there and that makes me so sad.

Back in August, my therapist explained this memory imparement in a way that made a lot of sense to me.  She said that in a time of crisis (depression/anxiety), your brain goes into survival mode.  It can only handle thinking of keeping you alive (fed, clothed, rested).  The details of life overload the brain so it shuts them out in order to focus on the bare necessities.  It makes sense but it sucks.  I’m glad I have the photos but they’re also a reminder that I wasn’t there mentally when they were taken.  That makes me angry.

I had been putting off calling my therapist for a number of reasons in November one of which being I had lost the number, been given the number and lost it again!  I finally called and went in a month ago.  She upped my lexapro from 10mg to 15mg.  Once again, a number of things changed in the last month so I’m not sure what it is that is making me feel better but I definitely do.  Was it the dose increase, or the fact that I am sleeping better now that my sleep apnea is finally under control, or the fact that my son’s month long refusal to sleep through the night ended, or the fact that both of them are napping a consistent 4 hours a day in which I nap too?  I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as I feel better.

I worry how long I’m going to have to deal with this.  I never experienced any sort of depression until post partum so when does post partum depression end?  Or does it morph into “unexplained” depression?  I guess I’ll just continue to take the meds and keep a close eye on how I’m feeling.

Is anyone reading by the way?  I’d love some comments…haven’t had any yet.

Why can’t my daughter wear it?  Why don’t they make a blue onesie that says “I’m a hit with the boys”?

Well, I know the answer.  Straight is the default.  It’s like we’re all straight until proven gay.  What I don’t know the answer to is why?

I want my kids to know as early as possible that they may be attracted to the opposite sex, the same sex or even both!  I don’t want them to miss out on anything or regret not recognizing earlier that they may be gay or bi.  I want them to not even think there is a difference.  Like it’s the color of their hair…natural and out in the open.

I feel like if every parent took this approach we could change the world’s view of sexual orientation.  (Well, except for Iran since they don’t have the gay phenomenon.)

Don’t make your kids color their hair. 

2.  If you just relax you may be able to conceive naturally 

I knew before I started trying to get pregnant that it would be an uphill battle.  Not because I’m a negative person but because I’m realistic and have more common sense than the average person.  I have never had a regular consistent cycle which means I have very little (if any) chance of conceiving without medical help.

Once I sought medical help (which included acupuncture) and people knew, they would all warn of multiples.  This brings me to misconception #1.  This misconception is annoying to me because it can scare many people away from fertility treatments if they take it as fact.  In fact, it scared my husband away and we ended up wasting about a year trying naturally before having any pharmaceutical intervention. 

There are many different levels of fertility treatments as far as invasiveness (and chance of multiples) goes. 

There’s the not invasive try naturally (risk of natural multiples). 

There’s the not very invasive take injections of follicle stimulating hormone to “grow eggs” (that’s not actually what it does but alas another misconception) then try at home to mix the sperm with the eggs (higher risk of multiples since the hormone most likely created more than one egg)

There’s the semi-invasive intra-uterine insemination (IUI) where the hormone injections are taken to “grow eggs” but rather than injecting sperm the natural way your male counterpart puts his boys in a cup, the lab puts the stuff in a syringe and the female gets to have a catheter in her cervix into which the sperm is placed directly.  (even higher risk of multiples since the hormone most likely created more than one egg AND the sperm doesn’t have to find its own way through the cervix)

Then there’s the horribly invasive in vitro fertilization (IVF).  Based on the last three increasing degrees of invasiveness and increasing chances of multiples, everyone thinks that the highest level of invasion would have the highest risk of multiples.  This is COMPLETELY untrue.  IVF actually has the most control over multiple embryos.  In this process the female takes a much higher dose of the follicle stimulating hormone in order to produce as many as 30 or more “eggs” (my ovaries ache at just the memory of that many eggs in them…it’s not a pleasant process).  When the eggs are mature enough for fertilization they are surgically removed from the ovaries.  They are then placed in a dish and mixed with sperm.  The next day you call the clinic to find out how many embryos were created.  It’s usually about half the number that they are able to retrieve from the ovaries which is about half the number of mature “eggs” that were in the ovaries.  So we’re now down to about 7 embryos.  A few days later the lucky lady gets to have another date with that lovely catheter where HOWEVER MANY EMBRYOS SHE AND HER PARTNER WANT are placed into her uterus.  If you want one baby, you put one embryo.  If you’re ok with 2 babies you put two.  If you’re ok with 3 babies you put three.  Usually only half of those that fertilize even continue to grow to those few days in the dish.  So if you end up with 4 healthy good quality embryos and you put one back in your uterus the other three are frozen for possible use at a later date.

I understand it’s all a gamble especially with the price of IVF being between 10 and 15K for those who are unlucky enough to not have it covered by insurance (which is basically everyone that doesn’t live in a handful of states that mandate if covered).  The gamble is that you could put one back in hopes of one baby but it’s about a 50/50 chance that the embryo will dig in and stick around to become a baby.  Even putting two back can leave you with no babies (trust me it’s devastating).  So even though it may be a gamble, IVF does not guarantee multiples.

Ok, now I’ll tackle misconception #2.  I have come very close to strangling many people who have dared to utter these words to me, even very close friends who I have NEVER fought with.  They light a fire in me that almost nothing can put out.

If there is an egg available to fertilize and there is sperm to fertilize it then all the stress in the world isn’t going to stop that sperm from getting to the egg.

If a woman is not producing eggs then all the relaxing in the world isn’t going to help her get pregnant.  You might as well beat your head against the wall.  It’s not going to happen…no egg=no baby.

If I teach you anything let it be this…NEVER TELL AN INFERTILE WOMAN TO RELAX.

I could write a lot on the topic of infertility but for now I’ll leave it at that.