Update on Tyler’s Health

Yesterday Grant and I took Tyler for a mental health assessment. Tyler has so far been diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome and OCD. In school he has been getting Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy and Counseling. He also has low muscle tone and is delayed with his gross and fine motor skills. I know there are more diagnoses to come.

Tyler has been becoming more challenging. He gets angry if he doesn’t get what he wants from me and angry playing video games. Oftentimes he physically and verbally attacks me. The punches hurt more as he gets older and it breaks my heart to hear him curse like an adult. Actually he does not know how to curse like an adult. He will say to me, “You are a fucking person!” “You are ugly!” This weekend we went to a tourist spot and he had a really bad time. He beat me up in public and he cursed at me too. I heard one woman gasp and comment on what a spoiled child he was. I do not let it bother me, I know Tyler is suffering.

Most times after he hits me he is immediately sorry. “Can I kiss where it hurts?”, he will ask. He will say he is sorry a hundred times. “Mommy, am I going to go to Hell?” “No, honey, children don’t go to Hell.”

Grant and I are both bipolar. It’s no wonder Tyler is having such difficulties. We had genetic counseling before we decided to conceive. We were worried we would pass on our sicknesses to our child. We learned that Tyler had only a slight chance of getting Lupus or Rheumatoid Arthritis since my diseases were not inherited. With mental illness we were told Tyler had a 50/50 chance since I did not have any issues.

We decided to try to conceive.

My mental issues did not present themselves until after Tyler was born.

I do not regret for one second having Tyler but I do regret what we have passed on to him. What will happen to him? Will he be able to hold down a job? Will he get into drugs and alcohol?

If I knew that I would have mental illness I do not believe Grant or I would have tried to conceive. Adoption was not for us, we would have remained childless.

But Tyler is here and most times he is wonderful. He is smart and talented and is a joy and wonder to me. I can only hope that by getting him help early he can have a life without pain. Being mentally ill has been difficult for me, no, torturous, but there is joy in my life.

I just hope that Tyler can live a life with mostly joy rather than suffering.

He has to go back for further assessment since Grant and I took so long filling the intake person in on his background. I will keep you posted. I know another diagnosis is coming. I want one so we can better help Tyler but I dread it as well.

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Sundays In My City

SIMC

With special thanks to Unknown Mami.

On Saturday I went to my first Willoughby, Ohio Farmer’s Market.

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It was a chilly start to the day and I warmed up with coffee and free samples of baked goods.

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It was a wonderful time and I hope to make the Farmer’s Market a regular part of my weekend.

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My 4th Blogiversary

My fourth blogiversary finds me very introspective with a feeling of uncertainty. It is not like my second anniversary post where I wrote with a feeling of empowerment and excitement of what was to come.

Mental illness has been the worst of my diseases since Christmas 2011. My depression forced me to take an eight month leave of absence from my blog in 2012 so I did not mark my third year anniversary of blogging. I took about a two month break this year. Depression leaves me uninspired to write and my mind so dull that technically putting up a post is almost impossible.

Currently I am coming out of a depression. I have had two depressive episodes this year and one manic episode, and have been hospitalized twice. It’s been quite a year and we are only in May.

Despite therapy and medication, I feel very unsure about what the future holds for me. Planning for a vacation is impossible; what if I am feeling too unwell to handle a trip?

How am I going to be feeling next month or even next week?

How will my bipolar disorder affect Tyler in the long term?

I wonder, where could this blog have gone if I had not had mental illness? Perhaps I could have written that book that has been floating around in my head, or made some money with advertising, enough to supplement my income? How many people could I have reached with my message if I were not sick?

I feel very angry at my mental illness as I begin my fifth year of Mama Sick. I am not so enthusiastic about being a spokesperson this time around.

I do want to thank you. Even though I had a huge break in writing last year and a two month gap this year you have stuck with me. You never forgot about Mama Sick and last year I came back better than ever.

I will not let Mental Illness win and I hope you will not let your illnesses win either.

I will keep fighting and writing.

And I hope you will keep reading and sharing.

Thank you.

Four candles plus one for good luck.  Chocolate, my favorite.

Four candles plus one for good luck. Chocolate, my favorite.

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Sundays In My City

I’m pleased to be participating in Unknown Mami’s Sundays In My City for the first time!

SIMC

It has been a dream of mine to actually be able to live in a place that has a quaint downtown and I realized that dream when I moved earlier this month to historic Willoughby, Ohio.

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The Cleveland suburb held it’s annual Rib Cook-off this weekend to benefit the USO. There was facepainting, live music and ribs from 14 local restaurants.

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I sampled six out of the 14 before calling it quits.

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It was my first downtown Willoughby experience and I am excited for a lot more to come!

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Monday Morning Mother’s Day Quarterback

A lot of mothers with chronic illness have enormous feelings of guilt that they cannot be “Super Mommy”. That instead of doing things with their children they have to nap. That they often end up just watching their children instead of participating with them.

In the days before Mother’s Day I wondered, “Is the way I parent my child worth celebrating?”

It doesn’t help that I am going through another depressive episode. It’s not the worse one I’ve ever been in but it is taking it’s toll on my daily activities and thought processes.

In my state I often wonder what to do with Tyler. It is difficult doing things with him so I have been taking him to the park. It gives me a chance to rest and watch Tyler play. Sometimes I talk to the other parents and grandparents there and it makes me feel even more inadequate than I already feel.

Yesterday Tyler was excited to give me his Mother’s Day gifts he made at school.

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The inside of the card read:

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In case you are not fluent in a kindergartener’s writing it says, “Dear Mom, Thank you for taking me to the park. You are a peacemaker. Love, Tyler”

I looked at what he had written in disbelief. One of the things that I had felt guilty about doing was one of the things he loved the most about me!

I think this can be a wake-up call for us all. Maybe our worst is not so bad. Maybe we are doing better than we think.

Maybe our children love us just the way we are.

Maybe we really do deserve Mother’s Day.

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Just Call Me Trailer Trash

Yep. I have purchased a manufactured home. This differs from a trailer home in that it is made to stay put. The price was so good and the home was so nice that I quickly got over the “What are people going to think?” mentality and signed on to become queen of the trailer park.

I was having a difficult time finding an apartment. My credit is so poor that I could not pass a credit check, which it seems all of the apartments require. I was able to buy my home outright due to the lump sum payment from my disability.

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The house sports cathedral ceilings, two skylights and ceiling fans. Finally I will not have to worry about Tyler disturbing the neighbors, or vice versa. The home is also in the beautiful Lake County, Ohio city I wanted to live in.

I hope to be fully in the home in a couple of weeks. Right now I am having fun buying furniture and carpeting. I will post pictures as the place shapes up.

I never thought I would be able to own something but this option enabled me to do so and I feel good I am doing right by Tyler. I feel like my dreams are coming true. After everything we have been through, it’s nice to see things finally going my way!

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Back!

My last post on February 11th about how bad my depression was was pretty grim. And things got worse as on February 13th I went in-patient at a Behavioral Health Care facility (that’s what they are calling the mental institutions these days). I was in for about two weeks where my depression did not get better and when I came out I got even worse. I could not get out of bed, my body ached from being in bed so much. I was so scared I would not be able to come out of this Hell, what would happen to me?

I was (and still am) on medication and in therapy, and about three weeks ago my mood finally started lifting. I bought make-up, I colored my hair for the first time and I bought new clothes. I started to come out of my fog. I do not think I am 100% yet, but I keep getting better every day.

For all of you who are depressed, who’s depression is lasting many months, please do not give up hope. You WILL come out of it, I know it is hard to believe from where you are sitting, but BELIEVE me, it will happen.

This roller coaster they call Bipolar Disorder sure sucks the big one.

I am stable right now, but of course I wonder when or if I will be ever pulled down again or become manic to the point of paranoia.

Right now, I am counting my blessings that I feel well. I am taking my medicine and seeing my therapist and will continue to do so for the rest of my life, and I urge all of you who are bipolar or depressed to do the same.

Here are a few highlights of what you missed in the two months that I have been away:

Tyler lost his first tooth!:

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Tyler and I at Easter dinner:

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At the Cleveland Great Lakes Science Center’s Egyptian exhibition:

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I hope you will welcome me back, I have missed you all and am so happy that I feel well enough to start posting again! Hope you are all as well as you can be!

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From My Very Depths

I am not even sure how to start this post off, how it will form or if I will publish it.

I have fallen into a deep depression, not just a depression, a kind of stupefying of my brain, where for sure my writing is not flowing, nor is my thinking.

Toward the end of this year, many people around me as well as some healthcare professionals believed I was in the throes of mania. I will be honest, to me I did not seem manic, I felt smart, I was prolific in everything I did, especially when it came to writing. Maybe some mania but I was getting things done.

I had a medication adjustment, no, a complete med change where I was put on mood stabilizers. I had not been on mood stabilizers for a while, as my doctors in Massachusetts believed that since I was stable I did not need to be on stabilizers. I guess this is a controversial way to think but it was fine by me.

Now, I feel I must blame the medicines, they have worked too well, have thrown me in to this depressive state and a “dumbed down” feeling. I see my psychiatrist on Thursday. I know I have to be on medication, I just wonder why there is so much experimentation on bipolar people? I pray the psychiatrist will change my med regimen, so that I once again can find a happy medium.

Everything is telling me to put this in drafts, to get to bed and try to sleep, but I thought it might be interesting for my readers to see me at my worst, when the words don’t come, when inspiration is ruined by depression.

I sometimes feel as though I am moving through molasses. Normally these are the times I do not write; I did not write for eight months the last time around, and I do not want that to happen again.

Please pray or think good thoughts, that my fog will lift. I don’t want to ever go through something like that again…but am I already in that? Or is their still a spark of life in “medium to manic” Emily?

I will try to keep publishing; that is healthy. I know this post is not scintillating but it is honest. I hope you will stay with me as I try to claw my way back to some type of normal, for me anyway, and I hope you will check back in from time to time if I find it too difficult to publish. I have a large fan base, you, my wonderful readers, and I would hate to lose you.

I try to write the words, the sentences I want to write, but my brain is like someone has dropped a rock in a pond and my thoughts scatter like ripples.

I fear I have become redundant and so I will close. Thank you for reading, for staying with me, and I do hope you will continue with me on the latest part of my journey.

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Mama Sick’s Beat the Winter Blues Art Contest!

What better way to beat the winter blues than to win a piece of artwork from the beautiful and talented Robin Maria Pedrero! I discovered Robin’s artwork in 2011 on Twitter. I don’t like to use many cliches but her art back then spoke to me:

This was no news to Robin who said, “I find many people turn to my art to feel uplifted. Several with chronic illnesses have told me the relief and comfort they feel having my art to look at in their space or even in their stream on Facebook.”

The winner will have their choice of anything in Robin’s Etsy shop up to a thirty ($30.00) dollar value. The contest will run until 11:59 p.m. Friday, February 8th, 2013 and there are three ways to win:

1. Leave a comment.

2. Tweet out this contest and let me know you have done so by entering again and saying something like, “I tweeted out this contest”.

3. Put this contest on your Facebook and let me know you have done so by entering again and saying something like, “I put this contest on my Facebook”.

Therefore, if you do all three, you will have three separate entries in my contest!

Good luck!

Contest extended to Monday, February 11th, 11:59 p.m. EST due to technical difficulties

Congratulations to Jaime Haney! Her winning entry, #19, was randomly selected. Thank you to all who entered and thank you to the fabulous Robin Maria Pedrero for being a part of Mama Sick!

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It is With Deepest Regret

To my amazing readers,

It is with deepest regret that I inform you that Grant and I have officially separated. Tyler and I left our home the second week of December but I did not want to let you know then because I know for so many of you who follow us that this would put a serious damper on your holidays.

Tyler and I are doing well. We are currently staying in a hotel but are looking at renting a home or townhouse. My SSDI benefit started early this month but I still have not received my back pay award, which is what we need to be able to put money down to secure a more permanent place to live.

Grant and I suffer from catastrophic, life-threatening illnesses and it is with a heavy heart that I admit that in the end our illnesses have proven stronger than our marriage. We are not the first couple to separate over the extreme stress chronic illnesses can cause on a marriage nor unfortunately will we be the last.

I would be lying to you if I told you that there is a chance we will get back together. Both of us do not see that happening. We are trying to keep things as amicable as possible as we go through our situation. Right now we are taking things slowly, though, we do not see the need to rush.

As I write this post, I can’t help being reminded of a post I wrote in 2011, “Why I Stay”. It may not make much sense to re-post it here right now but I feel the need to. Like I said, in the end for the both of us, our illnesses proved to be stronger than our marriage. In November we celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary.

I hope you will support me during this difficult time but please know that I am going to be fine and so will Grant and Tyler.

Be well,

Emily

“Why I Stay

I am married to someone with severe mental illness, so severe that he receives disability as he is no longer able to work. If you don’t know much about the Social Security Disability process, you pretty much need to be near death or severely mentally ill to be able to get disability on a first time application. My husband was a “yes”, on his first try.

Grant has had mental illness since he was a teenager. He spent his teenage years (in the mid ’80s) suffering until he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In college he drank and abused prescription drugs and marijuana in an effort to self-medicate. He got the most help when the ground-breaking drug Prozac and others that would follow became available to the mentally ill population.

When we met he was pretty well balanced, mental health wise. The drugs were working for him. Ours was a long distance relationship for a year when we decided that he would move to New Jersey from Ohio and move in with me. I was 31 and I knew this was something special. Grant was loving, generous, sensitive. I had never met another man like him and I felt truly loved and respected.

We married in 2002. Grant had a good job working for an insurance company that was free or at low cost for poor families. Unfortunately he happened to have the boss from Hell, and it wasn’t just him who thought so. Part of what I loved about him was his sensitivity but it did not serve him well when it came to this woman. Eventually, despite asking for an accommodation, they were not able to work things out and it was a mutual decision that Grant leave his job.

In his next job he worked as a Consumer Advocate, helping parents of disabled children get the services they deserved in the public school system. Grant has never had a job that did not benefit mankind, something I really admired and envied, as while I liked my job, I often felt unfulfilled. What was I doing to benefit humanity?

Unfortunately, after a couple of years, Grant began having difficulty there too. He had trouble getting out of bed to face the day. He had trouble getting through the day, and due to his OCD he was unable to keep up with the huge amounts of paperwork that the job required. He had never asked for an accommodation and was fired in May of 2007. He has not worked since.

When our son was born in 2006…I don’t want to blame him because Grant and I don’t regret having Tyler for one second. Having a child, being a first time parent is hard for anyone, but for Grant it was like difficult times ten and throughout Tyler’s life I have been watching Grant sink deeper and deeper into his illnesses.

Grant is now to the point where he spends a good deal of the day just sleeping, having to medicate himself (under doctors’ watchful eyes) because life is sometimes too painful. The stress of me being chronically ill and collecting diagnoses along with our son having Tourette’s Syndrome, OCD, Anxiety and probably more doesn’t help. Again, any husband or father would struggle having a sick wife and a child with emotional problems but for Grant it is times ten.

It’s no surprise that Grant’s mental illness has put a strain on our marriage. Sometimes his mental illnesses make him say things that he doesn’t mean. He will come up to me and say, “I want a divorce” or “I can’t do this any more, I need to leave, I need to go away”, only within the hour to come back to me and say he didn’t mean it and he loves me and is sorry.

It has been hard on me but I have learned to harden my heart and, as difficult as it sounds, take these kinds of things he says with a grain of salt. Of course these conversations are not without damage to me, I would have to be soulless to say they aren’t.

I once called his therapist, crying because I couldn’t take it any more, I just couldn’t keep going on this roller coaster! His therapist told me, “Emily, Grant adores you! He loves you and does not want to leave you and Tyler. It is just his mental illness talking, he does not mean it!”

But as I said, these conversations do do damage to my heart and soul.

So, why do I stay?

Because Grant is doing the very best he can. He takes his meds, he sees his psychiatrist, he sees his therapist. He doesn’t stop trying every day.

I stay because of the love and support he has given me. Me, with my over a dozen diagnoses and counting. I cannot tell you how many men leave their wives when they become chronically ill, how many men cheat on their sick wives. Grant is my biggest cheerleader. He is my best friend.

I stay because, although he is not a perfect one, he IS a good father and tries every day to keep being a better one. He cares almost too much about Tyler and agonizes over trying to do right by his son. Meanwhile, Tyler thinks that Grant is the best daddy, the funniest daddy in the whole world. Tyler doesn’t care that Grant is mentally ill, he still thinks his daddy hung the moon.

I stay because I took marriage vows. For better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

And the number one reason why I stay?

Because no matter how the mental illnesses are destroying him, Grant is still the most loving, generous and sensitive person I have ever met.

That person I fell in love with is STILL there.”

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