A year of Change

2010- a new year and a lot of change!

Change scares me! I guess that's why I lived in my cave all my life afraid to face things. Let me rephrase this, change that I don't have control over the outcome scares me. Prior to Eric moving out in December I was not sleeping, I was not coping very well and I was seriously depressed. Roni talked to me again about going to the doctor to talk about getting something for the depression and the possibility of seeing a psychologist. I have battled her many times on these issues. The meds scared me and the thought of talking to a doctor brought back the fears from childhood because I was not allowed to talk about what went on behind the closed doors of our house. Finally I agreed to see my medical doctor for antidepressants. He put me on one at a low dose after I told him the ones I had tried previously that made me want to drive off a bridge! He put me on the one he said had the least side effects so I agreed to give it a try. I hated them. I cried over them, I whined to Roni constantly about how bad I felt because I needed them. She basically said suck it up and take them, you need them! I did. I took them and within a few days the side effects started-insomnia-waking many times a night, getting up for the day at 3::30am, nausea, joint pain, bad dreams, stomach pain, headache, sadness and hopelessness . But I kept taking it, I knew the side effects could be transient. By February I was on an additional med to help me sleep because sleep deprivation could be causing all of these side effects also. I started sleeping and I started to feel better but the joint pain persisted.

Eric and I were having a very hard time adjusting to the roles we were now in as divorced parents. We were mean and ugly to each other. He was living with someone else and when the kids would come home Arianna would ask me many things. He and I were still communicating through email and/or text messaging. Phone conversations usually ended badly. We would fight over the schedule that he had the kids and he seemed to battle me on each and every little thing. It was to the point that I was about to call Uncle and file our divorce decree in Ohio and force him to abide by the decree. As it was he was getting way more time with the kids the way we had been doing it but he needed to play nice or I would just hand it back over to the courts to manage. He decided to play nice.

Sometime in March my depression was beginning to get worse again! Roni was given the name of another psychologist that she passed on to me. I was still battling her on this but she said she could not talk to me about the things that were coming up in my head now.  She didn't know how to counsel me. You see, after Eric left and we were in our patterns per se and things started to settle down slightly I began to have dreams of my mom. I began to obsess and focus on the fact that she wasn't in my life. I wasn't focused on Eric any longer and so the things I had pushed aside for so many years came flooding back into my head. All of the things in my head put me in a serious tailspin and I was so confused. I was angry. I was hurt. I kept asking 'why?' when there were no answers to be found to the questions I had.

I never dealt with the emotions or issues within me when my mother chose to walk away from my life. Until now.

Roni and I talked and we prayed many times and she gave me the number to call and set up an appointment with this psychologist. I did make the call and the appointment. This would be the beginning of something I'm not sure I was quite ready for but as God had proven to me so many times already I do not have to be ready for it, I just need to follow where he leads me. This was so very hard for me to do!