Parenting

Wow, I’ve been writing this blog for a few days and I haven’t even mentioned what it feels like to be a parent with generalized anxiety disorder.  Or to co-parent with someone who has PTSD.

I was in my early twenties when I became pregnant with my oldest daughter.  I wanted to have kids, so I was excited.  We weren’t doing so well back then though.  I was drinking alcohol a lot to suppress my anxiety (though I didn’t know that was the reason at the time).  My husband was also drinking heavily due to his anxiety and depression from having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  If you check out my “American Pride” blog you can learn more about my husband’s experience of PTSD.

I quit drinking as soon as I learned I was pregnant, which was very early on luckily.  My first pregnancy was emotionally scary for me.  I wasn’t sure my husband was going to be able to make the transition to being a parent with me.  Later, when I was reading a great book about marriage by Terrence Real called How Can I Get Through to You?, I realized that this transition to parenthood often leads one parent to feel left behind and the other to move into parenthood alone.  This book was recommended to me by my counselor, proving how smart counselors are.  I was surprised that this book seemed to be about my specific marriage problems.  Turns out, most of us have the same marriage issues.

So, where were we?  The topic of parenting always gets me started on marriage issues and the topic of marriage always gets me started on parenting issues.  This isn’t very surprising since the two are intimately connected.  So, my tale of becoming a parent was off to a rough start.

We went through a lot in those early days.  At the beginning of our eldest daughter’s life, my husband bottomed out.  This is when he became suicidal and was even shortly hospitalized (another topic that gives me ants in my pants; trust me, I’ll come back to it in a later post).  When my daughter was 6 months old I went into counseling.  Since I was no longer self-medicating with alcohol, I was feeling extreme anxiety.  Also, when your husband or partner wants to kill themselves, it is very anxiety provoking and depressing.  What a surprise (am I coming off as cynical today?).

I’ll write about my experience finding a quality counselor.  There are plenty out there that aren’t so good.  But today I’ll try to stick to the subject (this is being made more difficult by my kids interrupting my writing every few sentences).

For me, being a parent with a mental health disorder means interruptions.  Interruptions in my ability to be the parent I want to be.  Interruptions in being able to continue on in my counseling program.  Interruptions in my ability to be a good mom and a good wife at the same time.  I wanted to finish my counseling program as quickly as I could; but as I studied to become a counselor I learned that doing things as quickly as I can causes me to take on more than I can handle and remain mentally healthy.

For me, being a parent has become a huge part of my identity.  I’m not willing to pretend that I don’t have an impact on the lives of my kids.  My dad has told me that kids just kind of turn out how they turn out.  I don’t buy it and research backs me up.  If you want to learn more about parenting styles and how these affect children follow the link.

I want to instill resiliency in my children.  Everyone goes through rough times.  Some of us go through what feels like hell.  Resiliency is what allows us to make changes in our lives and keep trying.  In my opinion, if we try to protect our children (which is often done through strict control) they don’t learn how to be adults.  If we teach them instead to be resilient we’re  teaching our children to fish rather than handing out fish we caught for them their entire lives.  Follow the link to learn more about resiliency.

Well, I’m not sure how well I stayed on the topic of parenting, but I’m sure I’ll be back to it.  In the mean time, let’s work towards feeling less guilt about our parenting mistakes and remember that admitting that we’re fallible give us an opportunity to learn.

Love,

Ann

Reconnecting

My dad stopped by a few hours ago.  If you have read my earlier posts you know that our relationship is strained.  He apologized for his part in our argument.  I can’t remember the last time he has sincerely apologized to me.

I guess I may have finally figured out how to have an adult relationship with my parents.  It turns out that I have to act like an adult.  Go figure.  I don’t think we realize how hard this can be, especially if our parents aren’t acting like adults.  Plus, I’ve been acting like a kid with my parents since... well, I was a kid.  That’s a long standing habit.

But it turns out, when I actually pulled off acting like an adult my dad was forced to think about how his actions and words might be making me feel.  When I acted like a kid with him he could tell himself that he was doing was best for me, even if I didn’t think so.  Maybe I’ve finally became an adult in my father’s head.  We’ll see.

I know that changes in ourselves and our relationships take time.  Our progress towards making changes in our lives was once described to me (by my counselor) as looking like a graph with a series of ups and downs slowly making its way towards the top of the chart.  We all backslide.  My relationship with my dad is going up on the charts right now.  At some point we’ll slide back down, but I hope our relationship is slowly making its way towards the top of the chart.

Love,

Ann

Today is a hard day...

I’m feeling the separation between me and my Farm family today.  A list was made of friends and Farm family that have passed.  My brother is on there.  My good friend.  People who made me feel like the world wasn’t such a painful place.  I love you Josh, Lizzie, Steve, Kathryn and all the others who touched me so deeply.

Sometimes we learn very young that life isn’t fair - it’s cruel.  I miss my family, both families.  I’m still unable to communicate with my parents.  We can’t fix other people.  We have to let them find their own way.  But it still is painful.

As a future mental health counselor I believe that counseling can help us find our truth.  For a long time I put a dam in front of my feelings.  I hoped that I could stop my painful feelings in this way.  Turns out when we try to turn our feelings off we may also lose our strong feelings of happiness, love, and compassion.  The shell I made for myself made me feel alone.  Maybe we are all truly alone, but we can reach out and feel the touch of love on our skins.  

For too long I listened to my inner voice telling me that in reaching out I would find rejection.  I did find rejection, we all do, but I’m stronger than I thought.  Just because we will sometimes be rejected doesn’t mean we should stop trying.  When people reject us, it is their loss.  We are beautiful, worthy, strong people no matter what people tell us or what we’ve had to go through.  We are not broken.  We are deserving of love.

Hard days are when we must remember: it is our love of ourselves that makes the difference.

American Pride

The 4th of July celebrations got me thinking about our soldiers and veterans.  It recently has been widely publicized that the Department of Veterans Affairs is extremely incompetent.  Something that happened in my area was a veteran dying while waiting for an ambulance in a VA clinic.  Follow the link to read more about this.

My husband is a veteran.  He was a medic in the National Guard Reserve for about six years.  During that time he was sent to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina hit.  He has very little memories of Louisiana, which is one of the effects of his post traumatic stress disorder.  Due to his PTSD he has lost jobs, been unable to find work for months at a time, experienced severe depression and anxiety, tried multiple medications that either didn’t work or put him in a virtual coma, and spent quite a bit of time in counseling.  The worst part was the multiple times that he became suicidal.  Once he spent 48 hours in the psych ward at our local hospital for observation due to his suicidality.

Has the VA done anything to help my husband?  No.  He applied for partial disability since his PTSD has caused him to lose significant amounts of income.  The VA’s response was that he didn’t qualify for help since it was the state governor that signed the order that sent him to Louisiana rather than the president.  This was after waiting for almost a year for any response.

I see the bureaucracy of the VA as extremely uncaring.  I’m not saying that there aren’t plenty of people who work for the VA (especially veterans) who care.  Unfortunately, they aren’t the people with any power; they are the ones that work the system to get veterans whatever help they can.

Unfortunately, the VA isn’t the only one not appreciating veterans.  In my experience, the problems of veterans are invisible to just about everyone.  My husband has been fired twice from jobs due to his extreme bouts of anxiety and depression.  Neither time was he able to receive unemployment.  Even our extended family members don’t get it.  They tell him to get it together and take care of his family (by that they mean earn money).  So not only has the PTSD caused anxiety and depression, but it has caused him to doubt his worth as a man.

My husband is an amazing man and father.  But he also has PTSD and anyone who has a family member with PTSD knows how disruptive and painful it can be.  

It’s time to make a change.  Part of that is forcing the government to overhaul the VA and make it accessible to our veterans.  Unfortunately, we all know how poorly our government fixes problems.  Maybe it is time for all of us to show our appreciation of veterans.  I’m not talking about having a bumper sticker saying “I support the veterans.”  I’m talking about starting nonprofits and donating money to organizations that are out there actually doing some good.

Bumper stickers don’t make any difference in the lives of our veterans.  True caring comes from learning the truth of what our soldiers experience and helping them find life and happiness again.

Love,

Ann

I Can Really Relate to Humpty Dumpty

July 4, 2014

“...and the beat goes on”

        -The Whispers

So, it’s Independence Day.  This is kind of an emotional day for me for several reasons.  Once again I am missing the family reunion on The Farm that happens annually around the fourth of July.  This year it is especially hard to miss since our founder, Stephen Gaskin, died a few days ago.  It is sad to not be able to see people that meant so much to me growing up and continue to be very special to me.  But since I’m The Poor Painter I obviously can’t afford to make the trip from New Mexico to Tennessee.  Anyways, I love all you Farmies.

It’s also my mom’s birthday, and as I mentioned before, our relationship is currently very strained.  She had it way worse than me growing up which is often the case.  We pass down some of the pain through the generations. I've found in my family that breaking these cycles takes immense effort.

These days I understand that my parents did the what they thought was best based on what they experienced growing up.  But the truth is, that’s not good enough.  One of my main mental health issues is being enmeshed with my family.  You can follow the link to learn more about enmeshment, but basically it means that all of my family members' emotions are tied together in a knot.  When our happiness and sadness are dependent on how other people are feeling we may feel like we have no way of leading ourselves towards happiness.  When we try counseling, or join social or mental health groups, we make some progress but can continuously be dragged down by the moods of our loved ones.

I’m not saying my parents are bad people.  They’re not.  But they weren’t the parents I needed.  So, once again I am reminding myself that it is time to grow up and start being a parent to myself.  This is extremely important to me since I have a one-year-old girl and a four-year-old girl.  I already know more about parenting than my mom and dad, but I will remember that there will always be more to learn and I will often be wrong.  Being willing to learn and admit our faults is what can change us into the parents that our children need.

My truth is that to be a good wife and mother I need to continue working on my happiness and my self-understanding.  In short, I’m putting the pieces of my mental health back together again.  I hope you are doing the same.

July 3, 2014

July 3, 2014

“Raise Your Glass To His Long Life”

            -Natalie Merchant

I found out today that my guru died a couple of days ago.  Most people don’t have a guru.  I grew up on The Farm outside of Summertown, Tennessee.  The Farm was a commune until 1983 when it experienced “the changeover” and stopped holding money in common.  Since then they have considered themselves an “intentional community.”

I don’t want to overload you on Farm history; that isn’t what this blog is about.  It is about my mental and emotional experiences though.  It is strange to have my guru die.  I knew he has been sick and have thought about what my experience of his death would be.  I am feeling grief today; I wasn’t sure if I would.  I find that many of us think of grief as something we feel when a close friend or relative die, but this isn’t the only type of grief we feel.

I am experiencing grief at the death of Stephen Gaskin.  We were not ever personally close.  It’s the grief we feel when someone who is an important cultural icon to us dies.  In the articles I have read about his death. I find it very strange to hear Stephen Gaskin referred to as Mr. Gaskin.  We never used those titles on The Farm.  

Good-bye Stephen.

Stephen’s death got me thinking about other forms of grief.  Right now I’m feeling grief about changes in my relationships with my parents.  I’ve had to ask them to give me some space.  My parents are good people, they just have a lot of mental health issues, many of which they can’t see in themselves.  For me, they have been inadequate parents.  I find my own anxiety and depression cycling with theirs.  Anyone who has experienced following a loved one into depression and back up out of it knows how painful this is.  From my experience in my own therapy and what I have learned on my journey towards becoming a mental health counselor, I need to regulate my own emotions.  What this means is that we are happier when we don’t let other people pull and tug on our emotions.  I’m trying to learn how to choose how I feel.

Right now I just can’t seem to disconnect my feelings from those of my parents.  And the truth is, my parents can be painfully disruptive to my mental health.  It affects my relationship with my husband, my kids, and basically anyone I come into contact with.

My grief about these changes in my relationship with my parents comes from losing the belief that someday they may be able to parent me in they way I have needed and continue to need.

You know what my therapist told me?  “Parent yourself, if your parents are unable to do it, you’d better become your own mother and father.”  I think this applies really well to all relationships.  We are the only ones who can give ourselves what we need.  This may be true, but it is also sad, hence the grief.

Today, I am grieving.  I know it is healthy to grieve.  I also know that for me and many people this is one of the hardest emotions to feel.  I usually switch it out for anxiety.  We are often very scared to experience grief, but grief fades a lot quicker than anxiety.  For me, it feels healthier as well.

Love,

Ann