It's been awhile since I posted. I'd said that I was going to keep this journey real, and well...I haven't. It's easy to keep it real when things are going well. When they're not, it's a whole different story.
I don't want to make a bunch of excuses, but I do want to focus on the facts.
The first fact is that I'm not taking care of myself. That may seem like an easy thing to do, but for me, it's not. It's something I have to work consciously at doing. If not, I put everyone and everything else first.
(I just found a half-hour's worth of busy work to do to avoid writing this!)
First, the good news: I'm eating a plant-based diet. Even when things have been really hard and stressful, I haven't even been tempted to eat foods that aren't on plan.
Next, the not so good news: (I suddenly have this overwhelming desire to go empty the dishwasher!) My head isn't where it needs to be. I'm not focused. I'm overeating. I'm eating mindlessly. I'm eating in response to stress. I'm staying up until 1:00 or 2:00 AM. And, I'm drinking wine. I'm drinking too much wine.
More good news: I'm not in denial!
I keep a family blog where I divulge a tiny fraction of the chaos that exists in my home, every single day of my life. I feel like I'm making excuses again, but these are the facts. All four of my kids have varying degrees and types of special needs, and there are many days when I jump from one to the next, putting out fires. In the center of it, is my undiagnosed youngest son. I won't go into all of the details, but suffice it to say that, by the end of the day, my head is pounding, my hands are shaking, I've been getting dizzy and light-headed, and I'm sure I'm going to have a stroke. I know that I'm supposed to deep breathe and practice yoga and take a bath, call a friend, go for a walk. Well, I'm not. I'm pouring myself a glass of wine. And I'm enjoying every single sip. I stay up late, savoring every moment of peace and quiet that I long for during the day. So, I'm not getting enough sleep, and I sometimes eat a snack at night that I don't need.
So, I've been looking at why I'm doing this. I've realized that I'm good at taking bad news and bad situations, and treating them as if they were as casual as getting the mail or any other mundane event. I just move on. I'm supposed to be strong, it's not okay to react or cry or be weak. As an example, deep down, I blame myself for all of my kids' issues. I don't think that I caused them, but I do believe, at some level, that if I just did a little more, spent more time, researched more, tried different therapies or diets, that they would be better.
So, I keep moving forward, with everything bottled up inside, telling myself that I'm fine.
I see a therapist a couple of times a month. I love her, I really do. She's 80 years old, and she's younger than more adults I know. She recently suggested that I cut back to seeing her once a month, but I don't want to because I love talking to her so much. At any rate, I saw her the other day. We started talking about my youngest, and that led to a conversation about how I'm doing with all of his behaviors. I admitted that I wasn't sleeping and that I was drinking wine. She wants me to discipline myself to be in bed by 10:30 each night. She also strongly suggested that I stop the wine.
She went on to talk about my son, and said that she believes that we can no longer provide the care he needs. I won't get in to the whole conversation, but the bottom line is that, even though I was sobbing, I thanked her, said that I hoped she had a nice Easter, and went on with my day.
That's what I do. Someone has just told me that I need to say goodbye to my child, and I go home and do dishes! I've done that with many major events in my life, rather than dealing with them.
Now that I've realized this and admitted it, it's time to do something about it. My focus is to allow myself to feel grief or anger or whatever emotion is appropriate to any given situation. I'm saying goodbye to the wine, as much as I don't want to right now. And somehow, I'll work on getting to bed earlier.
I can do this!
