Our (Neurodiverse) Family

Friend and I have patched things up, but I'm still feeling the aftershocks of our fight. My social anxiety has been pretty bad recently. I haven't wanted to be around people for fear that I'll say or do something to alienate everyone around me. I know this is irrational, but it is what it is. To be honest, I've kind of avoided social interaction except for obligatory stuff like exchanging pleasantries, going to church, going to family gatherings, etc. I haven't specifically been seeking out social interaction. I'm just scared of being a monster again. I'm scared of my anxiety taking over and causing me to say and do horrible things again. And at the same time, I'm afraid of people not liking me. Of being at best an inconvenience or at worst a horrible human being. My mom gave me a workbook a few years ago called "Between Two Minds: Healing Depression and Anxiety". I just got it out this week and have been trying to work through it to ...

I said some regrettable things to a close friend. Now I've probably lost a friendship. I had no idea I was still capable of being so horrible. I thought I killed that horrible part of myself a long time ago. Nope, that horrible part was just in a coma. And now she's awake. I don't deserve friends. I alienate everyone. If I can say such horrible things, who knows what else I'm capable of. Consider me a hermit now.

It's been a month since I "graduated" from therapy. My first week: I was on top of the world! But then it was downhill from there. The girls started going to bed later and later because they were fighting us on it big time. Worse than cats and dogs. Then our dishwasher died and we still haven't gotten a replacement. Yesterday, our garage caught fire. I'm feeling like everything is pointless. My perfectionism has come to bite me again. I don't want to do anything unless I can do it perfectly. Problem is, there is so much to do that I just want to run and hide. I'm mad at myself that I don't have a good summer routine and we only have a month left before school starts. I'm mad that I couldn't stick to that cleaning schedule because I couldn't do it the second week "perfectly" because stuff. I'm mad that I am not a good disciplinarian. I'd rather just hide from my kids than actually parent them right now. ...

I actually did some pretty deep cleaning every day this last week! Monday was bathrooms. I swept, mopped, scrubbed, and washed the rugs. I didn't even know you were supposed to sweep and mop bathrooms once a week (oops), but now I do. I'm pretty sure I won't have to do as deep a clean tomorrow as I did last Monday! Tuesday was the kitchen. Oh my, was that nasty. I cleared out the fridge. During that process, I took out the crisper drawer to discover frozen spilled balsamic vinegar below it. No wonder the fridge smelled so vinegar-y. I scraped and mopped that out and all was well. Everything else was pretty routine--scrubbing counter tops and stove, wiping microwave, sweeping, mopping, etc. Wednesday was the living room. Picked up and vacuumed and threw away junk mail that was accumulating on the desk. Thursday: bedrooms. I got mine and Livia's room done. Kate's is still a work in progress. I really need to get her out of the house sometime so I can REALLY cl...

I have started and quit many cleaning schedules in my homemaker life. Here's how it usually played out: Stage 1 Novelty "Ooh! This cleaning plan will get my house PERFECTLY clean and will solve all my problems!" Stage 2 Denial "This is different from all the other cleaning schedules I've tried! This will be perfect! It will be different this time!" Stage 3 Over-exertion "I'm going to clean all the things! This is awesome!" Stage 4 Fatigue "Nope, can't do it. Too tired. Did too much." Stage 5 Perfectionism "I am not doing it until I can do it PERFECTLY!" Stage 6 Depression "My life sucks. I'm a mess. This isn't working. My life is complete chaos" Then go back to Stage 1. This was how it all went down when I was in my deepest pits of depression and anxiety. I'm back into baby steps, and now that I'm feeling better, I feel like I need to have a better routin...

Apple pie, to be exact. I did use a Pillsbury pie crust, so not THAT ambitious. I do know how to make pie crust, I just had some in the fridge that had been there for....let's not think about that. And I didn't feel absolutely totally exhausted after making it. In fact, it was fun. I even let Kate help me, which normally would have just gotten on my nerves. Watching her get excited about baking a pie for Daddy made me smile. Actually doing things and not feeling completely overwhelmed is a new experience for me. Is this how normal people live? Do I want to be normal? Just doing things and not wanting to die inside. What have I been doing my whole life? I can't help but wonder when the other shoe will drop and I'll be back to being anxious, overwhelmed, and exhausted all the time. Well, I'm still tired, but not bone crushingly so. I mean, I have kids. Kids who don't go to bed at human hours despite my best efforts. But I can function and actually ...

I don't know if I was ever cut out for family blogging. I do enough of that on my personal Facebook page. I'm not good at waxing profound about my kids, at least not enough for a long blog post. Anyhoo. I graduated from therapy yesterday. Right now, I am the happiest I have ever been, but I am figuring out how to be "well" after being sick for so long. This is a weird thing to me. Join me on my adventures of navigating life after therapy. I'm still taking my meds. They're part of why I'm feeling so much better. Nobody tell me to go off of them, okay? Okay. More writing to come, I hope.

Livia is finally weaned. She's only 2 1/2 years old, after all. I didn't exactly intend to nurse her this long, although I did nurse Kate past age 2 as well. It just happened that way, and well, the fact that I'm one of those lucky moms who don't get their period back for 12+ months while nursing didn't exactly make me want to rush into weaning. TMI, I know, but no one reads this, so.... With Kate, I pretty much did it cold turkey. I just felt like it was well past time for her to be done. I don't really recommend doing it like this, but that's just how it was. Then I had an ectopic pregnancy not long after I stopped nursing, and well, the trauma from that overpowered any weaning sadness. Especially since I got the methotrexate shots and absolutely could not be nursing after I got them. The fact that the boobs were closed for business made that ordeal less traumatizing for everyone than it could have been. Plus, I knew that we would have another baby eve...

Having cold feet is one of my weird anxiety triggers. I never thought about the idiom "having cold feet" until I realized that my anxiety gets triggered when my feet are cold. I suppose it makes sense: when someone is having cold feet about something, they feel restless and unsure about whatever it is, and may or may not make reckless decisions because of it. Well, I'm talking about literal cold feet. Like, brrrrr cold. When my feet are cold, I feel well, cold. Cold Helpless Disconnected Restless Insecure It's worse when I'm walking barefoot on tile floors. This last Christmas, we were visiting my folks in Houston. The entire downstairs in my parents' home is entirely tiled, except for the parts where there are rugs. I had to go a couple of days without my medication because I left it back home in Utah--we flew in late on Christmas Eve and no pharmacies were open on Christmas Day, so I was nearly 48 hours without my medicine. I remember the c...

Usually late at night, I get all these ideas for things I could write about on my blogs and then when I sit down to write them down....I've forgotten about them.  Or else I sit down with great ideas and then as soon as the girls see that I'm sitting down at the computer, they think it's an invitation to pound on the keyboard or they think it's the best time to absolutely need me to witness them take care of their toileting needs. So once again, I'll just randomly type out stuff and hope for the best. Kate turned six nearly two weeks ago and she acts like she's sixteen. I love her to pieces, but man oh man the attitude. At school and church, she's a sweetheart. In fact, her teacher told me that she is a good student. I'll be grateful that she behaves for other people, I suppose. She is meeting and exceeding academic expectations for Kindergarten and her reading scores are off the charts. I don't know where this kid came from because she'...