So it's been nearly a year since my last post. Alot has happened and alot is still going on. I'm transforming this blog into a self-care/venting/crafting blog. I'm pretty sure no one reads this so it seems perfectly ok for me to say pretty much anything I want and/or need to. So here goes.
About a year ago, a super big bad thing happened and my marriage went south and my husband almost lost his career. Since then, I have been through anger management, marriage counseling, personal counseling and home personal therapy. Because of the incident last year, there was a possibility that my husband would not be allowed to re-enlist. I found this out about 4 months ago. So because of my GAD, OCD, and extreme need to plan everything down to a T in advance, this possibility sent me over the edge. My jaw stayed clenched for months. A pain in my TMJ muscle began to develop due to the stress. Then I got the phone call. The call saying that all was well and he was allowed to re-enlist. YAY! You would have thought I would have a sudden tension release, but no. My body was so used to being tense, that it seemed impossible to reverse. It's been over a month now. I'm still perma-tensed.
Now to backtrack a little bit. I've had a sleep problem for years. Ever since the GAD actual began showing signs. There's been very few phases in my adult life that I've actually been able to just lay down and go to sleep. In my younger years, I needed virtually no sleep, so I would stay up until 2 or 3 am, finally fall asleep and wake up at 6 to do what I needed. After I moved out at 19, I found that a few drinks a night would effectively put me to sleep. And I would sleep well. It wasn't an all the time fix. Not at the time. As life progressed, I worked 1-2 jobs at all time, at which time, I would bust my butt and easily sleep exhausted. Since becoming a stay at home mom 8 years ago, and a military wife to boot, my life has become increasingly more stressful. I heard on the radio today that being a full time SAHM is the the MOST stressful job, scientific studies show that SAHM's have a higher stress level and are more frequently treated for anxiety and depression than mom's who work outside the home. Boy, did they ever get that one right!
So recently, I finally conceded. I admit that I have an alcohol dependency to sleep. I do not believe that I'm an alcoholic. I don't NEED to drink to get by. Just to sleep. So I sought out medical treatment. My doctor is very understanding. He knows I don't like to take pills or any kind of medication. But I also don't like that I feel this need to drink to sleep. I would LOVE to lay down and actually fall asleep within a half hour instead of 3 or 4 hours. So I'm doing medicine rotations to find something that helps with my anxiety and to help me sleep well at night. I'm on my second set of meds. The first was cyclobenzaprine (Ultam). I insisted on the lowest doses to assist me. It worked, sort of, after a couple glasses of wine (which, imo, is SO much better than 9 or 10 shots of liquor to sleep). I explained to the doc at my follow up, that the meds weren't as effective as I had hoped. So he prescribed Atarax. This drug is prescribed to treat allergic itching for the most part, but it also prescribed to treat anxiety (yay!), help with sleep (double yay!), and to ease alcohol withdrawal symptoms (ok, maybe?). Took it for the last time last night, slowly sipped on a glass of wine for over an hour. I woke up (actually overslept by 2 1/2 hours), feeling like I drank a huge amount of alcohol. At first I thought that this was a horrible thing. However, after eating breakfast and drinking a glass of water, I felt normal. All of a half an hour had passed since waking. So perhaps this is a side effect I can live with. I think that instead of taking the pill at 9 pm at night, perhaps I should take it around 7 pm, that way I can wake up on time and deal with the side effects before my kids ever get out of bed.
All that being said, this will still be a crafting blog as well, since crafting is the one thing that allows me to keep my sanity. It's methodical, intricate, delicate, and people with OCD definitely make better crafters, IMHO. So I will begin posting pics again of my projects. In the last year, I have made my first real quilt, finished Ebbie's blanket (which I started when she was 18 months, so it only took about 6 years to finish), and started on Izzy's matching blanket in purple. I also had Ebbie draw out a quilt design and color it. We went and bought the fabric in the color scheme she wanted. After all this was done, she told me that she wanted to make this blanket for Izzy since she, herself, already had a quilt. Sometimes she can be so sweet to her sister. And as I say that, they are in the office fighting and screaming at each other. LOL! So on with my life, making a change, taking charge and in the middle of my crafting, taking time to fix myself in an attempt to be as close to normal, or as close as possible for me.
If anyone is out there, stay tuned for progress reports, on myself and my crafting.
