It's An Idea Though.....

Tuesday was not my day folks. I wrote and I cleaned but I also suffered self inflicted boo boo's. Not on purpose mind you, but due to my ever present clumsiness. I often wonder if I was meant to be the fourth of the three stooges. I am still recovering and mad at myself for being so......me.

First I was cleaning the litter box and stood up without realizing I was under the valley of the ceiling and hit the back of my head so hard, I literally saw stars. I didn't know that could actually happen. I always thought that was a cartoon thing not a real life thing. Well, it is and it hurts. Then I managed to bump my head two more times on the table and cabinet door while picking up things.....wonderful.

The worst part was when I made dinner in the wok. I was cooking pepper steak and I had failed to realize that the meat was still frozen on the back side. When my oil was hot and ready I dumped the frozen meat into the wok and instead of it being chunks falling into the oil the whole slab of frozen meat clunked into the  pan. The frost on the back side of the meat hitting the hot oil coupled with the force of the meat hitting the pan made it splash all on the underside of my left arm.....wonderful. Now I have several red angry burn marks and a headache. Tuesday was just dandy.

Wednesday was better albeit sore and that leaves today. Good ol' Thursday.

I was checking the news and reading about mental illness as I usually do. I like to know what is being done or rather mostly not being done to help with our cause, our issues, and our treatments. I'm obsessive like that. Anyway, I was reading a really good article from USA Today called, "People With Mental Illness Face Legal Discrimination" and my initial reply to the title was, "no shit Sherlock". I mean, the article is great but this is hardly news. All of us with a mental illness are aware of this fact. I like that the article is bringing to light how the U.S. government views mental illness but I am not sure that articles and news stories will change a great deal. They are often overlooked and ignored, sadly.

What do I think we should do to change this? Well, I have some ideas, keep in mind I am crazy, but my main idea is to be counted. In the past when a group of people were openly discriminated against they protested. They held parades, they made flags, they were and are public and open. There is a gay parade. There is a Martin Luther King day. The reason many of these ideals and discriminations were changed was by the sheer force of numbers of minorities standing up and being proactive. Being public. Showing that they were out there and they were tired of being ignored and judged.

Yes we have walks, but they are not broadcast on the news. Yes we have mental illness month but it is largely ignored. We are not represented in a way that is positive enough nor are our protests heard as much as they need to be to make said changes to our broken system. We are still very much afraid. Don't get me wrong, news articles help but it is not enough.

Yes, even though there are parades and special days for other minority groups that have been discriminated against there is still some discrimination going around. But the big difference is that it is now considered politically incorrect to talk negatively about someone because of their religion, race, political affiliation, or sexual preference. It is looked down upon and is considered to be rude and ignorant and yet, it is perfectly acceptable to talk despairingly about people with mental illness. It is done in books, movies, and even on the nightly news. There is no political correctness  preventing people saying that we are worthless, scary, dangerous, or broken.

It's okay to deny us medical coverage when we need to be hospitalized for long periods for mental reasons. It is okay to say that we aren't employable or productive. That we are a plague on society. It is okay to arm chair diagnose people with supposed mental illness on television when they haven't even been seen by the diagnoser. Or to promote the idea that all mental illness sufferers are homeless or vice versa. It's kinda crazy out there folks.

And no one shames them for it. No one stands up and calls them on their obvious ignorance and misinformation. It is left where it lies and we are the ones that have to deal with the negative labels and false misconceptions.

We need a peaceful showing of solidarity. A walk through cities and towns with not just thirty or forty people but with thousands. We need our own color shirts and our own support ribbons, our own flag, our own representation that is positive. Just like how AIDS is looked at now. Where it was once treated with stigma and shame people now openly discuss it and wear support ribbons for it. It is no longer shrouded in ignorance and left under the shadows of indifference. It is remembered and recognized, mental illness is not.  And in many ways it is our fault because we let the fear and stigma hold us back. We do not convene by the thousands and walk so we can be positively promoted on the news. We do not hand out pamphlets that promote acceptance and understanding of mental illnesses. We are covertly operating when we need to be openly active. We have to demand change in this country and the only way to do that is by being seen and heard not by a few articles when the news is slow or a post or two as an after thought but by large numbers, by masses of sufferers and their supporters saying,  'We are here and we matter". We need to erase the stigma and shame that the title mental illness has draped over it. We shouldn't be ashamed. We have no reason to be. We shouldn't have to live fear. We shouldn't have to hide ourselves from the rest of the world. Mental illness should be viewed the same way as every other ribbon represented illness. It should be viewed the same as diabetes or heart disease. It should be viewed the same as lupus or cancer. It is an illness not a crime. It is not evil. It does not make you a threat no more than having HIV and yet there is plenty of support for all of these other medical issues. There should be no difference in support just because our issues are mental rather than medical.

And if you really think about, mental illness is discriminated against but it does not discriminate who it affects. It affects all races, all incomes, all religions, all sexual preferences. Statistically, that would mean it shouldn't be a minority, There are literally thousands upon thousands of us and that is just the people that have been diagnosed. What if we are not a minority group? What if we are just led to believe that because believing that we are small makes it easier to ignore what we go through and easier for us to not stand up and ask for our rights as human beings?

Every group that has changed the way they are viewed has had to do this and if we want things to change than we have to peacefully do it as well. We can't just hide behind our fear. It changes nothing when we do.

I don't maybe I hit my head too hard and I just over thinking things. I just feel like if we want things to change we have to be more outspoken and more visible....maybe this headache is taking it's toll and I am just rambling on like a mad woman. It's an idea though. What do you think?

Neurotic Nelly

Feeling Inadequate.......

You ever get that feeling where you are so annoyed you could literally claw your own face off? Yeah, I am in one of those moods. But I am perplexed because I have no reason to feel that way, I just do.

So I need to clean....like really bad. I am not sure if my house is really disgusting or if it is just my OCD but then again four cats, two kids, and a husband can really mess up a house quick. After dinner dishes can make my tiny kitchen look as though a food massacre has occurred.  A few misplaced cups can make my living room look like a factory that produces dirty drinking glasses. I don't know, it could be my anxiety. I feel on edge lately....edgy....like waiting for the other shoe to drop and I have no idea why. It bothers me, when I get like this. I mean, I get that OCD does that but I would like to have a discernible reason as to why I feel like I am waiting on something that never truly arises. I am just left feeling like this in a sort of anxiety ridden limbo. It sucks.


I have been feeling burnt out lately. Irritated. Annoyed. Frustrated. Under appreciated. Just all around yucky. I think I am going stir crazy. I think I need to get out and start walking again....I don't know get some air or something which leads me to my current dilemma.


I have a hard time finishing things. I mean, I can start them. I can even do them halfway but finishing them...that's a crap shoot. Usually ending more on the crap and less on the shoot. I have hundreds of examples. High school, beauty school, choir, craft shows, video games, my G.E.D test, learning french, making more videos of me singing, putting together my blog posts as a book, learning to ride the bus, walking more to lose more weight,  blah blah blah, ect, ect, ect. I don't know why I do this. I mean, I do want to or have wanted to desperately do these things and yet even if I get a running head start, I usually end up not finishing any of these tasks. Why? Sure, anxiety played a huge part in the schooling issue. My dyslexia makes me have to actually take time out of my day for tutoring for my G.E.D. I am still undecided on what posts I want to use in my book. I mean, there are reasons but holy crap, people have reasons all the time not to do things and yet they still manage to get them done....I am aware of that fact. You would think as someone with OCD I would be a master of scheduling and timing. Well, my OCD centers around the fear of germs and medical fears which is not conducive nor helpful in any thing currently going on in my life.....great (sarcasm). In fact, the only thing I have managed to do consistently in last year is write my blog posts. For some reason I haven't given up on that. I am thankful that I still write but I have no idea why I can write posts and not do these other things as well. Surely, writing in a blog is not an exclusive activity.

And then comes the dread and slight niggling of fear.....my oldest is going to the do the online school thing. It's a great option but I have this horrid fear that I am going to mess it up some how. I will be the one responsible for logging in his hours and checking e-mails from the teacher and I suck at schedules and repetitive actions that require me to be punctual and routine. I mean, I can't even remember to take my pills half of the time without telling my husband I did first, just in case I have to ask him whether or not I took them because the times get jumbled up in my mind. Damn OCD self doubt. The thought of having to actually keep all of this straight terrifies me. I am going to need a stop watch so I can log correctly because I want to do it right and I can't rely on me remembering what time he did which thing with just a normal clock. Trust me, I will get it all jumbled and most likely wrong. And the even worse fear is that I will have to finish doing this. I can not simply just let it fall to the wayside like other things. I am going to have continue no matter what. Which is a good thing because I have to stop starting things and then never finishing them. That's no way to live your life. I am so unhappy that I never finished doing something that I love, said no one ever.

So, I have to make some changes. Scary but doable. I am going to have to be more responsible and if that means getting a stop watch and an alarm to remind me to do certain things until they become a habit then I am just going to have to do it. I have to get over this not finishing curse that has plagued me my whole life and get with it. I am not going to allow my short comings to affect my kid's schooling. And I need to be happy with my choices, which means actually finishing some of the crap I seem to crap out on, like walking again. And sticking with it. I mean if I can blog for over a year I can certainly walk down the road and log into e-mails for God's sake. I just want to feel the satisfaction of finishing something meaningful and be able to say that I can do something all the way. I have some real fears that I am incapable of finishing things but then again that is probably just this stupid self doubt I carry around with me. It's hard to believe in my finishing things when I have so many examples of things I have not finished and so few examples of things I did. I guess I am just going to have to start dissecting my life and start working on finishing more of them until this fear of me being inadequate goes away. That's my plan anyway. Can't hurt to try, try, and try again...

Neurotic Nelly

A Disorder.....

I was reading an article today in which this person said he was proud to have OCD and didn't believe that it was a mental illness. In fact, he detested the implication that having OCD was anything other than a difference of personality. He did not consider it a disorder. He did not have negative feelings about it. He believed that almost all things listed as disorders were not necessarily disorders. He did not trust the people labeling them as such....and honestly the comments back at this guy were pretty aggressive. From other OCD sufferers claiming that if he thought it were just a difference of personality he must not actually have it. And I was left wondering why we do that. Why do we feel the need to judge other sufferers and scold them if they have a difference of opinion on their own diagnoses?

I don't agree with the guy mind you. OCD is definitely a mental illness. At the same time I can understand his side of the argument. Somethings that are considered "disorders" in my opinion may not actually fit the definition.

Disorder- a state of confusion.

Like ADD for instance. It is an impairment but only to the conventional ways of learning and thinking. And there are a lot of people with ADD and ADHD that look at it as something other than a disorder. When we look at people that have suffered from ADD and ADHD, we may see a lack of focus on certain things but a huge amount of creativity and focus on other things.  In fact, some of the greatest minds in history have been diagnosed with ADD and ADHD and even though they struggled they were still able to do amazing things and create new ideas that one else had ever considered before. Is ADD or ADHD a disorder or do we need to really look at it as a different way to learn and experience the world? And before I am taken and tared and feathered for saying that, my oldest has ADD. He is bright, intelligent, funny, and extremely creative. He struggles in classes he finds monotonous and boring but in classes where they are hands on and teach him in a way where he is actively involved....he does much better. I have started to look at his ADD as something else rather than just a disorder. I look at it as a way he learns. Which is different from mine, but that doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it different. It makes him different and in many cases smarter than I was at that age. I have a hard time believing that what he has is wrong and have started to believe that the way we teach may be flawed. He has to learn a different way and maybe instead of trying to confine all children and forcing them to learn the old way isn't necessarily right. Maybe he has an impairment or maybe he is of a higher intelligence and the regular way of teaching lacks the way to reach him. Maybe his brain simply has to be stimulated and sitting in a class where power points and long drawn out lectures are the norm, just may not be stimulating enough. Maybe he has an ability we confuse as a disorder because we lack the ability to understand it. I don't always understand what he goes through but the one thing I do know is that what he has is not a state of confusion. He is inattentive not confused. I sometimes think maybe we are the ones that are confused because we are unable to get on his level and understand how his brain retains knowledge. Maybe it isn't him...maybe it is us. Maybe we have the disorder rather than those that have ADD and ADHD.

And if we follow this way of thinking, I can understand what the guy was trying to say with his post.

For me, OCD is a disorder. It is a state of confusion for all of those involved. It does have some positives as well as many negatives. It is a different way of living. It does make things complicated and yet you tend to appreciate things more.

And that leads me to why I understand this man's post. I disagree with him, but on the other hand I do believe that all of us deal with our issues the way we deal with them. I for one, feel that my OCD is a huge part of who I am. I can't say that something I have had since the age of four hasn't changed me or shaped who I am. It has and it does. It makes me more sensitive to other's pain because I understand pain on a very real level. It makes me hold all that I have dear to me, because at one time I felt very much alone. It does have an impact on my day to day life and not all of it is positive. In fact, on many days it is a visceral struggle to accomplish my plans. It has left me unable to work. Unable to go out of my house as much as I would like. Unable to do a great deal of many things that I fight to do on a daily basis. I don't know what life is like when you are "normal" because I have had it since early childhood so I do not remember what "normal" feels like. And therefore, I do not know who I would be without it or what my life would be like. I can't say that it doesn't define me because in many ways, it does. It isn't all of me but it is a great deal of me. I could say otherwise but that would be a lie, and I don't lie.

I am not proud to have OCD but then on the other hand I am proud that I am a survivor of it. That I am a fighter. That I am open and honest and trying to turn my struggles and hardships into something more positive by writing and trying to help enlighten others on how OCD affects people. I am not proud of OCD but I refuse to be ashamed of it either. So I can understand his point of view to a degree. And I believe it is his right to believe what he chooses. Whether he wants to be proud of it or not.

Then I am disheartened by the comments he received. Why are we jumping all over his beliefs? We don't have to agree with him but we don't have to be defensive and insulting either. We know what OCD is like. We know the pain and devastation it causes. What right do we have to insult and demean his ability to accept OCD as anything other than how we perceive it to be? If he feels that for him it is a way of life and not a disorder then why can't we just let him believe that way? Why must he conform to our ideas of OCD?


Is OCD hard? Yes. Is it hell? Absolutely. Do we suffer? Yes. Does that mean we have to be insensitive to the other people that suffer the same disorder? No. And we shouldn't judge. Because frankly, every single one of us has been judged for having it. We are all familiar with what that feels like. Maybe he doesn't want to see OCD as a bad thing. Maybe he has decided to accept it in a different way? Maybe he wants to view the beast in his mind as something positive? Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong to believe that different is okay?

I wrestle with this conundrum. I hate my OCD and yet I am also thankful for it because although I suffer I know who I am. I like who I am. I like my life and without it, my life would be completely different. Maybe it wouldn't be as good as this one. Maybe I would never have had my children or spent the time to really have gotten to know myself. Who knows?

But what I do know is that we shouldn't be yelling and condemning each other. We should be supportive of each other especially, since we know what it is like to live with OCD. Weird opinions or not we should have each other's backs. In a world when we are judged by everyone else do we really need to be throwing that same judgement at our own sufferers? Can't we have different beliefs about our diagnoses and still support one another? I wonder....I really do.


Neurotic Nelly

She Believes I Can.......

On a day that we celebrate Dads, I would like to write a post celebrating my mom. Weird I know but my biological father has never been in the picture and the most hardships of raising me for many years, solely fell to my mother. I can not imagine the frustration, the agony, the devastation she must have went through....raising me. A good kid. A smart kid. A sensitive kid who suffered from severe OCD. It was hard to deal with, especially in a time when OCD was not well known or diagnosed. As a parent I can now understand more the trials she went through with me because no loving parent wants to watch their children suffer and I suffered everyday.

It is like having an invisible beast living inside your head. The fear and anxiety it drums up are insurmountable. We know, as the sufferer, that what we are afraid of makes no sense and yet the fear is so very real. Palpable. Tactile. You can almost taste it. You can feel it physically and we know that is not possible but yet here it is. Making us feel like our skin is covered in it or worse.

As I got older the symptoms changed from the usual ones associated with OCD to more terrifying and more hard to understand pureO symptoms. What must have it been like for her to watch me turn from touching doorknobs twenty four times a day to me jamming my fingers in my ears with tears in my eyes asking her why I should continue on living when my life was pure hell? It must have been totally devastating. I can not imagine what it was like for her to watch her child be in so much pain.

And although I got therapy, there was no CBT at that time. Very little understanding of treatments for OCD except  drug trials and therapies that often times didn't work. I kept wondering when I would get over this curse. This hell I called a mental disorder. This life altering, painful, life stealing mental illness that was slowly sucking away everything good in my life.

School became almost impossible. Some days I would make it to the car. Some days even to the school building. Some days I even made it inside only to have a panic attack and go home after lunch. And those were the good days. The days when I wasn't washing my hands till they bled or praying to God to fix me while rocking back and forth on the floor in desperation. I just wanted to be normal like the other kids. Why did I have to live like this? What could I have done to deserve being punished by my own mind this badly? How was this fair?

Having no CBT meant I had to do my own form of it. Baptism by fire, so to speak. We did all of the things I was afraid of. We even went to the school and I made myself go, even if I had to leave. Even if other kids didn't understand what was wrong with me. Even if I seemed like the oddity, the weirdo, the freak. I played normal well a lot of the time so some days it worked and some days it didn't. My poor mother would wait for me in the parking lot and watch me walk up to the doors. She would wait and pray that I could go inside the building but she would be there to pick up the pieces if I couldn't. She would be there to calm me when I would blame myself for failing to do yet another normal thing other people could do. She would be there to hold my hand. Wipe away my tears. Remind me that tomorrow was another day and we would try again.

God knows how many times I would ask her if I was still a good person, a worthy person, a lovable person. If I were worth all of this struggle and complication. How many times my OCD made me seek reassurances that I would be okay, that she would be okay, that she would not die from lupus when I was at school, or that the car wouldn't crash and kill us both when we were going to the store. Silly fears that to others seem unimportant, became breath stopping, heart pounding realities for me. How many times did I repeat my fears (and there were so many) to her over and over again. Ask and repeat, ask and repeat, ask and repeat....then came the medications and all of the issues that came with side effects. Drowsiness, mania, loss of hair and nails breakage to the quick, stomach pains, rashes, sometimes confusion. Many medications over the years with little to no success. That must have been hard for her as well. Always she was there to offer support. Never reprimanding me for being repetitive or scared. For being what I felt was broken. She never yelled at me or chastised me even on the most frustrating of days or the the most painful of nights. And looking back she must have cried, she must have been utterly dumbfounded and devastated. But I never knew, she never let me know....

As I grew I began to realize that my OCD was not going to go away. I would always live with it. I would not ,in fact, ever be like the other kids in my school I admired so much for their ability to do the normalist of tasks, without fear. Without that overwhelming sense of dread. This was me and this was going to be my life whether I liked it or not. Whether I was prepared to deal with it or not. I would always be a good person, a smart person, a sensitive person but also a person with severe OCD.  And I was blessed at the same time. Because although, I was always going to have to deal with fears and anxiety and intrusive thoughts, my mother was there to help me. To make sure that I knew I was worthy. I mattered. I had a place in this word, even when I was younger and I wasn't sure of that fact.

I always knew that my mother was a great mom, but I am not sure I understood just how great until I became a parent myself and was able to look at it through new eyes. The eyes of someone who would do absolutely anything to help their child and to take away any pain that they go through. I can now see how difficult and heartbreaking it must have been to not be able to remove my pain or even lessen it like a parent would wish to. I marvel at her strength and her love. I am humbled by her persistence. I am thankful that she is my mother because quiet honestly I am not sure I would have made it without her by my side.

I am not sure why I wrote this, except to say to those of you out there struggling with this disorder, it can be done. You can learn to live with it. It is hard but it is worth it. You can live a life with OCD and not just a life but a good one. Maybe you wont be like other people but you will be you and you are worthy of happiness and love. You do matter in this world. You are important and you do belong.

I guess I wrote this to honor my mom who has been my champion all of my life and to thank her. To thank her for inspiring me to keep trying even when it seemed impossible to try. For always being there for me to talk to and to offer me support. For always believing in me and remaining positive when I was not so positive about myself. She believes that I can use my hardships and pain from my OCD for good. That my blog can be helpful to others. I hope so. I hope it can shed some light on not just OCD but mental illness as a whole. I know that I try because she believes I can. Just like she always has.

Thing's I Learned.....

Well, I have found at that being more social is fun albeit, exhausting. This weekend was rife with family and trips and such. As a virtual shut in, it was exciting to get out and be out of the house. Away from the regular activities and scenery.  I haven't gotten the bus pass and tried the bus trips. I am planning on doing them to learn the bus system and to get out more. Working on it and I am still a little apprehensive but I think I can do it. Anxiety be damned. Sometimes I am irritated by the way I have become. I remember when I was able to do such things without a second thought. Ugh.

And as a history buff, I so want to go downtown and take pictures of the ghost signs painted on a number of the buildings. (ghost signs = old painted advertisements that are faded). That is a good incentive I think.

So, we spent the weekend at my mom's house. We had water fights and tried to grill my famous bacon wrapped pork chops but the grill caught on fire and after we finally got that put out, we ran out of gas and had to bake them....I hate gas grills for obvious reasons.  The night time was calm and serene and we listened to the people on the lake boats get drunk, play Sweet Home Alabama, and sing badly to it. We did work around the house for my grandma and I was going to give her a pedicure and paint her nails but we ran out of time. Her toenails will have purple glitter polish on them next time, trust.

I learned a few things. One, that my mother has developed a new type of snore that sounds a bit like eating an apple. That her husband has full conversations in his sleep with himself. That the quietest place in the whole house is my grandma's apartment because her oxygen machine drowns everything out and that will be where I sleep next time. I seriously thought her husband was talking to someone on the phone for the first twenty minutes until I realized he was talking in his sleep next to my mom who was busy eating imaginary apples made of air.....

I also learned that this is out there somewhere....I don't know what it is. What freaks me out is not just that it looks like some kind of moth, spider, alien snot hybrid...but that this is an exoskeleton. That's right folks, it's not just out there......it's bigger.......yikes.

Then after the wonderful weekend at mom's we went to the zoo to celebrate my youngest getting on the A honor roll twice this year. Something that our school district does to support better grades and the kids love it. We had a good time. It was thankfully overcast so I did not end up looking like I belonged in the lobster exhibit.  However the amount of people was sometimes overwhelming for me. I almost had a panic attack in the reptile house. It had alligators in it which I don't like, but the real issue was it was stuffy in there, and crowded, and there were very loud angry babies screaming to their mothers about something or other. I had to make a quick exit before I totally freaked out.

Then it was on to the gorillas which also made me sad because they looked depressed in their tiny habitats. I wish they would make it bigger so they could have more room and not have to see some of the people being total asshats trying to get them to be more monkey like and do something impressive. They are animals people, not your television sets. They are not here to amuse you. Poor things. It just made me want to cry. What kind of life must they have to be stared and mocked at constantly with no where to run or be free. I felt like I knew what that may be like, the urge to run free but the inability to do so.  I understand the feeling of being caged, we are not so different.

I think my favorite animal was the manatee. God, it looked like this glorious grey bubble of blubber that floats and swims and it was.....well freaking adorable. It had a baby with it which made the warm and fuzzies come back to me. It got tired halfway through the swim though, and decided to take a nap at the bottom of the pool. It's habitat also looked quite small.

I don't know maybe it is just me but I feel like the animals need more respect and bigger places to live. It just seems sad to me that they can see us. The lack of privacy is staggering, and I understand that it is a zoo but jeez do we have to be so close to them. Can't we give them a better place to live that doesn't seem so damned dreary and depressing? Maybe I am just projecting my own feelings but it seemed wrong somehow. This zoo is just not big enough for these magnificent animals. They deserve better.

Then we took the train ride. I love the train ride. The kids liked it too. I was distracted though, because this kid walked by me in line. He looked like he was looking for someone. He was about 9 or 10. I could see his bottom lip quiver and I got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know the signs of anxiety sure as I know the back of my own hand and I knew he was feeling it. I knew just knew he was lost. I thought surely someone would say something to him but no one did. I watched him as he scoured the line and when he walked past me again I asked if he was alright. He was so upset he just unloaded with tears and panic that he had lost his family member and I grabbed him, hugged him and told him it would all be okay. We would get help. He was going to find them. I used the same pet names I use with all kids, honey, baby, son, ect. Trying to calm him because you could practically feel his fear emanating from him in waves. Well, I could anyway. He calmed a little as I promised I wouldn't leave him till we found some help. My husband pointed out one of the zoo workers and I handed him off to her but it took me like 5 mins to stop the tears falling from my face. Ugh. I hate that I get so overemotional. I was worried about that kid the whole 30 mins waiting on the train and the whole train ride. I knew when it is was over I was going to have to track down the zoo worker I handed him off to so I could make sure he was okay. I just kept imagining my kids going through something like that and it was tearing me up inside. I found her and yes, he had found his family member...Thank God. After that everything was great and we were on our way home. The trip was good but oh my god I was sooooo exhausted both physically and emotionally.

We all went to bed early that night. Lol.

I learned somethings on that trip as well. One, animals deserve more respect. Two, always keep an eye on your kids because it is so easy to get separated and lost. And three look around at the people around you and pay attention.. Someone might need your help and if you can offer that help, then do it for the love of God. Get involved. Don't just sit back and watch things unfold. We are all human beings and we all need to treat others with love and respect.

So, in short I had a great and tiring weekend. Learned lot's of things. I am behind on my blogging and house cleaning. But it was all worth it. Also I promise to make it out of the house more and be more socially active outside of the computer because, you know I can do this stuff. Even if it freaks me out a little.


Neurotic Nelly

Awesome....

So I had my scope and it was great news. No stones! Small ulcer but nothing that is tragic or scary... I am so relieved. Thank you all so much for your prayers and supportive positive thoughts. I know they helped me immensely!!! Will be back with my regular post on Tuesday. Till then have a great weekend!

Neurotic Nelly

Ughhhhh.....

I didn't write yesterday as I knew it would be about my upcoming scope/possible surgery tomorrow and I was trying to distract myself from the thought of it.  That is the only thing i have left in my bag of tricks. Distraction = less anxiety. And I was doing well until today, because, well you know it is tomorrow. So I am scared. Scared hell, I am petrified. Ugh I hate this sooo much. I really do.

The anxiety is broiling up inside the pit of my stomach and is creeping into my my chest. My heart races and my eyes water. I feel like I am on the verge of having a complete panic attack. That awful feeling of dread and impending doom. I am so sick of these stupid surgeries and scopes and all of this crap. Ugh!!!!! Just, Ughhhhhhhhh!

I am so scared and I get this way every time. I don't want to go. I don't want to have it done. I don't wanna!!! But I have to find out what is wrong. Sigh...God help me.

So obviously I won't be writing a post tomorrow. Sigh. I am sorry guys this post isn't very upbeat or inspirational. I promise to write better ones soon. I just can't stop obsessing about this issue right now.

Please pray for me if you are the praying sort and for those of you who are not, I could use all of your positive vibes/thoughts. Thanks and see you hopefully on Friday explaining how everything went.

Neurotic Nelly