i have taken the road less traveled..(and forgot how to get back!!!)

had a good day today!!! spent the day with my step mom and son it was nice and i noticed that staying busy really keeps my mind off of the things that upset me or can't get out of my head. i feel like sometimes i am a child. i can't seem to make up my mind. when i finally get what i thought i wanted it turns out i really didn't want it or do not want it anymore. and i think i know why. i am in a constant doubt of myself, like any decision i make is going to be wrong. and that makes me scared as well. it seems like i can't make an adult decision anymore.. it is so frustrating to be me sometimes!! i just hate looking back and remembering how confident and smart and funny and beautiful i used to be and realizing i have come SO far, just in the opposite direction. i feel like i have backtracked so much i don't even remember where i came from sometimes.. i have lost myself...and forgot which way to go to look for me again........

I have recently discovered that i still feel as if i have to keep my son as close as possible.  not only that but i feel that he will get hurt if i do not watch his every move. this hinders his growth especially since he is a 4 year old boy he doesn't want his mother fallowing him around all over the place. i feel like he is going to get hurt and if i watch him all the time then i can stop him before it happens. this anxiety is so frustrating, i feel like i am screwing him up with everything i don't allow him to do i feel like its something he is missing out on or something he may need to learn and isn't. but then again it is like one time i do allow him to do something and he gets extremely hurt and i feel as if i am not going to be able to sleep for a year now! i just do not understand or know what i am supposed to do. i wish i could just be normal, like i could just wake up and go through a day without worrying about something bad happening to my son or my family, that i could just be able to feel something other than fear. i am hoping that eventually with my therapy i will be able to do so, it just seems somedays i feel lower than others. i just want my son to have a good life. i feel as if me and my husband have had such messed up childhoods i feel like i have to break that cycle, i want that more than anything. but am i trying too hard? do i want it so bad that i am doing the opposite? My mother had a hard childhood as well and in someways i feel like she has instilled fear in me. not that it is her fault that i am so messed up but that in some way she may have affected me more than she thought she had, especially when it came to any sort of unwanted sexual advances. I find myself thinking about thinks of that nature as well as other ways people can harm my son..living in fear is something i would never wish on anybody. it is horrible and i am just trying so hard to push through and be strong enough to not completely shut down. I feel sometimes like i am in a constant battle within myself. like my brain wants me to be scared but my heart wants so much for my son to be able and i feel like i am constantly telling him no because i am afraid.... i just want him to be happy, i just want him to flourish and grow into an even more wonderful person than he at 4 already is. my son is my entire world and i just don't want my own fears to hinder him.

lack of sleep has gotten me where?

i feel like i have been through hell and back these last couple weeks. my patience has been tested as well as my stress level and anxieties. my physical health has been questionable lately so i have been dealing with many doctors appointments as well as blood draws and other tests. and the fear of not knowing many things is definatly starting to get to me. i feel as if there are fifty million possibilities of things that could possibly be wrong with me and waiting another week is going to drive me insane!!! on top of me having to worry about my own physical health my poor baby has contracted some sort of stomach virus and has been sick for the last 4 days.,but it is as if he is fine for a couple days and then it comes back for a vengeance. i am currently sitting on my couch with my poor son on my lap and a bowl at my feet, just in case he gets sick again. my eyes are droopy and my stomach and heart is in knots. i know that tonight is going to be such a long night for the fact that i am so worried that it could be so many things and the fact that his doctors office can't seem to get him in until next week makes it even worse. these are the time when i can not wait to get started on healing myself i mean yes of course being a mom you worry about your children and empathize too the umth degree when they aren't feeling well but it is as if i make my own self sick stressing over him being sick. this anxiety has got me literally sick to my own stomach. i hate that i can't just shut my brain off long enough to get a good nights sleep, long enough to feel rested. i am so mentally and physically exhausted that i am so frustrated that i can't seem to sleep and i know that it will come in due time, that me doing the work with my therapist and everything but this is definitely the one thing that i really want some instant gratification here. since that really is not possible i will just sit here and listen to the suttle and relaxing sounds of my sick baby sleeping.

fixing myself

now that i have decided to do this blog i guess i need to mention why it is i did so. i mention that i am a 24 year old woman with a 4 year old son and a husband who is in therapy. now to elaborate some on these things.here goes...
    I come from a not so normal upper lower class family (not poor but no where near comfortable) my mother and father met in high school and gave birth to their first child my brother when they were 17 years old, following him came me then my sister and my little brother who didn't make it. Neither of my parents graduated from high school, and they were both heavy drug users as i was a child. my parents separated when i was about 3 years old and my mother then remarried my now stepfather and eventually had a 5th child with him. my dad went on to have 2 more children before settling down with his wife now and having one last one. my step father broke his neck in a tragic accident when i was very young and was rendered disabled so he could not work, this in turn meant my mother had to off and on work 3 jobs to help support her family of six. my parents are in no way perfect, and did the best i think they could with the tools they were given. which we now know sadly was not nearly good enough to raise fully functioning and capable members of society. my parents eventually cleaned up their act and stoped using drugs when i was about 7, it took my dad well after that to clean himself up. i think he used till  I  was about 11 or 12. my mother and step father years later developed a second addiction. they became alcoholics when i was in 8th grade, and continue to drink heavily to this day. it was extremely hard being one of the eldest in a family whose parents are alcoholics and who also has an older brother who has some health and mental issues. i was forced into a very nurturing and care taker role at a very young age. I graduated high school at 17 and then worked for 6 months at a fast food restaurant before realizing that the small town i come from wasn't the place where my dreams would lead me. I packed up the things i could fit into 2 suitcases and headed to my biological fathers house. i moved out of the parents who had raised me house when i was 18 to live with my biological father who i in all reality knew very little about. i got their Jan 3rd of 2006, i was 18 and free of all the responsibilities i had grown up with.. i felt truly free for the first time and it was magnificent. i got to go to clubs and drink and make mistakes and just be young. i met the man that would become my husband June 13th of 2006 at a narcotics anonymous camping trip that my uncle dragged me too. he just so happened to be my uncles best friends son. we met and weren't very interested in each other as funny as it is.and just as  fate would have it we ran into each other about 3 weeks later at a 4th of July party at, where else my uncles house of course.. he had a pool!! we decided we were going to hang out after the party and ended up hanging out and talking until 6am the next day. there was this strange connection that drew us to each other from the start, it seems looking back now. we went our separate ways that morning without so much as a touch or even an exchange of numbers, the following day i went about 3 hours away to visit my best friend and her daughter where she lived and i just couldn't seem to get this guy out of my head and of course as girls do had to catch my friend up on everything that had happened. i stayed with her for 12 days and that entire time i could not get this man out of my head. i came home the 16th of July and that night ended up going to a party with my cousin at her best friends house and low and behold who shows up but my 4th of July guy!! it was as if fate had realigned the stars for us and we have been together ever since that fateful night at that party 5 years ago. we then welcomed our son a little less than a year after we first met in June of 2007. he was a beautiful 8lb 0oz 21 1/2 in child and he was all ours. i went through 26 1/2 hours of very intense excruciating labor as well as a very traumatic birth. i almost lost my beautiful son during deliver as well as myself. well luckily we are both obviously fine but that is where my story of anxiety begins. the doctors have told me that because of that one significant traumatic event it triggered something in my brain that went haywire. i am clinically diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (yes the one you hear so commonly from soldiers fighting in war.) as well as severe anxiety and sleep deprivation. my PTSD they said was cemented by a significant event in my life when i was 2 years old. i was beaten with a chair leg by a relative while my mother was out shopping for groceries. and because no one ever thought to get me help for that event i have forever been living in that so called "fight or flight" state of mind, and all of the other traumatic events(and there are more than a few) have only added to the severity of the syndrome. but it just so happens that the birth and almost losing the one person i care for More than life itself was the one that made it snap almost. like a dominoes  that was the one that knocked them all over...it is now to the point where is affecting me in the daily functioning of life. i can no longer do things as i used to, things that i used to take for granted. for instance, just walking down the road in front of someone else that may be walking down that same road. in that situation my mind would race to extreme thoughts as well as my heart would be pounding out of my chest by this time my breather would start to get harder and harder to take also i would be sweating profusely. it is an extreme disorder that people sometimes don't even realize they have. i was honestly in the frame of mind that i would have to live in either total fear or complete numbness for the rest of my life for that had become the normalcy of my life, until one day something inside me said NO you do not have to live like this, NO you ARE worth fixing. Yes you can do the work Yes you can be the best person you want to be. Here i am now beginning this journey i set in motion to do just that.. become the better best me i can be.. not only for me but for my son...here goes ME FIXING MYSELF....

discovering a better me..........

as i lay here tonight wondering why it is i can not fall asleep for another night my mind begins to wander and reflect upon my days activities, and has made me come to the realization that i may just take everything for granted.i go through my mind and realize due to my mental disruptions i may have a warped view on my days but here goes anyways... i awoke at 9am after a very long night of no sleep due to my poor sick son up all night with a stomach bug :( (by the way i am not complaining because i would stay up forever with my son if that is what it took just part of the story is all) determined to not lay around and actually get done the things i needed to get done today. i made breakfast, then got started on the house chores! i finished with everything i had to do around 1:45ish. then instead of playing with my son or reading him a book i just sat on the couch and watched tv.. looking back now my heart hurts because i know that it is time i can never get back and i feel as if i am being a bad mother. and no i am not saying this to get any type of "oh no your a great mom" or anything of that nature i just am writing my feelings down. i feel as if i take my time with my son for granted, but don't realize it until after the fact!!  i need to figure out a way to get out of this slump i need more energy, i need to get out of my head and into the frame of mind of the mommy i feel i used to be. i am hoping that this therapy will help but i also hope that i am not expecting too much from this.. i believe in a way that maybe i am too screwed up too fix...does that mean i will never be the person i want for my son? is it too late? i just want him to have the memories with me that i don't have with my mother..hell any of my parents....i just want to be a better me...

and so it begins....

Hello everyone who decides to venture into the mind of someone unknown to them. I am a 24 year old mother who recently started therapy. I am going to use my blog as a way of communicating with myself, sound strange? i am sure it does!! i have always been very vocal and outspoken until recently, lately i feel as if something is holding me back so in turn i am going to release in a healthy manner and write. hopefully someday this may even help someone else in the same situations i have been in, or may find myself in somewhere in the future.....  and so it begins........