If I keep laughing about this, does it mean I've completely lost it?
- Thread starter flutterby
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totoro
Mom? What's a difficult child?
I love it!!! That was our psychiatrist last week... she said well we can honestly add Autism on as well. This was after the possible Schizo 2 months before so now K has just about every diagnosis there is out there as well!!!
Can I come play in the meadow as well!!!
I just said lets leave it at what have for now OK!!! YEAH let's all laugh!
Can I come play in the meadow as well!!!
I just said lets leave it at what have for now OK!!! YEAH let's all laugh!
flutterby
Fly away!
difficult child and I went to Petsmart to get stuff for the rats she's getting tomorrow. They have kitties there that they are sponsoring for various humane societies.
This one kitty - he is such a sweetheart. He's 3 years old and a big cat. And I started talking to him through the glass and put my finger on the glass, and he rubbed his head against the glass where my finger was. Then he started pawing at my finger. He was purring and kneeding with his paws.
And I broke down and started crying in the middle of Petsmart. And I couldn't stop. People were staring at me and difficult child just thought I was crying about the kitty - which I was, I mean who would give up a kitty like that and he didn't belong in the cage that wasn't big enough for him. But, it was just the hardship of it all. The kitty, difficult child, the lack of mental health resources, the stress, the worry, the tirade from my mom, trying so hard and still being unable to help difficult child. It's just too much.
In the course of 24 hours, I've gone from laughing, to being numb, to feeling raw like every nerve in my body is exposed.
This one kitty - he is such a sweetheart. He's 3 years old and a big cat. And I started talking to him through the glass and put my finger on the glass, and he rubbed his head against the glass where my finger was. Then he started pawing at my finger. He was purring and kneeding with his paws.
And I broke down and started crying in the middle of Petsmart. And I couldn't stop. People were staring at me and difficult child just thought I was crying about the kitty - which I was, I mean who would give up a kitty like that and he didn't belong in the cage that wasn't big enough for him. But, it was just the hardship of it all. The kitty, difficult child, the lack of mental health resources, the stress, the worry, the tirade from my mom, trying so hard and still being unable to help difficult child. It's just too much.
In the course of 24 hours, I've gone from laughing, to being numb, to feeling raw like every nerve in my body is exposed.
Marguerite
Active Member
Heather, I find that I tend to insulate my mind to a certain extent. Occasionally, such as when a media team interviews me (or at least, this happened in the past), I would have to face a difficult question such as "How do you cope emotionally with knowing that things for you will never be normal?" and I fight back tears. But even if a media crew is on the way, I find such questions don't throw me any more, I've already 'hardened up' and have my pat answer ready.
We have our moments of vulnerability. For me, it was the PTSD after the bushfires/difficult child 3's birth that did for me. I knew I needed help; I knew I had a very narrow window of opportunity before my mind succeeded in burying all the bad emotions. The PTDS did damage, but it also provided an opportunity I HAD to grab, to get help while things were raw and out there on the surface. Trouble was, by the time I was able to get help (appointments take time), I'd already started to bury it again. This wasn't self-sabotage, merely self-protection.
When the flashbacks happen, there isn't generally a shrink on the horizon. Instead, you have an appointment scheduled for a neat and tidy 3.30 pm next Wednesday week, and where is the flashback then?
So we do whatever we can to cope. Laughter does help. Having a sense of humour helps.
I wrote an article once, on the humour of it all, raising kids with autism. The funny comments, the funny happenings - I found it was mostly others in the same situation who 'got' the humour. I think a lot of readers were a bit horrified that I was able to find humour in some of the situations; they would have been mortified (such as difficult child 3 as a bird-obsessed toddler, always wanting to chase pigeons in the park; only he then saw a flock of pigeons around McDonalds INSIDE Sydney Central Station Country Terminal with it's high vaulted ceilings; a crowded McDonalds, difficult child 3 running madly chasing a thousand pigeons which took off and flew panicked round the huge crowds of customers trying to juggle trays of coffee, burgers, shakes etc and us trying to catch the kid and adding to the chaos. Gotta laugh, but on the run before the security people find you)
If you don't laugh, you cry. You need to do both.
Heather, it is a sign that you desperately need to talk to your own therapist. It should be a professional, but you can sometimes find the best help in surprising places (like us). For me, I took myself off to a psychiatrist who was (allegedly) an expert in PTSD. However, he turned out to be useless. I spoke to friends who were psychologists - two of them. Both had willingly offered their unofficial services; both chickened out after one session (found what I had to say too harrowing). The best help came form the husband of the local church minister, who had organised counselling to be available for the entire community. EVERYONE in the community had PTSD; mine had hit harder and faster because of difficult child 3's birth three weeks later, also traumatic. So I slammed into PTSD while the rest of the town slowly slid into it. I was in recovery (to some extent) just as everyone else was starting to show symptoms. This man was a wonderful help to me. He would drop in for coffee, he would listen, but most important of all - he would ask the right questions to get my mind thinking. I needed to think in the right way. Not just thinking about how I AM a worthwhile person after all - that wasn't what I needed. He instead asked me to identify the emotions, really dig and try to find what other events in t he past had the same emotions, and why. Also think about when I had not been able to follow through the recovery process in the past. So while the psychiatrist had been treating me as a depressive, my friend identified the main emotion as ANGER. Massive amounts of it, threatening to turn in on me, for failing to respond to it. So thoughts like, "You're a wimp for not dealing with this "had some legitimacy, to my tortured mind, because I was angry and not expressing it.
I'm not saying that my emotions then are the same as yours, but the problems for me were a build-up of negative emotions never resolved, building up like plaque on your teeth until decay and serious health problems set in.
You can regularly clean your teeth to prevent plaque build-up, but some sneaks through. After a while, you need a dentist to remove the tartar that the plaque turns into. If you don't, then the tartar can form into spicules that dig into your gums, make them bleed and can lead to serious gum disease, eventually loss of bone in the jaw and loss of teeth.
You can help yourself to a certain extent, but after a while, you need help from an expert. You still need to be involved and work with them, but things can get to a point where you can't find your own way to help yourself. For me, it was like the Gordian knot, a massive tangle of rope that many warrior attempts failed to unravel, because I couldn't even find the loose end to make a start. Therapy helped me find the loose ends and once I had them, I was able to make some progress on my own. However, I was very fragile emotionally for a long time and I know I never dealt with it all - I still have this 'calm' around me, this ability to shut down the emotions and just deal with the problem.
Some of this 'calm' is probably real calm, now. I have endured so much, what little more is THIS? And some of it is, I am now REALLY skilled at burying emotions. NOT healthy. I know I worry people at how I'm coping emotionally with the cancer diagnosis. I worry myself - but I can't find any hidden, nasty emotions no matter how deep I dig. So getting professional help right now on this would, for me, be futile. I just need to keep tabs on how I am emotionally and keep touching base with myself.
The important thing, really important, is to be sufficiently self-aware to yell for help (and go get it) when you realise you need it.
Use humour when your mind gives it to you as a gift. Remember, many of the word's best comedians are not exactly sane. Depression is common - not caused by the humour, but there long before. Some famous comics have suicided. In more recent times, such people have access to better mental health and get treatment, often for bipolar. Their humour is a gift - not just therapy for themselves, but also a gift for us, it becomes imposed mental health available for us all.
So Heather - get help for yourself, but in the meantime, laugh when you can. It will help you.
Try writing down your emotions and if you can identify the cause, write that down too. It will help you get back in touch with how you're going when you share this file with a therapist.
Marg
We have our moments of vulnerability. For me, it was the PTSD after the bushfires/difficult child 3's birth that did for me. I knew I needed help; I knew I had a very narrow window of opportunity before my mind succeeded in burying all the bad emotions. The PTDS did damage, but it also provided an opportunity I HAD to grab, to get help while things were raw and out there on the surface. Trouble was, by the time I was able to get help (appointments take time), I'd already started to bury it again. This wasn't self-sabotage, merely self-protection.
When the flashbacks happen, there isn't generally a shrink on the horizon. Instead, you have an appointment scheduled for a neat and tidy 3.30 pm next Wednesday week, and where is the flashback then?
So we do whatever we can to cope. Laughter does help. Having a sense of humour helps.
I wrote an article once, on the humour of it all, raising kids with autism. The funny comments, the funny happenings - I found it was mostly others in the same situation who 'got' the humour. I think a lot of readers were a bit horrified that I was able to find humour in some of the situations; they would have been mortified (such as difficult child 3 as a bird-obsessed toddler, always wanting to chase pigeons in the park; only he then saw a flock of pigeons around McDonalds INSIDE Sydney Central Station Country Terminal with it's high vaulted ceilings; a crowded McDonalds, difficult child 3 running madly chasing a thousand pigeons which took off and flew panicked round the huge crowds of customers trying to juggle trays of coffee, burgers, shakes etc and us trying to catch the kid and adding to the chaos. Gotta laugh, but on the run before the security people find you)
If you don't laugh, you cry. You need to do both.
Heather, it is a sign that you desperately need to talk to your own therapist. It should be a professional, but you can sometimes find the best help in surprising places (like us). For me, I took myself off to a psychiatrist who was (allegedly) an expert in PTSD. However, he turned out to be useless. I spoke to friends who were psychologists - two of them. Both had willingly offered their unofficial services; both chickened out after one session (found what I had to say too harrowing). The best help came form the husband of the local church minister, who had organised counselling to be available for the entire community. EVERYONE in the community had PTSD; mine had hit harder and faster because of difficult child 3's birth three weeks later, also traumatic. So I slammed into PTSD while the rest of the town slowly slid into it. I was in recovery (to some extent) just as everyone else was starting to show symptoms. This man was a wonderful help to me. He would drop in for coffee, he would listen, but most important of all - he would ask the right questions to get my mind thinking. I needed to think in the right way. Not just thinking about how I AM a worthwhile person after all - that wasn't what I needed. He instead asked me to identify the emotions, really dig and try to find what other events in t he past had the same emotions, and why. Also think about when I had not been able to follow through the recovery process in the past. So while the psychiatrist had been treating me as a depressive, my friend identified the main emotion as ANGER. Massive amounts of it, threatening to turn in on me, for failing to respond to it. So thoughts like, "You're a wimp for not dealing with this "had some legitimacy, to my tortured mind, because I was angry and not expressing it.
I'm not saying that my emotions then are the same as yours, but the problems for me were a build-up of negative emotions never resolved, building up like plaque on your teeth until decay and serious health problems set in.
You can regularly clean your teeth to prevent plaque build-up, but some sneaks through. After a while, you need a dentist to remove the tartar that the plaque turns into. If you don't, then the tartar can form into spicules that dig into your gums, make them bleed and can lead to serious gum disease, eventually loss of bone in the jaw and loss of teeth.
You can help yourself to a certain extent, but after a while, you need help from an expert. You still need to be involved and work with them, but things can get to a point where you can't find your own way to help yourself. For me, it was like the Gordian knot, a massive tangle of rope that many warrior attempts failed to unravel, because I couldn't even find the loose end to make a start. Therapy helped me find the loose ends and once I had them, I was able to make some progress on my own. However, I was very fragile emotionally for a long time and I know I never dealt with it all - I still have this 'calm' around me, this ability to shut down the emotions and just deal with the problem.
Some of this 'calm' is probably real calm, now. I have endured so much, what little more is THIS? And some of it is, I am now REALLY skilled at burying emotions. NOT healthy. I know I worry people at how I'm coping emotionally with the cancer diagnosis. I worry myself - but I can't find any hidden, nasty emotions no matter how deep I dig. So getting professional help right now on this would, for me, be futile. I just need to keep tabs on how I am emotionally and keep touching base with myself.
The important thing, really important, is to be sufficiently self-aware to yell for help (and go get it) when you realise you need it.
Use humour when your mind gives it to you as a gift. Remember, many of the word's best comedians are not exactly sane. Depression is common - not caused by the humour, but there long before. Some famous comics have suicided. In more recent times, such people have access to better mental health and get treatment, often for bipolar. Their humour is a gift - not just therapy for themselves, but also a gift for us, it becomes imposed mental health available for us all.
So Heather - get help for yourself, but in the meantime, laugh when you can. It will help you.
Try writing down your emotions and if you can identify the cause, write that down too. It will help you get back in touch with how you're going when you share this file with a therapist.
Marg
flutterby
Fly away!
Marg -
Thank you.
I'm very skilled at burying emotions, too. The only problem with that is eventually they come out somewhere.
I am seeing a therapist for myself. She is the same therapist who sees difficult child, but when I see her we talk about my stuff. Thing is, most of my 'stuff' has been difficult child.
I have always avoided dealing with anything that hits too close to home personally. I need to deal with past trauma. I have a very hard time with that, because I've buried it and unearthing it is....I don't even have words to describe it. I get very agitated, defensive, feeling vulnerable (a feeling I cannot tolerate), and then I end up not going back because I can't deal with it. But, I have to. I know this. And I trust this therapist enough to be able to do it. I think. I hope. I really tend to dig in my heels on this issue, but I'm just going to have to force myself to deal with it.
Thank you for sharing your story with me. You're absolutely right.
Thank you.
I'm very skilled at burying emotions, too. The only problem with that is eventually they come out somewhere.
I am seeing a therapist for myself. She is the same therapist who sees difficult child, but when I see her we talk about my stuff. Thing is, most of my 'stuff' has been difficult child.
I have always avoided dealing with anything that hits too close to home personally. I need to deal with past trauma. I have a very hard time with that, because I've buried it and unearthing it is....I don't even have words to describe it. I get very agitated, defensive, feeling vulnerable (a feeling I cannot tolerate), and then I end up not going back because I can't deal with it. But, I have to. I know this. And I trust this therapist enough to be able to do it. I think. I hope. I really tend to dig in my heels on this issue, but I'm just going to have to force myself to deal with it.
Thank you for sharing your story with me. You're absolutely right.
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