Me

I always start and have a title. This time I don't. I have not written anything in weeks yet I feel something needs to be written. I have had a few triggers of anxiety in the last week. I applied for a new job and the interview was not my best but I didn't cry. Which does beat some. I get nervous over silly things and know it is silly but still am nervous. Get anxious over the same sort of things. But the difference is in the last few weeks I have not cried or broke down or even shutdown. I have moved past them and kept working. I feel like this is a really good thing but again it makes me nervous. Is the next thing going to be the thing I can not get through. Or am I actually getting to the point that I might someday not be triggered by these events. Might the stress of the unknown not scare me next time. I can only hope.

I am feeling a change. I need a new change not in life but in me. I am not sure I am up to the battle though. I feel like I really need to beat down my weight and though I am feeling stronger. It was not overnight that I accumulated all of it and I know it will not come off overnight either. The thought of this is very stressful and like someone trying to kick any habits my bad ones are food related. This will be a trigger of enormous proportion. Because I think the weight has come with the problems I have faced.

I have always thought that weight will come off when I am ready for it to and I think I am there. I only know that I can do this and it is going to be itty bitty baby steps to get me there. There will be no marathon or hike of Mount Everest in the next few weeks or months. But hopefully a slow and not so painful change for my bad habits to good.

My goal is not in pounds or sizes but improving my eating habits. No scale will be necessary that way I will not get depressed over this attempt at beating what has been for me a life long struggle. A fight that I have battled and given up on so many times.

Like I said at the beginning I was not sure what was going to come out today when I wrote but this is it.

Tomorrow I am off and will go to the grocery and will make good choices and that will be my beginning.
In writing this it has given me ideas to write about. If I can shed the pounds maybe I can share some of the stuff that helped it accumulate. Maybe the combined effort will motivate me to do this and succeed.

Crazy

For those keeping track this blog this time in life and the way things are going have made me the most sane I have been in years. Probably since Kody died in 2008. (Kody was our dog that we had for 14 years.) Got me through the years of wishing I had a child but did not. I spent all my nurturing energy on a dog that had seizures for most of his life. He took phenobarbital just like humans that have seizures and in his last year had liver failure due to his body processing the drugs all those years. I fixed him home cooked food. Chicken, rice and veggies every week for the last year. When I was told his liver would fail and we did not have long. I asked for a year. The doctor did not think so. I got a year and a month. Kody died the day before my birthday. About 10 days later I had my first Panic attack. I thought I was having a heart attack. I had one of my friends from work take me to the emergency room.

 I tell you all this because this is what happens when you are tired. Not just tired but exhausted. You do not sleep through the night. You worry about things you would not normally worry about. Oh and I worked in a place that fed you stress pills when you walk in the door and you overdosed on it by the time lunch has passed by. The end of the day came when I dragged myself out the door. But my boss always thought he could get a little more out of me. And I thought well maybe I could work a little harder. This circle of life continued until out of the Grace of God my boss fired me in May of 2011. Best thing that ever happened to me. So from Oct 2008 until May 2011 I learned to manage my anxiety. Ironic thing. I was having a panic attack the last day I worked but was trying to stick it out until the end of the day. So for over 2 years I suffered with depression, anxiety and my favorite Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. One by one these symptoms have fallen away. I am not sure how. My last one has been the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I still have triggers that can put me in a bad place quick but I have learned to manage most of them. 

Today the triggers for the PSTD can be something at work or something on TV. Unfortunately with what we have been through since this past May I try to stay away from anything news related. Just seeing the kids from the Sandy Hook Elementary School Choir on the field brought a shiver to my spine and a tear to my eye. I could not even hear their voices. We do not have any sound when watching TV at work. Maybe fighting them one at a time is ok but most I do not think can win against multiple attacks. The exhaustion and the depression and anxiety can really drag a person down.

Now about the Crazy. During my life I have fought these symptoms one at a time for years like a ninja warrior. I thought I was crazy at one point and my best friend Tracy told me that Crazy People do not know they are Crazy. I have referred back to that each time I have felt like I was on that cliff about to plummet to I don't know what comes next. I would say how my life made me feel like I was falling and when I thought I hit bottom it was just a rock I was caught on. It would then break free and then I would be falling again. This was long before Kody or even before I met Brian. So I have had enough experience in this sort of psychology that I should have a PHD of my own.

I tell you this so that you pay attention to yourself. Fight like a ninja when you can but when you can no longer do that get expert help. Without it the true ninja in you will not emerge fighting again one day, one battle at a time as they have been trained to do for centuries.