Anxiety and Depression

I have anxiety and depression.

It gets easier to say. Acknowledging this makes it easier to accept the feelings and not feel there is something wrong with me.

It fees a little like driving a car in Chicago traffic at rush hour, knowing how to drive, but being physically unable to steer or touch the brakes.

I know what would make things better, but I would rather crawl under the bed and hope that it will all be over when I crawl out again.

Friday is the last day of school...for the year, and forever for our family. Our youngest is graduating high school, and I have resigned my position at the elementary after 12 years.  I have so many problems with the way our district is run that I am just done. I am happy to not be dealing with it all any more. But, I love working with kids, I care about these kids, and knowing I won't be back is hard.

I am resigning. because hubby has been living and working 2 hours away for the last 7 years. He's come home on weekends and for school functions and holidays, but I have been a part time single mom for 7 years. With both boys in college in the fall, we can live together again.

To live together again, we have to sell our house here. That means packing and sorting and storing and figuring out what to keep and what to get rid of. We have a lot of clutter after 13 years in this house. The stress of all of it is a huge weight. On the one hand, I want to just throw everything into boxes and throw into storage and be done. But the monumental task has me wanting to crawl under the bed and hope a clone of me, that isn't a mess, will take the initiative and do it for me.

Hubby wants to wait until after graduation to think about a storage shed. Youngest wants a party and parties are a huge stressor for me. How do we plan for people? How much food to plan? Activities--yes or no? Order a cake or make a cake? What if only family shows up, since he doesn't have a lot of friends? He will be crushed. I think. One sister just had a mastectomy. Will she be OK? And all of this is the evening of graduation, after seeing our baby walk across the stage and into adulthood.

Both boys are working at camp this summer. Oldest loves it and has changed his major in school and thus has changed colleges because of camp. Will youngest love it? Will he gain maturity?

Oldest is visually impaired, but has had training in adaptive driving and has his license. He now has a car. We have driven with him, but not a lot before he left for camp. I worry about him driving up there.

They will both be at Ball State in the fall. Will they find friends? Will they find their passion? Will they meet girls that will be girlfriends? I don't want them to be alone.

Moving to where hubby lives and has a life will be stressful, because those people can't wait for me to be there. Hubby is going to try to protect me from the onslaught, but I'm going to have to meet new people. I'm going to have to interact. That is stressful.

When we sell our house, we can look for one there. I will miss this house, so what will we find? Something with the view we have now?

I am taking the summer off to figure out who I am again. I will eventually have to get a job-- two kids in college remember. I have no idea what I want to do. I have only ever worked with kids. What do I do if I don't work with kids?

And to top it all off I turn 50 in October.

There is so much in such a short span of time, I'm drowning. I wish I could thrive on the challenge and live in every moment as they happen, but I can't. I feel bad for wishing it all to be over and settled, because I will miss the individual moments.

Hubby is great, but he has his own ideas of how things should progress. I have friends, but they have things going on in their lives as well. Hence the out of control car.

I have anxiety and depression, but by saying it out loud, I can start to take some form of control. I still can't steer, but maybe by listing it all and acknowledging it is a huge weight, I can maybe tap the brakes before wind up a sobbing ball in the corner.

I have anxiety and depression, but I'll get through and be stronger..stay tuned.

Change of Plan

Sometimes you write for an hour and realize edits are needed.
That was tonight. PBIS, kids behavior, adults role in the crisis kids are facing... more keeps popping into my head. This may need to be an outline and planning kind of topic. So instead, a brief panic attack.

Tomorrow is going to be a "hope for the best but accept the worst" kind of day.

We are so short staffed tomorrow that  there are only 2 of us assistants to handle door duty, breakfast duty, lunch duty, and recesses.

Plus 6th grade is working on Rube Goldburg projects all day and I am helping to supervise.

A day of chaos.
At least it is Friday.

Encyclopedia of Me A edition

This may be a cop out, but I'd like to think of it as killing two birds with one stone.

I've been planning on making an Encyclopedia of Me of my own for a couple of years now, but haven't gotten around to it. If I use it as blog posts, I'll at least have the journaling done in a short amount of time.

For A:

Ancestry-  I became interested in my family history in 2012 when I started preparing for my parents 50th anniversary. I realized at that point my time with them wasn't going to be forever and I needed to get the stories I could. My mom had a typical middle class life and had good memories to share. My dad grew up poor and had few stories to share that didn't include working hard. Those stories led to a subscription to Ancestry.com and my search for stories.

Dad died ten years later-- 7 months before what would have been their 60th anniversary. Mom died two years after that. They didn't know the stories I had discovered. I continue to search for more. I hope to be able to share the stories I've discovered with my siblings soon.

Anxiety:  I "suffer" from anxiety or depression. I had postpartum depression after my kids were born. I recognized it after watching Marie Osmond talking about hers on Oprah. Everything she said was me. I asked my doctor and he asked, "Is that not normal for you?"

He is an amazing doctor and I wished he could have moved with us when we moved away, but that question threw me. In a 3 year span of time I had had 2 children, found our first born might be legally blind, moved to a new house, I'd left my job that I loved, and become a stay at home mom. I didn't know what normal for me was. So, I let it go.

I became afraid of going out, being in public, being alone...

We moved here and things didn't get better. I asked our new doctor and she put me on a medication. It has helped...immensely.

I still get anxious about crowds. I still work on not getting bogged down. I still think...hard...about everything. So Anxiety is definitely under A for me.

Autumn:  Autumn is my favorite season. I chose Autumn for my camp name. My husband says it is the perfect description of me. Stormy, changing, colorful. My birthday is in Autumn. I met my husband in Autumn. Autumn is sunshine and sweatshirts. If they made a candle that smelled like burning leaves, I'd have a collection.