My Anxieties

These are from the posts I made about my anxieties.  It may seem broken up, but that's because I'm not sharing what my friends said.  They may not want to be on my blog.  I'm respecting their privacy.  It started with a question.

I posted a question the other day asking about Encouraging Independence or Being Lazy.  I've taken it down.

One person thought that I was just being lazy.  Not so.  Sometimes I fall asleep on the couch after Bella gets me up, with her watching tv in the same room.  I mentioned that I don't sleep well at night, and wake up tired, usually getting only five hours of sleep a night.  She thought that cps should be called and they should look into the situation.  WOW.  Really?

I mentioned an anxiety about taking her places to play outside, like a park or something.  I have a huge anxiety about her walking off with a stranger if I blink my eyes just once.  This woman thought that I was making excuses.  This woman doesn't know me, she doesn't know the psyche that I have with my daughter.

I found her response hurtful and deleted the question entirely.  I try to stay awake after getting only five hours of sleep.  I try to keep busy, drink coffee.  Even when I do fall asleep on the couch, I can HEAR what she's doing.  It's not like mommy sense is completely turned off.

It makes me wonder how often that woman gets only a few hours of sleep a night and how she's able to stay awake all day with her kid(s).  I was asking for honest answers, not hurtful answers.  I didn't appreciate being called lazy to my face.  She was mean and rude.

Even though the question isn't there anymore, could I get some feedback from you all?  I know you'll be truthful, but not hurtful, in your answers.

Yes, there are times when I'm on the computer surfing the 'net or working on my story, but you know what?  A lot of the time, she's in here with me playing or wanting to snuggle.  Other times, I go out to see what she's watching, if she's still watching what I put on for her and use a laptop instead of the desktop I'm using.

It's nerve wracking when people who don't know me don't understand the anxieties I have.

Sometimes, a lot of the time, she would come into our room (approximately 8:30 every morning like clockwork) and she would sleep and snuggle with us.  This morning, she came in at -6:30- wanting to watch Dora.  I came out with her just after 7 am, put on Dora, turned off the music in her room, made her some peaches oatmeal and did my usual on the love seat.

Our living room is open-ended; it's also where the front door is.  If you're sitting on the opposite side of the living room looking at the door, you see the kitchen on your right and the hallway to Bella's and my mother-in-law's rooms on your left.  The door knob and dead bolt for the front door are ALWAYS locked.

If I can find the tv remote in our room, sometimes we'll turn on the tv in our room and she watches it from there.  It doesn't always work, though.

Ideally, I'd like to get to be around midnight; this never happens.  Most nights, bed time and sleep time are between 2 and 4 am.  The night time is the only time I can work on my story, and I'm trying to get out 1,000 words every night; some nights, I get out 2,000, depending on how quickly I'm typing (a lot of the story is already type; I'm having to retype it out with added filler and flesh).

Unfortunately, the room is not entirely dark.  The desk top is on the desk in our room, and one of the side panels has been removed.  There's a red light that's always lit up.  The modem for our slow, satellite internet has five bright blue lights lit up all the time, depending on the signal.  Patrick claims to need the tv on to get to sleep.  Sometimes, it's a music channel and other times it's a tv show or something.  I hate having the tv on.  At this point, it's either he gets the sleep or I do.  I have time (kind of) during the day to catch up; with him working, he doesn't.  I'm trying to compromise.  I'd use one of our blindfolds, but I can't find them in our toy box.  I have ear plugs that work great, but I'm afraid I won't hear Bella.  Even with the monitor on the loudest setting, Patrick doesn't hear anything.  With the tv, I make use of the "sleep" setting and set it to 40 minutes most nights.  If I had it my way, the desktop would be covered, the modem would be covered and the tv would stay OFF.  The only sound and light are coming from the monitor.
I'm not opposed to pharmacological assistance.  In fact, I wished my therapist in San Diego had used them when I was seeing her for anxiety and libido.  I still wish I could see someone for the anxiety and just prescribe a pill to help me get over it.  The thing with sleep aids is, well, I tend to sleep longer than I should.  If they're as strong as NyQuil, for example, I'm out for 18 hours straight.  This is why I take DayQuil at night and during the day when I'm feeling under the weather.  I'm afraid sleep aids will do the same thing; knocking me out for 18 hours.

I tried doing this once or twice.  She stayed on the swing almost the entire time.  I can't bring myself to just sit on a bench.  The fear and anxiety that she could be taken is too strong.  The fact that she's so trusting doesn't help this at all.  Now, I can't take her to parks on a regular basis.  We're out in the sticks in a trailer park.  There are no parks anywhere.  The most exposure-type of therapy I get are the occasional times she goes to the manager's trailer to play with her grandkids.  

The manager is Pat's best friends cousin, so if something were to ever happen to her, it'd be like something happening to his own family.  Derek and his family view us like blood family.  If something were to ever happen to Bella, you can bet the when the guy would be caught, his mother wouldn't even recognize him.  When Pat takes the car for work, he takes my car, not his mom's car.  We don't have a car seat for her car; we never saw a need since we always use mine.  

I might be able to expose myself to that kind of therapy if we weren't living in a trailer and, in fact, lived in town where there are parks.

She's kind of already on one.  She goes to bed at 8pm every night and she's in my room around 8:30am the following morning, asking for Dora or for breakfast.  Sometimes, my mother-in-law is awake (she doesn't sleep well; there's an armadillo that LOVES to dig around under her room) and she gets Bella her breakfast and toons.  So, she does have a good sleep schedule.  It's Mommy and Daddy who don't have one.  We both average about five to six hours of restless sleep.  

When we did go to parks in Colorado, she stayed on the swings or the smaller part of the park with not as much equipment, so I can keep an eye on her better.  I worry with her running around on the other play structures.  I know she loves it, but I'm just too afraid that something will happen.
I don't think I'm making excuses.  I'm genuinely scared to death.

When we were still at my mother's house, she stayed in her crib.  She was able to play quietly until around 9:30 am or so.  Then we'd all get up and hang out in the living room watching tv until I had to get ready for work.
I'm sure that if we had both kids here (Jeffrey, Pat's son), it wouldn't be so easy.  Then again, he's seven years old than Bella.

We don't have any insurance yet (through Pat's work; hasn't signed up yet), so I don't think so.  I'm sure there's a VA office here in town where I could try and get it, since I was still active duty when I received it the first time.  It's something worth looking into.
 
When we go to the grocery store together (normally, it's just me and my mother-in-law), Bella goes straight into the cart.  She gets distracted very easily (normal for a girl her age) and I end up tugging and pulling her back to the cart.  I'd rather not chance people think of me as an abusive mother trying to reign in her child.  This is why she usually stays at home with Patrick.

When we were in Colorado, we'd go to the Colorado Mills Mall to walk around and window shop.  We'd get one of those strollers to push her around in, but sometimes we'd let her out to walk (mostly with my mom) so that she could tire herself out for the night.

My anxiety of losing her was at it's all time high the last time we flew.  My mom was with us.  It was back in March, when my grandfather passed away.  Mom, Bella, and I flew out before Patrick did.  Mom decided that she and Bella would run around the terminal until we had to board.  I can't tell you how anxious and upset I was getting. 
It was worse on the way back!  All four of us were flying back to Colorado, and my mom did the same thing.  We were both scared shitless that my mom would lose her and then Bella would be gone forever.  I get stuck in my chest and throat every time I think about it.  As I type this, I'm getting a knot in my throat; I shit thee not.

I can't do it yet.  I just can't.  Hell, as it is right now, this very moment, I'm teary because of what could have happened to her in that airport.  I had that fear the first time we flew and I'll have it for a long time.  She'll always be with me, within my sight.  If she wants to wander, her hand is in mine.  If, when she's older, she sees a cute boy to talk to, I'm right behind her, making sure nothing happens.  That may be considered the helicopter parenting, but I'm paranoid.

Bella's great at getting up after she falls down.  Her best test of this was when she split her eyebrow last September.  She'd fallen and hit a table and her eye brow was bleeding pretty badly.  Thing is, she may have cried for a short time before she started helping her daycare teacher put the other kids down for a nap.
She likes to pick up and play with the rolly polly bugs in this place.  She sees a wasp on the outside of the window, and wants to touch it.  General curiosity.

One afternoon, I drove out to the mailbox to get the mail.  My mother-in-law was home, let her know where I was giong, so she was in the room with Bella.  In the mere minutes it took for me to drive out there and back, she'd had to run to the bathroom.  I drove back up and saw Bella on the front porch.  I wigged.  I ran inside, yelling, asking Bella why she would do that, what was she thinking.  We've had to tell her that there are bad people out there who could snatch her up away from us and she'd never see us again.

I want her to fear responsibly.  I realize this is hard for a child her age, but I want her to realize how much she scared all of us.  She hasn't touched the door since.  She gets close enough to turn off the front light, but she hasn't opened it since the day I talked to her.

I will admit to the anxiety taking over more than it should.  It's just so difficult to move past it.  So hard.  I can't get past the close calls I almost had at the airport with my mom; there are reasons why we didn't let my mom take her out to do fun Grandma-Grandkid stuff.

I think I'll feel better about it when she's old enough to hear and listen to what I have to say and know that it's because I'm worried.

I'm hoping to call the local VA office and see if I can't get an appointment with them, to talk about continuing my therapy.  I keep hoping that they can still cover the expenses.  If they can, then I'll see about starting it back again.  I really can't live this way.  I want to think that it will get better when we're able to move into town and in a good neighborhood.

If I can't get anything from the VA about getting therapy again, I don't know what I'm going to do.  I don't know anyone here who is a qualified to do that.  I'm nearly SCREWED if the VA office here can't do anything.

Hang on.. I think I was still active duty.  I remember doing the post-partum survey when I was still on maternity leave.  I remember a counselor recommending that I see a therapist for my anxieties and depression.  I remember I was seeing her thru the time we moved to Colorado.  I stopped seeing her the week before we left.  I think we only started sessions in March of 2007; this is when my enlistment contract ended.

I don't even remember where I put any paperwork.  I do remember journaling about it.  I'll have to do some digging of my journals to figure out when I started going.

Sorry.. at this point, I'm just babbling.  I'm not talking to Pat about it yet.  He honestly won't understand. He asked me some time ago why I was depressed.  I think it's genetic.  But, he honestly didn't know; he wasn't trying to be an asshole.  I've been around enough of those to know the behavior.  The tone he used was "worried."

As for him sleeping with the tv and me not sleeping.. I'd rather he get the rest right now because he's working and I'm not.  Things will change when I find work.

I found a few of my journals from when I was going to therapy.  Session 6 was April 29, 2008.  This means that six weeks prior to that I started therapy.  Which means that I was NOT active duty when I started it.  I think I was getting it under Pat's insurance; he was still active duty.  I'm still not sure if there's any way possible to start it up again. 

Like I said before, the bumps and bruises I don't mind; I know she's a tough kid.  The abduction side of things is what petrifies me the most.  They say that a lot of tv shows are loosely based on fact, but not much.  It's unfortunate that a lot of the shows I watch are crime dramas (Criminal Minds being at the top of that list).  The sitcoms don't do it for me anymore, and I've found entertainment in these shows.
 
I'm sure that my crime dramas are not helping this at all.

I may not be able to move forward with therapy and medication until after I've found work and I have insurance.  I'm not sure if psychiatric help is available through most insurances.  I know that if I were to try and seek this out myself without insurance, I'd be working just to pay the bills and scripts.

I have an interview with a staffing place tomorrow afternoon; I'll give the VA office a call then and see if anything is possible to move forward.

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