A Lifelong Battle…. A Sigh of Relief.

For thirty-five years I have felt abnormal.  I have seen doctors, psychologists and counsellors trying to determine what this abnormality I experience daily is labelled. Thirteen years ago I was finally diagnosed with “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” aka GAD.  I was prescribed Zoloft.  It helped, not 100%, but it helped reduce the fight or flight response I felt in many situations where that response was not warranted.  It took away the emotional volatility as well.  Unfortunately, it still did not make me feel “normal” and over time I learned to deal with the urge to run or fight in most scenarios by rationalizing the situation and my feelings associated.  I have since been off the meds.

For thirty-five years I have lived feeling on edge, like a bomb was going to go off any moment and I would be ready (to run, not anything else, I am not that organized).  As if I was going to internally combust out of nowhere.  I liken the feeling to someone who has drank too much coffee and feels like they are bouncing off the walls; coffee or not, I always feel like that and always have.  I cannot sit still, never could, and thus the reason a movie in a theatre sounds more like torture than enjoyment.  I need to be able to do something else, even if it is to run and get a drink in the middle of the movie (pause was invented for people like me) or play a game, or do sit-ups, or change position 400 times in my chair, or go bake cinnamon buns for no apparent reason.  (My daughter suffers from this too; she watches TV upside down sometimes and has only ever made it through two or three full length movies in her near eight years of life).   

School was a joke for me.  I think back and wonder what happened there.  I recall in Grade 7 staring off into space in social class and noticing that if I stared at the back of a person’s head long enough, I could see a slight yellow light coming from their body against the chalk board.  Some people refer to it as an aura… I am pretty sure it is body heat and thus the reason some people have a larger yellow light than others… they have a higher body temperature.  I never could prove this as most people don’t take lightly to being asked to take a body temperature in the middle of class… and Mr. Chomick, well I am pretty sure he wouldn’t have appreciated it either.  At least I was quiet in that class.  I was in an academic school.  I wish that on nobody, but I also did not realize that studying four hours per night wasn’t a normal junior or senior high behaviour to get a pathetic 70% (pathetic in an academic school with that much effort put forth when everyone else had 90’s). 

Fast forward to high school; no longer in the academic program (my choosing), but I discovered something called cutting class.  I discovered I could skip every class other than test days, and still pull off the same grades.  It was easier than being told to shut up and go to sleep (yes, this did occur) or be called on to answer a question when I was not paying any attention to the teacher at all and showing my inattention.   The coordinator at school let me get away with it because my grades were not suffering.  I graduated in three years with my advanced diploma, which is more than I can say for many and really makes no sense.  I can say I worked my butt off though and taught all the material to myself to do this.  My worst class was social studies and I memorized what I needed to until exam time, whereas of Grade 12 diploma exams that part of my brain was purged of all memory (well most, I can still recite full text book pages word for word from Grade 9 and I don’t have a clue what they even mean).  

Then we skip forward to university/college.  The life everyone dreams of.  Well most.  All it meant was longer, bigger classes to avoid and not pay attention in.  I passed most of them, again by teaching the material to myself.  I then clued in to the fact that it would make more sense if I did distance learning, rather than pay to go to a campus.  I enrolled in Athabasca University and my marks were an impressive 89%+.  I got bored though and with three core classes left for my BCOM, I dropped out.  I was working in the bar in an oil field town and it was much more exciting anyway.  In fact, waitressing in the bar was my favorite job to this day.  It never got boring.  There was no paperwork (other than a count at the end of the shift) and I got to run and talk and be me, basically. 

So why quit?  Well, it takes a toll on the body and you can’t survive doing it forever.  It truly is a young girl’s game.  Patience is required, as well as you need to walk in heels carrying a flat of beer on one arm over your head while dodging drunkards and not spilling a drop.  Hindsight makes me giggle now and I realize my choice of occupation afterwards wasn’t the brightest when we are talking about who I truly am.  I took a job as an accounting clerk in a seniors’ lodge.  A job that requires sitting still for 8 hours per day, doing paper work exclusively and being isolated.  In fact I had a few of those jobs.  Most of them I got fired from for being “unprofessional” or I quit because of my hatred for them.  It all makes so much sense now.

Back when I was little, my parents called me “Yappy”.  I talked incessantly and loud.  I still do talk a lot when I get going.  Sometimes I don’t talk at all though, because I know I go overboard and often I get emotional.  I have had a hard time curbing this behaviour my entire life, to not interrupt when an idea comes into my head.  To try and pay attention to what the other person is saying without losing the thought I tried so desperately to keep from interjecting until it was my turn.  Waiting for my turn, has always been a tough one.  To focus on the speaker and hear what they are saying without asking them to repeat themselves because I was either too focussed on the thought that might flee or off in another world.  Or trying to put together everything they just said when in reality I only heard bits and pieces.   (I think my daughter has this same problem, judging by her responses most of the time). 

My Facebook “About Me” said it all; I had it posted for years. .. It was along the lines of my thriving on chaos and doing a million things at once.   One time I got bored, I created two companies within a week.  Not because I had nothing better to do, my house is always a disaster, I had a toddler (high-energy one at that) and a zillion unfinished projects, but I needed that other thing.  The one that would make me happy because I had gotten bored of the rest.  Off the top of my head all of those projects are still lying around incomplete:  a painting of an elk (to be fair, I thought I had finished it, but it was returned to have the antlers fixed), a painting of a jaguar, a painting of a sunset, a painting of a dragon, numerous drawings, a wolf cross stich, a mail box, a set of painted pots for Jen’s mom (she reminded me about.. I started them in 2004, I think), a painted soap for a lady I know in Ontario, one of the two companies (I did put the one to bed), and I am sure if I was to go into the craft room I would find many more.  Moral of the story, I get bored, distracted and forget what I was doing.  I have also used the expression that “I saw something shiny” many times to explain my behaviour, because that is me in a nutshell.  Facebook has been a world of beauty for me because if I post something it holds me accountable for my day.  Plus when people comment under my plans, I see the original post via my phone and it reminds me of what I was supposed to be doing before I saw that something shiny.

To many, I appear productive, when in reality I spend more time running around in circles chasing my tail.  I have turned to cooking for many reasons, but ultimately it is therapy.  I don’t even like to do it.  However, it is something I have to see through to the end.  I cannot stop midway through the process or it would be wasteful.  It is something that the end result creates a sort of mini victory for me.  Some cook “with love” (whatever that means), I cook for therapeutic reasons, both for my soul and our health issues.  And if I wasn’t doing that, I would be doing something else, most likely less productive to get rid of my energy.  And as a bonus, preparing stuff from scratch saves money.  Win-win-win-win. 

So, why now?  Why after thirty five years have I finally got the answer?  Well, I knew my daughter was struggling in life.  I could see it.  Me, being me, I had to find out why.  I observed her, I noted her behaviours, I analyzed and investigated.  I figured out the issues she was facing.  I researched and researched (I have a tendency to do this too until I know EVERYTHING about something).  I watched some more.  Then I realized that I was staring myself in the face.  All the struggles she faces on a daily basis are mine too, just manifested differently.  Where she uses gymnastics, I cook.  She’s extremely creative and loves to draw and paint as much as her mother, so much so, that we created an art/craft room for her and me.  She is messy and disorganized; my house is messy and disorganized and neither of us have a clue what to do with our stuff.  I have filing piled up from probably a year ago, she has papers all over.  She talks a lot, and is loud.   The list goes on and on. 

So, as the school deals with her process, I went and sought my own help.  On November 7^th, I will get a confirmed diagnosis and a plan of action whether it is meds (which I am open to, if it will help me), diet, behavioural modifications, etc.  If it makes life easier, I am for it.   At this point I am just happy I know what the answer is and that I am not crazy for thinking I am different all this time.   And I will get the support required to get my life organized after living chaos forever.  And my daughter will get the help she needs too and perhaps her life will be easier a lot earlier as she’ll develop the strategies needed to live in our world.

The above is just touch on all the reasons and behaviour issues I have had throughout my life.  They are the main ones at this point.  The above are the behaviours of a female with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  It’s funny how it took a child to point out the obvious.  The Mental Health Therapist that is going to be giving me life strategies to cope with this giggled at the irony as well. 

To new beginnings!   I am finally relieved and ready to take on the world in a whole new way.

You may wonder why I am posting this.  Well, mental health has such a bad reputation and is rarely discussed.  If this post helps anyone to get the help they also need, well it did it's job.  Sometimes, the struggle really is not necessary when there is help available.  

Hindsight Is Always 20/20.

We've had some amazing ups and downs in my family in the past few months that have come with a huge learning curve.  The biggest and most notable one being my son's vision.

The day before his 4th birthday (February 25th) I took him to the Optometrist as I felt he needed his eyes checked because he was standing too close to the TV and looking really close at things (as in inches from his face).  I figured he may need glasses.  What I was not prepared for was the optometrist telling me my son was basically blind and if we did not act now, he would most definitely end up that way.  We were referred to a pediatric opthamologist at the Children's Stollery at the University of Alberta. The appointment was scheduled for nearly a month later.

As a parent, probably one of the worst things in life is hearing that your child has a condition that may be a lifelong battle.  The hopes and dreams you had for your child rapidly diminish as you feel this sense of panic. You have unbelievable guilt and anger wondering how you did not catch it.  You spent countless hours with your child, yet they seemed fine.  A few issues here and there, but what 3 year old doesn't have issues?  So he was a bit clumsy... so was his older sister, and her vision is fine.  Some children are just more prone to walking into walls than others, it doesn't mean anything.  And the tantrums ... he's 3, of course he doesn't want to do anything for himself, if he can get away with it.  He's trying to exert his control over the situation,  he's coming into his own at this age.

Then you watch, and you see it.  The tantrums are caused by frustration of not being able to see the boots on the rack when asked to put them on.  The walls are in a dimly lit room, there are no light cues to indicate they are there.  You moved the table over 6 inches and that was enough to cause him stress and grief.  There are many more clues, but I think you get the point.

So now the waiting begins and that month of waiting seems to take years.  You listen to people asking you how YOU did not notice and you realize that NOBODY noticed.  Not the grandparents, not his dad, not his preschool teachers (other than he looked at things awfully close), not his dayhome provider.  Nobody noticed.  You feel a bit better and a little less adequate as a parent.

Then comes the fear and dread where you wonder if your child will have a "normal" life.  Will he be able to play soccer, shoot a gun at a target, drive...?  Will he be able to see the teacher and blackboard in school?  Will he have a normal life?  Then it occurs to you, he has done many of these things already on his own.  He has adapted.  He has learned how to cope and he does not know any different, hence the reason he was unable to tell you that he does see the world differently than the rest of us.  Nothing has changed to your child at this point, even if it feels like your world has come crashing down.  It can only get better for him from here.

March 20th rolls around.  The anticipation is intense.  You want to hear that the Optometrist was incorrect and has no idea what he was talking about.  It doesn't happen.  The Pediatric Opthamologist confirms the diagnosis.  Your son has a condition called Isoametropic Bilateral Amblyopia.  Without corrective lenses he is considered legally blind in both eyes.  His brain has not developed in the vision department and has no idea what it is supposed to be seeing so it's not as simple as just putting on glasses and voila he can see!  He also has a gigantic refractive error called severe hyperopia (farsightedness) that is at 11.0 diopters. You feel that dread again.  That glimmer of hope is gone that you were holding onto so desperately.

The opthamologist prescribes corrective lenses at a +9.0 (the other +2.0 are to account for his age, 4 year olds do not see perfectly yet) and dilation drops to be used for the next 3 weeks.  You find immense hope in this even though you don't quite understand it.  Now comes the hard part, getting your son to wear his glasses to ensure they do their job.  He receives them March 30th.

Over the next few weeks it is touch and go with the glasses, but one day he does not take them off and that is the day where the changes start to truly occur.

You meet with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to ensure that your son has developed properly over the time he has not been able to see.  You find they are an amazing resource and assess your son and help you develop exercises to trigger the brain to respond properly to the new found vision the eyes are now supposed to be seeing.

May 30th:  2 months later:  Eureka!  It is working!  Your son is running around chasing ants for the first time!  His favorite words are "Mom, did you see that?!"  His world is changing and his vision is coming.  It may not be perfect, but it is much better than it was.  At times you feel overwhelmed by it all.  Other times you feel like your heart is going to burst with joy.  Watching him chase ants around the yard, playing with worms, kicking a ball around and inspecting everything and anything is a sign that everything is going to be all right.

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The first picture is how a person with normal vision sees a scene (0.0 diopters).  The second is a simulation showing how a person with Hyperopia of 9.0 Diopters sees that same scene.  Logan's uncorrected vision is 11.0 diopters, so it is actually worse than the second image.  The glasses correct his vision somewhere between the two at this point.  Because we have not seen the opthamologist again (next appt in June 19th) all we can go by is his actions and he is definitely seeing a lot more of his world.

Update since June appointment:  The glasses are doing their job and his vision has increased to 20/40 in his right eye and 20/60 in his left with his glasses on.  Because of the difference in acuity between the eyes, he is now on a patching regime of 2 hours per day.  What this does is cover up the better eye (patch) to stimulate the lesser eye to work harder and hopefully the gap will decrease over time.  That's all I really know at this point.  Next appointment is Sept 24th when we'll learn if the patching is working.

Logan on June 1st, 2013, sporting his new specs.  Photo taken by Jennifer Stogowski of Jen Stogowski Photography.

The Pretty Girl...

Being on Facebook I see many posts from various friends who seem to be lacking in the "Pretty Girl" department, or so they think.  For a few weeks I have thought about this and figured I would try and explain a few things about "The Pretty Girl."

First, let me explain that I was once that girl.  I turned heads, I had people come to a bar I worked at just to view the "Shooter Girl" in her little black dress (which there was actually people begging me not to retire it). I actually got chosen to play on a slow pitch team based on my looks, not for my ability, because at that point I no longer knew how to play ball! I always had a date (if I wanted) and I had a lineup of people who wanted to date me.  I was told regularly that I was "hot" or "pretty" and many other things that I cannot mention here, and it wasn't always at 2 am when last call was served.  I won't even type out what the first words my husband said to his friend were about me.  I had many years of being that person.  

Fast forward to now.  I am no longer that person, mainly because I choose to be.  If I really wanted to put in the effort to get the so-called perfect body back (at one point I actually had a 6 pack) and spend the hour per day getting myself ready to look that way, well I could.  But, I don't.  Why?  Well number one, back then I may have been of value to people, but it certainly wasn't for what I brought to the table.  I was eye candy, I was treated as such and yes, I got ample attention, but it wasn't necessarily good attention.  I didn't have a brain to most people, as nobody took me seriously.  I was viewed a completely different way (and treated as such) and I had few women friends, although ample male friends, generally with one thing on their mind.  What I can say, is that the women friends I did have, were true ones as they saw me for me, and not for anything else, many of them are still in my life now and will continue to be.  Jealousy often reared it's ugly head and it's not flattering on anyone.  Being the recipient of it all, is definitely not fun.

Today, I am content.  I have the people I need in my life.  I am valued for my mind and what I know and the knowledge I possess.  I am me and am not constantly watching my back to see who is talking ill of me and making up rumours.  I am not worried that people will get the wrong idea when I am talking to someone of the opposite sex.  (I have never really cared about what other people think of me, but it can be draining over time just listening to it).  I used to actually walk up to those that were gossiping and thank them for making me feel so special.  After all, I must have been important to them to put so much effort into making up stories and talking about me (most of the time, it was women; men rarely gossip).  Most of the time, I didn't even know them and they didn't know me except to see me.  I kind of chuckle to myself when I think about those times.  I no longer have that issue (not that I am aware of anyway).

The way I view myself now is that I am a better person, of more value to the world at present and I am perfectly content to not be the center of attention.  I like the fact that I blend in and go unnoticed.  I don't wear makeup, I either put my hair in a pony tail, or brush it and go, and I wear frumpy clothes that are by no means trendy.  I do not look the part of a CEO at all.  I would rather spend the time sleeping in the morning, than getting up and getting ready.  Perhaps someday, I'll decide it's time for that back, but my guess is no.

So, to all you women and girls out there that crave to be that person, trust me, it's not what you think.  Unless you like the idea of being judged every move you make, seriously it's not that awesome.  It's more work than anything and in the end it is very tiring.