Going Mental

Do you have any questions? I have the answers! Any questions about me or for me can be left in the comment section. If there is a situation you seek advice on, send me a message and I will dedicate a post. This is supposed to be an advice column after all!

Hello again my friends!  Now I know it’s been awhile again, but my last post was right before the holidays. And as of the beginning of January , I started my new job at the local Firehouse Subs (founded by firemen). So as I’m sure you can imagine, I’ve been a bit busy.

Now to get to today’s topic! If my clever title didn’t give it away, today I want to talk about mental disorders.

As a kid, I had extreme anger problems, I was quick to lose my temper and act out. I could have been depressed too, but if I was it was different then what I currently experience. I was originally diagnosed as ADHD, for anyone that might not know that stands for Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder. Basically means you have trouble focusing and can get hyper and overactive. I was given prescriptions. But I was horrible at remembering to take them, and let’s not forget I had 5 sisters so Mom had her hands full too.

I’m sure I tried to take them for a few years, but not that they did much missing them so often. I guess I just learned to live with it. Am still learning truthfully. But that doesn’t mean it was easy. Doesn’t mean I didn’t mess up along the way.

There are 2 times that specifically relate to today’s events. The first time I was about 10, I got angry with someone in my family and almost ripped a closet door off its hinges. After that incident my family sent me to a mental Institute called The Meadows. I think I spent about 6 months there. And the only thing I really remember is that’s where I learned to take a step back when I get frustrated. Just take a breath.

We were given a game to play, we had a medium length rope (thick enough to step on) and like 5 little round rubber pads. There was an area marked that we had to get across (twice the length of the rope) that we had to get across using the rope and circles (remember jumping couch to couch to not touch the lava?).

After a few tries, I had solved the puzzle, I figured out a way to get my team to the other side! But if anyone messed up everyone had to start over, and my luck would have it that the last person to cross screwed up. I remember that was the first time I didn’t just flip out. I grunted (gahhhh) took a deep breath, and stomped off and sat up against a wall. I remember one of the (supervisors? Nurses?) coming over to me, I was sure I was going to get in trouble for stomping off. In my head I was already getting angry and ready to start fighting.

I’m proud of you. That’s what he said, and I was confused. As I stared him down he went on to tell me that he seen how hard I was coaching my team through the exercise. And how upset I got when the last person messed up. He said he was proud of me because instead of flipping out right away, I separated myself and took a minute to just breathe and that was a good thing. I still remember the ugly blue pattern on the carpet in that hallway. At 10, this was the first piece of control that I learned.

The next incident in question happened when I was about 14 or 15. My oldest sister was fighting with me in the kitchen of our family home. I honestly can’t tell you most of what happened by my own account. I can’t even say what the fight was about. All I can tell you is the look of fear in my aunts eyes when she told me what I did.

My aunt was sitting at the kitchen table while this whole thing happened. During the fight with my sister, she said something that caused me to snap. My aunt told me I walked to the counter, grabbed a knife from the clean dishes and raised it like I was going to stab my sister. I walked towards her with the knife raised and screamed “I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU”.

I don’t remember any of that, my memory pick up with a knife sticking out of the floor in front of me. My aunt yelling and my sister looking terrified backed into a corner by the refrigerator.  My aunt told me what I did, she told me that she screamed my name 4 or 5 times as I was walking towards my sister with the knife raised. I guess something reached me because she said that I looked at her, looked at the knife in my hand threw it on the floor (it just happened to actually stick in the floor) and walked out of the kitchen. I had no clue what had happened at the time, I felt confused and responsible and no clue why. It was an odd thing to “come back” to. My aunt swears that when I looked at her my eyes were black. She said to me “Amy you weren’t there. I was looking at you and you weren’t there”

Okay, so back to current events. I’ve been fighting a breakdown for awhile now. Rekoh’s health is bad. Someone started drama at work and now I’m the focus of glares and conversation cut offs when I walk past. They think they are slick, but this is one crazy lady that has learned to keep her eyes and ears open. And mouth shut (for the most part, sometimes my mouth gets the better of me). I’ve had responsibilities dropped on me when I wanted none. And honestly I’ve felt so overwhelmed. So responsible for the fate of those closest to me. Just when I was trying to dig myself out of a seemingly endless rut of depression.

Just when I thought I was getting better, life trips me and now I’m sinking in a pit of quicksand. The more I struggle to survive, the deeper I get. It’s crushing the life out of me and I can’t breathe…

I had a partial breakdown. Or technically 2 partials. The first was at work. I had to take a break to collect myself (my shifts are short, I never take a break). And again once I got home. It’s the 2nd one that inspired today’s post. Shorter than the first, but more powerful in the sense that I realised something of import.

I was playing a game with rekoh. Something stupid happened and being that I was already upset from earlier and trying to recover, I reacted negatively. I cursed about the game being stupid and not wanting to play it and threw my tablet on the floor.

I know that doesn’t sound too bad. I mean the space between my bed and wall is small, I could have smashed it on the wall. However, I am quite attached to my tablet and despite my anger some part of me aimed for the floor where a nice cushy blanket was piled. It’s the part of me that let me throw the tablet in the first place that has me concerned. When I got upset this time, something flashed behind my eyes for just a second white outlined in red… I couldn’t see for that split second. It’s the second after that I seen the blanket and changed the direction my tablet was flying.

I’m sure what I seen (or didn’t see) could have turned into something like the time I raised a knife to my sister. Maybe that’s why I fight my breakdowns so hard. Why I don’t just let it out. What if what comes out is a monster inside me?

What if all this time, instead of taming the monster that showed as a kid, what if I just caged it and fed it all the hate and anger, the jealously and frustration. What if I just made it stronger? What if it wants out now?

What demons do you struggle with? Do you have a child that acts the way I did? Do you have any comments or questions?

Hello Again!

Sometimes life gets in the way of things we want to do. I apoligise for my recent absence, life has not been kind to me recently. But now things are in a state of recovery. As always, Amy has the answers.  Any question, any day. Just post your question in the comments and I will answer it in my next post! Hope everyone had a Happy Samhain!

Amy’s Answer’s

At a rough point in your relationship? Have a problem with your coworker? Finance?

Whatever your problem may be, question you may have. Share your story, ask your question, and I’ll tell you how I’d handle the situation.

P.S. feel free to post your question anonymously

All About Amy (part 6)

Breaking my life in to segments is taking longer then I thought it would, so today we are going to catch up to the present, buckle up.

After S left our life things were quiet for a bit, we finally had a little time to adjust to being a couple and having a kid. Things were going well, but we had a baby and 2 dogs. Our place was small and we decided it was time to upgrade. After looking around for awhile, we found a 5 bedroom house that was rent to own and only needed minor repairs that Rekoh and I had the skills to repair ourselves. It was also just a mear 2 blocks from a large playground that would be perfect for having a child. Best of all? We could afford it! We had everything arranged, the owner just wanted us to come see it in person before we finalized everything.

Before we could set the date to go see the house we got a call from my mother. She had gotten herself addicted to heroine. But she wanted to get off it and she needed my help, plus she’d love the chance to meet her grandson.

After discussing things with Rekoh we decided the right thing to do was to try to help my mother. She said her apartment was small but my family could have her room until we got our own, which she assured us wouldn’t take long because she was in good with the management of the building.

So, we canceled our purchase of the 5 bedroom house and moved to New Jersey.

It didn’t take very long for things to start going wrong, the first thing that happened was the management told us we would have to get rid of our dogs if we wanted to get an apartment there. Don’t forget that the one we had hand raised from the day he was born. But, we took them to a shelter.

Not too long after that my mother got high again. She even brought a junkie she just met home with her. I gave her a piece of my mind about bringing that shit around my son who wasn’t even 1 yet. And told the junkie to leave. Well as you’d expect from a junkie, she refused. So I attempted to escort her out. She tried to attack me, which gave Rekoh all the reason he needed to drag her out by her hair. She made some noise outside for a bit, I refused to let my mother go outside or answer the junkie. It would just encourage her to stay longer. After she left my mother cried and apologized and said it would never happen again.

Rekoh and I retreated to our room with our son. We needed to be away from her for awhile. About an hour passed, we had just started to relax after everything that just happened.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

We open our bedroom door to find a police officer standing on the other side. “Can I talk to you folks a minute?”

So we told the officer everything that happened, and how we were only here in the first place because she asked us for help with her addiction. The officers informed us that she had accused Rekoh of threatning to kill her husband along with a bunch of other crap. The officer said he could tell that my mother was high but what it boiled down to was that she felt unsafe and we were not on the lease so we had to leave. They gave us a week, and told us that we didn’t want to be raising our son around her anyway.

We were gone in 2 days.

I had found a room-for-rent back in Maryland and Rekoh had friends in the area he could stay with until we worked something else out. Well as fortune would have it this go turned out a little better then that. When my soon to be landlord was showing me the room I had agreed to rent, he inquired as to why we were living separately if we were a family. So we told him our story. He then asked if he could show us something.

He took us down the alley to the back of the house, through and unassuming white door on a plain  brick wall, followed by a long basement-like hallway and another door. We were telephoned somewhere quite unexpected. It was the basement of the house and what used to be a garage. But it had been completely transformed into a 1 bedroom  apartment with a huge living room and a kitchen / dining. The living room had a fireplace, and the kitchen part of the kitchen dining combo was big enough to have 5 people working on something different without anyone being in anyone else’s way. The dining room table could probably seat 7 to ten. The bedroom fit our king size bed, our sons crib and 2 dressers. It also had 3 large closets and an on suite with a large sunken tub in the center, heat lighting, his and her sinks, an extra long counter and extra storage space. There was a powder room off the living room, and an extra full bathroom in the back off the kitchen.

The place was amazing, and to this day I miss it. Anyway, the landlord (who we will call R from now on) said if we wanted we could have this apartment, it was connected to the house, we were still welcome in the common areas upstairs and had full access to both the front and back yards. Everything is included, we’d even get free cable and internet. The only thing is since it was much bigger then the room I had come to rent it was going to be more expensive. We told him  we could only afford to give him the lesser price for the first month, we had used the rest of our money getting here. But after that we could afford his requested price. He agreed. So we had ourselves an amazing new apartment.

Shortly after getting settled, we celebrated our sons first birthday.

We’ve now been together for 3 years. We’ve gone through some tough stuff but we are still together. For about an year, things continue and we are good. Then R runs into some trouble with his house, it has a history I can get into another time if anyone is interested. But we try to help R do what’s needed to keep his house, and our apartment. We help him in the yard, help get a few things up to code. We give him extra money to help cover the bills to keep everything on for everyone. All of a sudden things turn strange. R isn’t nice to us anymore. Any time we talk to him he gets rude. So we avoid the yards and we avoid the upstairs. When my son wants to play outside I take him out in the alley. A little time passes in this fashion until one day we hear R on the roof, our cable goes out. He said he couldn’t afford to keep it on. I venture into the yard at night, looking through the window from a distance I can see the front rooms tv is on. R had just disconnected our cable. A week or so later R trys to tell us the internet will be shut off at the end of the month. We’ve seen the truth now. All the while we were trying to help we were being used. The net might get shut off, but it will only be for us. So we decide to leave. Who wants to live in such a hostile place anyway.

Rekoh’s  mother found a place for us. So we decide to move back, luckily we had just gotten Rekoh’s tax return. We pack up our lives again and head out. After a very long drive, we finally get where we were going. So we call Rekoh’s mom. No answer. We find somewhere to park. Still no answer. We call up his mom’s friend, she’s at home we can come over. After sitting with her for a few hours Rekoh’s mom finally shows up. We tell her we’re tired. Where is our house so we can pay the landlord and move in? Turns out she never even had it set up. We have nowhere to go. We try to buy a car, we can live in it for a month or two. The guy never shows up. We are out of daylight.  We have to give the usual back or pay a retarded amount of money. So we rent a storage unit. Now we have our stuff in a storage unit, no wheels and no home. We find the blankets. We sleep on the floor of the storage unit. The next day we wake early. We go get some food and come back to the unit. No where else to go. We get a hold of Rekoh’s ex father in law. He lives an hour away, we can stay at his house for a few days but he does that have enough room to keep us longer then that. After the truck and the storage unit, we don’t have much left for a first month and security. We can’t find anything we can afford. We start looking for a motel, at least it’ll be a place to sleep for a few nights. We find one we can keep our dog at (he used to be R’s) turns out if we rent for the month it’s pretty cheap. We have a roof. A tv. There’s a microwave and running water. It’s better than the storage unit. We tell the management we might be stuck here for awhile. That’s fine as long as we pay every month.

Rekoh’s dad makes a few trips to the storage unit. We get all of the important stuff. But he can’t help get the rest, it’s a long trip and he can’t afford it. We used the last of our money to get the room. I’d still get money next month but after paying to keep the room we wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for the storage unit. So we lost the rest of our stuff.

Now that things are stable, I think about how I got sick on the long drive. I don’t get car sick, and it felt a lot like….Oh. My. God. I’m pregnant. A pregnancy test confirms it.  I’m stuck in a motel room with a dog a 2 year old and my husband and I’m pregnant. Life is just freakin great.

Dad takes us grocery shopping. I have a mini fridge and a microwave. We buy a hotplate. Now I can cook just about anything. My life gave me that skill. The people in the room next to us are Dads friends. Sometimes they grill outside. They invite us to join. Our son has grown fond of them. They find a house. The had a mini oven that they used while here, they gave it to us. Makes cooking a lot easier.

More time passes. I pester the management, tell her I’m more then willing to help out. She’s worried because I’m pregnant. Some more time passes, on March 29th I wake up feeling unwell. My belly is cramping, i have to poop. I feel like I want to throw up. I try to poo. I am unsuccessful. I get back in bed. Rekoh is gone, he left early to help his dad. I try to rest, my son behaves. The cramping persists. Eventually I wonder if I’m in labor. I was induced with Jj. So I don’t know what it feels like. I spend the next 2 hours trying to time the cramps to see if they are contractions. They are erratic and irregular. When Rekoh and his dad return, I ask him to take me to the hospital.

They hook me up to a machine. It tells them what I already know. My cramps are erratic. It’s probably just Braxton hicks. But since they are strong, they want to do a pelvic exam just to be sure. I’m 5cm dilated. By this time it’s around 9pm, dad has to work in the morning. I tell Rekoh to take Jj home. He’s too young to spend that much time here and we don’t have any food if he gets hungry. So we say our good byes.

I stay hooked up to the machines. After a few hours nothing changes. They decide to go ahead and break my water.  If I thought it hurt before…oh boy. I had to tough it out until the anastegoligist was free. He set the epidural, it didn’t work. He tried to redo it. It worked a tiny bit. But i still had to grind my teeth through the contractions.

Eventually everything was ready and I had my daughter on March 30th 2015.

It’s been almost a year since then, sometimes I’m amazed that I made it through everything I did.  My children, tho both unexpected at hard times, are my pride and joy. I would go through it  all again just to have them, and I hope one day when they look back on their lives, they will remember their childhood with fondness.

All About Amy (part 5)

So I’ve just had my son, I’m recovering. The bleeding sucks, still tired all the time. Adjusting to life with a baby is difficult. Not to mention the relationship is still tenuous to say the least. Every once in awhile we get a little free time, when JJ is asleep and I’m not trying to pass out too.

We’re a nerdy couple, we like video games and computer related stuff. So I  the time we get to relax a bit, we played a game online together. We both liked the game a lot so we tried to play it at every chance we got.

At this point in time, Rekoh and I have been together for about a year and a half tops. We just had a baby. And we haven’t really had a “normal” relationship up to this point.

Now, I don’t know if you’re aware; but when you play an online game you meet people from all over the world. Well, Rekoh and I met one person in peticular who made an impact on our life.

We’ll call her S. Now S becomes our friend. She plays the game a lot too. S tells us that she lives in California. (That’s the opposite side of the country). What’s there to worry about?

Unfortunately not all women honor ‘The Code’. There are such women, horrible women, that I like to refer to as homewreckers.

Well for about the first 6 months or so of my sons life, S tried to worm herself in between Rekoh and I. At times when I would nap to catch up on sleep, or just because I was worn out. S would try to get Rekoh in private skype calls. Or send him flirty messages. She even went so far as to send him nudes and tell him “I’d like to push your wife off a cliff and raise your son”

Well I’m sure you know I wasn’t very happy when I found out what she was doing. Arguments insued. But eventually when we were done fighting with each other, Rekoh cut ties with her. And S becomes nothing but a bad memory.

 

All About Amy (part 4)

When we left off my relationship with Rekoh had been all but over, and I had just found out I was pregnant thanks to his nosy mother.

After the reality of being pregnant for the first time set it, I did what most women do. I went to the doctor and had them verify that I was indeed pregnant.

After doing all the things a woman who just found out she’s pregnant does. I finally sat down and let everything sink in.

I’m pregnant, how exctiting! I’m going to be a mother….FUCK! I’m going to be a mother! How is this going to work? Him and I practically hate eachother! Are we really going to raise a child together? There’s always abortion… no no abortion. The child didn’t do anything I can’t just kill it. I will not have an abortion.

After many sessions of similar thoughts with myself in finally sat down with Rekoh. I told him that I will NOT have an abortion, it’s out of the question. That being said, I know things between us are bad. So if you want I’m prepared to take my stuff and leave. I’ll raise the child on my own, I won’t put your name on the birth certificate and I’ll never ask for child support. That being said, I also would never stop you from visiting, it is your child after all. But you don’t have to be a part of this.

I gave him the best out I could think of. I figured if things were bad, then this would just make any remaining relationship worse.

He didn’t take it. He said it was his child and he was gonna man up to it and be the one to take care of it. So we stayed together. At the time I didn’t know how things were going to play out. Part of me wished he would have took the opportunity to not be part of it, but soon all my thoughts on the subject got pushed aside.

Within a week from the day his mother had me take that first home pregnancy,  I was the lucky recipient of the most common symptom of pregnancy… morning sickness.

Now I know, some of you may have had your own experiences with this lovely side effect. “Oh its not THAT bad”  Well for me, it was. It was THAT bad, and so much worse.

Every morning the first thing I would do is run to the bathroom and vomit. But it wasn’t just the morning, as soon as someone started cooking something…. vomit. The food, any food, smelled SO bad. I can’t even begin to describe how bad my aversion to the smell of cooking food was.

With that being said, after the first week, I had requested to be informed before anyone would cook. So for the duration of the preparation of the meal, and the first hour or so of after everything had been put away I’d be outside waiting for the smell to dissipate. Once the smell was gone, I’d return and attempt to eat my dinner. Most of the time I could only take a few bites before I was vomiting again. This persisted for my entire pregnancy.

About half way through the pregnancy, an apartment on the property (which had been about 4 or 5 acres) opened up, and being a pregnant  couple we jumped on the opportunity. Shortly after moving into our little apartment, I became the recipient of yet another gift of pregnancy. Lethargy. For here to the end of my pregnancy all I remember is sleeping and puking.

When I wasn’t puking I was asleep. And it wasn’t your normal tired, I’d sleep for a good 14 hrs wake up for 2 or 3 then need to go back to sleep.

Between never being able to eat and being too tired to try, I don’t know how my baby got all the nutrients it needed.

And this is how the rest of my pregnancy proceeded, eat, sleep, puke, sleep, sleep, puke, sleep repeat.

On July 19, 2012 around 8 am. With 3 little pushes my son was born weighing 7lbs 4oz.

 

All About Amy (part 3)

So off I was into the next chapter of my life. Not an easy chapter by far. But well worth it in the end..

We (my ex’s friend, who we’ll refer to as Rekoh from now on and myself) were on the road, Maryland in the rear view Pennsylvania up ahead. We were headed to Rekoh’s moms house (not many places to go on such short notice). It was weird meeting his mother for me, we’ve only been “in a relationship” for a few days. Not to mention everything that just happened…

So naturally I was a bit anxious, I was silent most of the ride…crying the rest. Many men would have had many kinds of reactions to something like that, but Rekoh just let me be. When I was ready to talk, he talked to me.

When we arrived I was greeted by a trailer surrounded by woods. Now i know some of you may be like ‘ugh a dump! But I grew up a little bit redneck I suppose. I thought all the trees were beautiful, and it helped me feel more at home over time.

Over the first few months Rekoh and I had grown to dislike each other a lot. In fact, if just another month had passed, we more than likely would have said our good byes. But as  it turns out, just an ordinary day comes along. Rekoh’s mother comes to me, “Have you had your period this month?” i replied something along the lines of “i think so, i dunno” with a shrug.  I thought that was the end of it. But later in the afternoon this woman comes back with a pregnancy test!  I’m all -.-‘    but I take the test, figure if anything it’ll get her off my back about it. Rekoh and I argue more then anything else. I’m not pregnant.

BOY, was I ever wrong! (i know, you seen that coming)

BEGIN FREAK OUT MODE!

Next time I’ll tell you all about my pregnancy with my son.

Have any “Oh Shit!” pregnancy story’s to share?

Leave it in the comments below, I’d love to hear from you!

Unfair Punishment

In my last post I told you about a time in my life where I had inadvertently caused harm to a man I had been in a relationship with (click here for the full story)

So today I wanted to ask you, have you ever hurt someone while trying to help? Or maybe just accidentally and felt like an ass? Or vengefully, trying to hurt them for hurting you?

What’s your story?

Share with us in the comments below! We’d love to hear your story! Or I could answer any question you have about mine.

Have a mavolous day!

All About Amy (part 2)

So we left off just when I met a nice gentleman online…

We spent a lot of time doing things together online. Playing games, talking on skype. Eventually we decided we wanted to meet each other in person. So he drove from one state over to come pick me up. We went back to his house, I was supposed to spend 2 months “vacationing” with him. When the 2 months were over, I was supposed to return home and we’d resume our normal lives. But as fate would have it, when the two months were over he didn’t want me to leave, and I very much wanted to stay. So after talking about it, we decided that we would return to my place just to get my stuff and I would move in with him.

We were together for about 2.5 years. For the most part we had a great relationship. But he was the kind of person that people treat like a door mat. After time I tried to change that part of him, I wanted him to start standing up for himself. Somewhere I  the process of trying to ‘help’ him, I started walking all over him just like everyone else.

This is when things started going haywire. I cheated on him in my attempts to get him to do something. But when that didn’t work I ended up sending nude photos of myself to his best friend. (Yes, I know I was a horrible person)

Just like I had expected his friend told him about the pictures, we had a conversation about it in which he ended up taking the blaim for what had happened.

Things continued, eventually we ended up moving in with his friend. At which point I was blowing him while my boyfriend was in the other room  and giving him hand jobs under the blanket while we were all sitting together.

I don’t know why he never said anything, that’s all I had wanted. And I know he noticed, I made it obvious enough.

I was disappointed with his inability to stand up for himself, the things happening to him were bad enough for it. And then it struck me, the things that I was doing to him were aweful. And he just took it. He must love me so much (either that or he’s just a moron) But i choose to believe the former.

I loved him too. I had just been trying to help him stand up for himself. But when I compiled all the things I had done in my desire to help him had caused hime much more pain then the people I was trying to get him to stand up to.

If I really loved this man then I needed to leave him. My presence was only causing pain. I was going to cause him pain one more time in my desire to help. I went to him, I told him we were over. I told him he was weak and that I needed a real man in my life. That me and his friend (who just sorta accepted our new ‘relationship’) wereally going to leave at the end of the week. At the end of the week we packed our belonging and left.

I remember looking in the mirror and seeing him cry as we left the driveway. This was the last time I’d break his heart. With tears in my eyes, I watched that part or my life come to a crashing end. The road and the next story lay ahead….

I still hold a lot of sorrow for the things that I did to this man. But i made the right choice in the end. He found a new love, and he has a baby boy now. That was the last thing I heard of him.

Until next time.

A Question for Parents.

In my first post I mentioned being a mother. I am 25 (26 in april) and I am mother to 2 wonderful childern. My oldest is a boy (age 3) and my daughter (11 months).

I had a moment today, where I was just watching my 2 children play together. And it dawned on me all of a sudden how mature my son is becoming. Sometimes it’s easy to forget he’s only 3.

The question I would like to pose to you, is have you ever had a moment like that? Even with older children, just awed by how far they’ve come in life? I’d love to hear what you think!

Tell me your story in the comments below.