Getting It All Out.

 My church had a women's retreat recently where the focus was on freedom. I led a breakout session at the retreat on Saturday, along with a few other women. But for the most part, Friday night and Saturday was a time of worship and a time in the word and a great time of just refreshment and healing.

My breakout session was on freedom from the bondage of food. It was quite difficult being a large person leading a session on being free from the bondage of food. It felt, well, hypocritical. But, I was loved and accepted by those present and I explained in my session where I was in my journey and it was honestly the best thing that I could have done for where I am. That's kind of what led to my last post. Even though I have dealt with what happened in my pastor's office when I was 16 years old long ago, I had never openly shared it with the world. And it needed to happen.

There is a lot of "stuff" inside of me that I have never let out. I have spent the last year and a half in the best treatment/therapy that I have ever had. As a therapist myself, I believe in therapy and there is nothing wrong with saying you need it. My weight is one area of my life that I. can't. control. Which, I have found is quite common (Look at Oprah, girl has got it together but can't stay a size 8, not that she needs to, but you see what I'm sayin'). Or we control too much (anorexia and bulimia...or more mildly with over dieting and exercising to stay a size 6). So, it goes both ways. Disordered eating doesn't really have a preference it's just when you're really, really fat or really, really skinny people can see it more. Some people are really good at hiding their disorders.

I have spent the last ten years diligently attempting to get to a healthy weight and I haven't succeeded.    There. It's out there. I said it.

Most of that time I hated myself and the way I looked. If I lost weight I was "happy" and liked the way I looked, even though I never made it anywhere near a goal weight. I lost a lot of weight.....but.....I had a lot of weight to lose, so.... I would lose, gain, lose. repeat.  I was depressed and got to the point of being so sad and depressed about the way that I looked that it spurred me to change. What I have learned in the past year and a half is that you can't hate your way to a positive change. Let me say that again YOU CAN'T HATE YOURSELF INTO A POSITIVE CHANGE. Yep. And I have about 30 years of hate to undo. Wow. It's my hate. I own it. I've had medical interventions in order to reach a goal weight and had initial success, great success, only to slowly re-gain. Enter more shame, guilt, self-hate and failure. *sigh*

Not only have I had to come to not hate the way I look in order to change I really had to embrace the way I look. The reason for change had to come from something besides what was on the outside. Because being a certain size on the outside isn't going to necessarily make me happy, even though that's what I've focused on for so. many. years.

It's about acceptance. Love, not hate. Being able to say I'm beautiful. You can tell me I'm beautiful 10,000 times and it doesn't matter if I don't believe it.... It's about trying to see myself like my husband sees me. Like my kids see me. Like Jesus sees me.

 I'm to the point where I want to stop procrastinating and move forward with a plan.  I have a birthday coming up in a couple of weeks and next year at this time I want to look different. To finally begin a journey with love and acceptance and move forward to healthy living because I just want to be healthy, move freely, have energy to keep up with my kids...all kinds of things make the list not just the fact that I could be smoking HOT as a size 8. That's really not the focus, it  can't be. That's kind of like the icing on the cake. It can't be the end all, be all. I'm more than that. I'm so much more than just a pretty face. I always have been.

I want to stop procrastinating now that I have worked on a lot of this "head" stuff and while taking it one day at a time still hold myself accountable to eating clean, 80-90% of the time, eating whole foods, working my body out in a healthy way (which means I don't have to kill it, I just have to move it 3-5 times a week). All this while giving me grace when life happens. Understanding what eating in moderation means. Living with the hard feelings. The sad feelings.

So yeah, I may be a mess for a while. There's a lot of stuff in here that's not  pleasant or fun and it either comes out and gets processed or I drown it with food. It's really difficult to explain in a paragraph, but if you stick with me long enough you will be able to experience the ups and downs of recovery. Because that's what it is. It's a journey. And there will be ups and downs.

Just like walking into that retreat with anxiety about sharing about being free from food's bondage and wondering if I was going to be laughed out of the room, writing this post leaves me feeling exposed and "out there". But I went ahead and did that breakout session and great things came from it. Instead of being laughed out of the room I was loved, accepted and affirmed. It was crazy. It was healing. The retreat was healing. Jesus is healing.

 It's very healing sharing your scars and realizing that people aren't going to reject you but offer you support. For too long I have rejected support and built walls and kept people out. I still do. I have a long ways to go. But just writing this blog post helps. It is healing. Putting it out there.

So, I want to be free from this junk so if that means putting it out there I'm going to put it out there. I'm the only one who can choose to let it go. It just may mean seeing all kinds of parts of me you haven't seen before. Hopefully you can love me through this process.

More to come..... (eek!)

Mommy Needs a Time Out, Too!

As a therapist, whenever I see a female client we generally always get around to how she takes care of herself. Most of the time, the female client has a really hard time explaining how she goes about taking care of herself. I'm not saying every woman that I have seen in counseling is lacking in this area, but it came to my attention pretty quickly that when women present to a therapist with depressive symptoms, weight gain, anxiety, among other issues, typically, self-care is lacking or non-existent.

I wanted to take a few weeks and really take the time to educate people out there about self-care and how important it is in this crazy life we are living. I mean, lets face it, unless you are Amish, living on a farm somewhere secluded, with no accessibility to electronic devices, we all share similar life stressors. We all go through life stages. Sometimes those stages are wonderful and fun and fulfilling. Other times, they are depressing, overwhelming and emotionally draining.

Our ability to sustain and take care of ourselves (and others) will have a huge impact on how we recover when life throws us those curve balls. Sometimes the curve balls keep coming. Sometimes we think the worst has happened and we find ourselves empty, void, and depressed. Unable to fight back any longer. Unable to spring back, revitalized, yet again. We are done. Finished.

So how do we prepare ourselves for life's ups and downs?

Simply put, we have to take the time to care for ourselves even when we think we don't have the time. You can ignore your body, you can ignore the depressive symptoms, you can deny being spiritually, physically and emotionally drained...you can ignore these symptoms, for a time. But the body has a funny way of letting you know when it's had enough.For some this is physical symptoms such as intestinal issues, inflammation, heartburn and anxiety attacks. These are signals our body is giving us that we need to slow down and take better care of ourselves. For others, it leads to more serious symptoms, some people are hospitalized. Some people are near nervous breakdowns. It doesn't have to get to that point, it shouldn't take hospitalization in order for us to take notice of what we are doing to our body (and our soul and our spirit).

If there is anything I could teach women it would be the art of self-care. So, that is what I am going to set out to do in the next few posts and weeks. Break it down. Educate. Empower.

First things first. What is self-care? And what is it NOT?

Next time we will look in depth at exactly what self-care is, the definition and what it is not.

Here is a hint. As wonderful as taking a hot bubble bath is and making time to go get a mani/pedi can be stress relieving, or having a girls night out every now and then can increase bond with others; true self-care comes from inner values of what we find important. Knowing who we are. Our purpose, and why we are here.

It is a process of nurturing ourselves over the long run, not just a quick fix it like taking a hot bath or reading a favorite book. Granted, those should be incorporated into our lives. They are healthy. They are important.

But there is much, much more to it than that.

I leave you with a question: What is self-care to you?


Can't wait to dig into this with you guys!!!!

Opening Up about ADHD

Yesterday was a rough day. We have been dealing with a diagnosis of ADHD for our oldest son for a few months now. He also has some sensory processing issues, especially with touch and hearing. And while I wholeheartedly agree with the diagnoses, sometimes I just don't feel up to the challenge of having a challenging kid. Yesterday was one of those days.

This morning I heard an interview about labeling children on the Today show. To see the interview, click HERE Needless to say, it grabbed my attention. While this interview discussed ADHD, among other diagnoses, the family presented in this interview has three kids, yes, THREE sons with ADHD. Yikes.

Anyway, the mom in the interview is very open about sharing her families struggles with ADHD. I have yet to be that open, mainly because I want to protect my son. It's my job. But, on the other hand, as others have told me that I have an audience (albeit small) that would benefit from sharing our family struggles with this disorder.

*sigh*

But I don't wanna. LOL. (that's my best 3 year old impersonation). I know it will be very healing and cathartic (and hopefully, sometimes, funny) it also opens my boy up for attention and judgement. It opens my husband and I open for attention and judgement. And I think we get enough of that anyway, why would I want to add to it?

But, I know in writing about our struggles it might help someone else, or that other person may feel less alone by reading our story.

I think we are pretty fortunate in that we have a diagnosis. That in and of itself helps. Because not having a diagnosis makes a parent feel like a failure a lot of the time. We asked, "what are we doing wrong?" Carter can be challenging behaviorally. I don't mind it so much, except when we are in public. Because, honestly, I feel it reflects negatively on me as a parent. Why?

Hello! I am a psychotherapist that specializes in, guess what? Children, adolescents and families. I cannot tell you how many kids I have dealt with that has had this diagnosis. It is really, really different being on the other side of it.

I mean, I teach parents how to be good parents or to increase their parenting skills. Imagine how discouraging it is when you are trying to teach your child and your child does not cooperate? Especially before a diagnosis. I felt like a failure, a lot. I felt confused. I felt discouraged. I felt like something wasn't right but I didn't know what it was.

Carter was in childcare part time since he was six months old. It wasn't until he was two that we first heard a teacher (very unprofessionally) use the term ADHD for him. I was extremely angry and handled the situation by talking with the Director of the program. Thankfully, it was the day before the end of the school year. He went that final day and we did not return in the fall.

The next year was equally challenging for Carter. He was in a more structured environment and honestly, I loved his teachers, but I think they expected too much out of three year olds. Even though they were awesome, Carter didn't get as many chances of positive reinforcement as I would have liked, and that includes from me as well as the teachers. I was told Carter had a very difficult time sitting still. I cried. I went to the pediatrician. The ped said he was too young to do anything about diagnosing him at that time.

During Pre-K Carter did great. He was at the same school. Each day I picked him up I held my breath. I kept asking his teacher how he was doing? How was his behavior? I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never did. His teacher said he acted like a typical four year old. She had a hard time getting him to write, which for a boy is not unusual. And she said that if he didn't want to do something, he didn't do it (sounded familiar). My husband and I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, maybe Carter was growing into becoming more mature and being able to control himself. He was by no doubt active and always had been, but it seemed that maybe those nagging feelings in the back of my mind about ADHD could be put to rest.

But during the second 9 weeks of Kindergarten he started having issues. Never anything behavioral, more affecting his academics. By the Spring of his Kindergarten year Carter had been diagnosed and was on meds. It made a dramatic difference in his ability to complete work and staying on task. We knew as painful as it was, we had made the right decision. We could see a huge difference ourselves, in how Carter behaved and how much more positive we could be with him.

Being on medication, however, does bring side effects. Yucky side effects. I don't like them. I don't like how it changes my kid's personality. We have lots more meltdowns now. He's moody. He has what appears to be anxiety, but who knows for sure. We have him in counseling twice a month because, as a therapist, I know kids with ADHD are more prone to depression and anxiety (and other lovely disorders that I'm not going to mention, like ODD). With counseling, he is able to learn about how to control his outbursts, anxiety, and how to self-sooth and calm himself. I was able to teach him some things, but it really is better coming from someone besides your mom.

My history is working with kids who are at-risk. Below poverty level, lack of parental supervision, lack of resources, etc. So, I know Carter is not exposed to those risks as those kids are. At-risk kids tend to have more of the severe disorders I mentioned above. I keep telling myself Carter has A LOT going for him. And he does.

Socially, he has always been able to make and keep friends. It seems like everybody knows who Carter is at his school. They are always coming up to him and saying, "Hi, Carter". I'm not going to say he is popular, but, with a kid who has ADHD I would say he is doing pretty well in the social department. That is HUGE!!!! I hope it continues to be positive.

Carter is funny, smart, creative, loving and very, very caring. He has a lot more attributes but these stand out the most.

Of course, Greg and I do all that we can to help Carter and figure him out and I spend alot of times on my knees praying that Carter is able to be all that he can be. That God would use him and this diagnosis for His glory.

You know, I would like to say that since I am a therapist that I am the PERFECT mom to have a kid with ADHD. Well, I am the perfect mom for Carter, but I am very imperfect. I lose my temper. Sometimes I raise my voice. I get overwhelmed. Frustrated. Exhausted. Sometimes I am not very loving, patient or kind to Carter, especially when he is very hyper. I hate it when I lose it in public. Lately, that seems to be happening while I am trying to check in both boys at church. LOL. Talk about humbling. I had to go the the Chidlren's minister a few weeks ago and apologize one Wednesday night because I was so frustrated with my boys that I took it out on the check-in people at church. I'm pretty open about my shortcomings. I am thankful for grace and hoping that I am also making improvements along the way.

Anyway, here we are. I hope to write more openly about this now. And I hope to protect Carter. I want to do both. I need to do both.

If you are a parent dealing with a difficult, challenging kid and don't know what to do and feel like you are at the end your rope, go talk to a therapist and see if an evaluation is necessary. Believe me, they are not going to diagnose your kids unless they need to be diagnosed. They are trained . They are professional. You have options. You have choices. We went the medication route. You don't have to. But sometimes having answers and interventions can make a huge difference. I can tell you having a diagnosis helps me to feel like not so much of a failure. And to know that while Carter is challenging, we have interventions. We just have to work harder. And that's okay because he is worth it.

More to come....thanks for listening.