Medicated Mommy: How We Roll in Crazyland

Any other parents have serious food allergies?

My kids (THANK GOD!) are food allergy free! I am sadly not one of those lucky people. I am allergic to CINNAMON! of all things. My allergy used to be a very minor irritation that caused some discomfort around my mouth and some tingling. So I know how delicious all the cinnamon covered/filled treats are; I just can’t have them.

This is the situation I encountered today: My two year old son found an atomic fireball candy in the house today. The kids get candy from various activities from time to time. The candy usually gets collected into a bucket in the pantry for the kids to get an occasional piece. That is probably where he found it: hidden with tootsie pops from Easter.

My allergy to cinnamon is severe enough that I carry epi-pens. If I consume it, I go into anaphylaxis and could die. If it gets on me, it breaks me out in a rash.

My son, being a toddler, hid and sucked on the candy and got it all over himself. My husband is working, therefore I had to do my best to clean him up without getting it all over me. With gloved hands, I did pretty well, but still ended up with some itchy red splotches on my arms.

Usually, I allow some items with cinnamon in them in the house. Usually they are eaten by the hubby and kids when hubby is around to help with any serious messes. Occasionally I have this issue. Some form of cinnamon is brought in and I have a reaction. IT IS FRUSTRATING!!!

And don’t even get me started on the looks you get when you ask people if an item contains cinnamon. I explain the allergy…Once someone told me that the item had very little cinnamon in it. When I said nevermind, they came back and said, “oh my mistake, it is not cinnamon, its allspice.” My friend tried it, it was cinnamon. They flat out lied to me and said it had something it didn’t to get me to buy it. What if I had eaten it? I could have died. GRRRRRRR! 

So what are some of your food allergies? Do your kids have allergies? How do you deal with it? SHARE YOUR PAIN! =D

We are a little over a week into 2013. 

In that time:

I have studied God’s word daily.

I have eaten correct portion sizes and made healthier choices.

I have lost 3 pounds!

I have gotten off my butt and out of my funk. I cleaned up the house and have a plan to keep it clean. My daughters are back in school and that makes it easier. I only have one little guy tearing the house up.

I self installed(not that big of a feat) our new modem and router so we have faster internet at a lower cost.

I have gotten on the track to getting all my mental health medications straightened out. 

I sucked it up and measured myself today. I HATE doing it, but it really is a good judge of how my diet and exercise plan is working. The last time I did this was NOVEMBER!

This year, I am celebrating the little achievements I do every week. Life sucks sometimes and it can be hard. So I am going to celebrate my little moments of victory and be thankful to God for every little blessing. GOD is doing amazing things in me. 

So one week down of the LOVE OUT LOUD devotional and 51 more to go. I am trying to be patient this week. I am trying to keep my cool and be calm when I want to scream. God did not give me a spirit of fear, but of peace, and of love, and of a SOUND MIND! 

That is my mantra. When I feel the anger, the doubt, the worry creep up on me, I just repeat that scripture. I have not been 100% successful in that. I need to keep my temper in check. 

Oh my, it’s been a good four months of not blogging, not really trying and maintaining the same old same old. How many times do I stop and then have to start again?

Yep. Talking about weight loss again. 

I weighed in at a disappointing 213 this morning, but thank God it wasn’t more with the way I have been eating. 

Over Thanksgiving, I prided myself on the fact that I had maintained my weight at 204. Over the next month, I ate junk and more junk. To tell you the truth, near the end of Christmas, I was tired of food. I just indulged until I looked down at my plate and ate because it was there. 

Why the change now? Why did I let myself go for the Holidays and put off starting over until New Years? Because that is how we as a people have trained ourselves to be. It’s Christmas! YEA! We just can’t diet with all this food and family and stress! And EVERYONE I know, is vowing to start anew come January 1st.

So what is going to Change this???

What is going to make this time different?

What is going to make it stick?

First of all, I am not on a diet! I have a diet plan. I have an exercise plan, but these are plans to get me started on a new life. A new way of living is in the cards for me. I am asking God to break my traditions, break my habits and help me form new ones. I don’t want to be the food obsessed calorie counting person of the past. I want to to free of that. 

I want to have peace. No more YO YO! I want every meal to be healthy and a blessing to my body. That means smaller portions and less junk. It’s hard. 

I like eating snacks while hanging out with friends and family. It’s a habit, just like some people like to smoke when they drink. I like to eat junk when I gather with people. It’s going to be uncomfortable, but I am stopping it. 

I am giving it all over to God and I am changing my habits. I am making new ones. Stressed out? Exercise. Feeling bored or listless, exercise or study scripture.

My plan for my next year is to change myself. New Year, New Me! I am asking God to help transform me into a person with a healthy body, healthy mind, healthy spirit and healthy heart. 

I am doing two devotionals daily. One is Joyce Meyer’s Love Out Loud devotional. It will help me give up on bitterness, cynicism, anger, hate, and self pity and help me learn to love and let God’s love shine through me. I am the first to admit that I AM A BITCH! No more. I am the anointed. I am the freedom generation. I am the light in a dark world. I can’t be that other person while being who God wants me to be. The other devotional is a 60 day Made to Crave devotional. I am trying to change my physical hunger cravings, into cravings for God. 

I had switched over to low carb because I was tired of stalling out on the slim fast plan. I went to track my carbs today and looked over my journal. I was eating really fatty foods in order to stay low carb. In addition to that, my body can’t handle low carb for very long because I have low blood sugar and tend to go into ketosis faster than most people. 

Part of the reason I started all of this was because my cholesterol was starting to get high. I want to eat healthy not just loose weight. So now I am back on tracking calories and not worrying about what the scale says as long as I am eating better and exercising. 

I am more interested in teaching myself portion control and how to live with cravings than simply dropping pounds. I lost sight of that. Getting the weight off is important to me too, but if I don’t do this right, and change my habits, I will be back here again and again. I learned that from previous experiences. 

So Today I am 202.0 and in a size 16. I am measuring myself which is humiliating to say the least, so I can have something beyond the scale to look at as far as progress goes. 

On Children’s Programming:

I would like to sucker punch the makers of Dora the Explorer and Diego. I have no issues with the Spanish speaking aspect of the show. I hate Dora’s and Boots’ whiny voices and want to stab them in their face. Diego sounds like he is yelling everything at you and actually says in every song “Everybody scream.” and Dora also encourages the kids to yell by saying “yell it louder.” In summary, we prefer Handy Manny for our hispanic racial stereo-types in this house.

Is it just me or are their tons of sexual references and that’s what she said moments worked into children’s television? Could just be that I am a pervert.

Yelling Mugger No Mugging three times will probably get you stabbed and you will be the one saying “oh man.” as you bleed out. 

Children’s shows probably would be better enjoyed while high or intoxicated. Neither of which should a parent be when watching kids.

My little pony is entirely too enjoyable. I feel a little embarrassed at how much I prefer this show over the rest.

Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba! is a big red studded dildo and Foofa is a uterus. DJ Lance is on ‘shrooms! End of story.

Pinkie Pie has bipolar disorder. She apparently is only taking antidepressants though, keeping her in a constant state of mania. OMG I am pinkie pie!

I could stab the song writers from Sid the Science Kid right in the eye. Catchy but stupid. Damn you!

So in an attempt to make this blog more than just my diet tracker, I am going to share some insight into what it’s like to be a mom and be bat-crap insane at the same time. Some times it’s sad and sometimes it’s hilarious to think back on, but most of the time, in the moment, it is completely chaotic and confusing.

So Here is the First Tale of a Bipolar Mom:

I have always had issues with depression. I remember being nine years old and wanting to die because I didn’t feel like life was worth living. I couldn’t give an exact reason why, but I just felt that way. Being nine and not liking pain, suicidal thoughts never amounted to actual danger for me.

In my late teens and early adulthood the depression got worse, then better, then worse. At the time, I just thought it was life. I would have days of no sleep, then days where I never left the bed. Looking back, I don’t know how I missed it. Suicidal thoughts plagued me but I either lacked the energy to do it or I would remember the one person who made life worth living for me, Ryan. I was engaged to a man who loved me and never once seemed to care that I was completely off my rocker. I would love to proclaim that my faith held me together in those moments. I am sure God’s hand was in it now, but at the time, I wasn’t so sure God cared about me.

Ryan and I married and long story short, he put up with a lot of crazy. I discovered that birth control made me even more insane and Zoloft made me into a zombie. I wouldn’t sleep for days and I could not emote. After a horrible experience with miscarriage and trying for 2 years, we had a beautiful baby girl. She was all I could think about. I didn’t eat very much, I never showered and my every thought was about her and was I doing right by her. That’s when I read a lot about parenting. And when I realized I had a pretty serious case of postpartum depression. I sat in my doctors office and wept at my inability to control my emotions. I worried that being depressed made me incapable of being a good mother. I started taking Lexapro and life was so much better. I only slept a few hours a night and sometimes not at all, but hey, I wasn’t depressed. I spent money like a mad woman. I displayed a lot of manic traits, but didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t understand what bipolar disorder was. I thought it was like having multiple personalities.

When my daughter was around 8 months old, I discovered I was pregnant again with our second child. I would be lying if I said I was happy about it at the time. I cried. I cried like it was the end of the world and the end of my life. Then I put on my big girl panties and dealt with it. I made it through the pregnancy by the skin of my teeth emotionally speaking. And when my second daughter came into this world I was thrilled. Then came the mood swings, and the anxiety. They upped my antidepressants and I seemed to get worse. Finally after saying I hadn’t slept for 3 days a doctor figured it out. I was bipolar.

Having worked the previous year at a mental health facility, I was pretty well versed in the disorder by then. I saw the signs and they confirmed my fears. I wasn’t just a sad sack, I was legitimately crazy. I started medications and started to function like a normal person. Thanks to a full understanding of my disorder, I can modify my behavior and learn to cope with issues rather than try to medicate myself into a non functional zombie.

I also had a son almost 2 years ago, and pregnancy was tough. I had to be off meds for the entire time plus breastfeeding time after.

I tell you all this to give back ground for the funnier stories. I am now a functioning adult who tries her best to cope with situations and has to resist the urge to punch my kids in the face. I am in my sixth straight year of not punching my kid in the face. (that is to say, I never have.) I still have cycles of depression and mania, but not so severe as if I was completely un-medicated.

So now for a fun list of things I have done OFF my meds!

1. During my third pregnancy, I told a woman in walmart that if she did not remove her hand from my belly she would lose it.  I proceeded to slap her friend’s hand away. I yelled at her, “Bitch! I don’t know you.”

2. A woman I did not know leaned into my stroller to kiss my baby and I slapped the back of her head and told her to get the hell away from my baby.

3. A woman asked me when I was due after my son was a few weeks old. I smiled at her and said “Nope, no baby, just fat. Thanks for the pick me up.” When she said she was so sorry and told me I didnt have to be so rude about it, I replied with “well you didn’t have to be so nosy!” and walked off.

So Long Story Short, I am a complete and total Bi-yotch off my meds. Give me sometime to think of the funnier ones and I will post some more.

Today’s weight: 204.6 

I have been riding my bike multiple miles per day and dieting. Frustration leads to despair and I end up eating something I really shouldn’t or having a drink I shouldn’t drink. I am still struggling with my food issues. 

Some days are easier than others. This week has been particular hard because add the normal water retention with my menstrual cycle and the emotional rollercoaster that it is for me and I end up over eating and stuck. The beginning of last week I jumped up 4.6lbs at the beginning of my menstrual hell. Now I am back to where I was before. 

Sticking to my two shakes a day diet today and not backing down off that until I see some progress. I had started substituting low cal meals for the shakes and food issues started again. Back to shakes and protein bars and healthy snacks and one reasonable meal a day. 

Hope I can report progress next week instead of frustration. 

Pray for me friends.