Physical Problems

Hi everyone,

It has been a hot minute since I was on here writing and that is for a reason. I swear I didn’t forget to write, I just have been physically drained. I thought that this would be a good time to talk about how physical issues can cause so much stress and other problems.

I have stage IV endometriosis that has lead to me having yearly surgeries to remove the endometriosis. This was being handled until my obgyn decided she didn’t want to be my doctor anymore. So I have been trying to find a good doctor since and have struck out in many places. Now I am being referred  to a doctor out of St. Louis who is apparently an expert in endometriosis. Of course since this doctor is out of a big hospital I can not get in to see him until next year so until I do get to meet him I have been placed on a horrific drug to help stop the endometriosis growth.

For those of you that do not know me, I tolerate pain very well. I hardly ever take pain medications and try not to complain about my problems. Now with that said I also have these moments where I can not move. I can not breathe. I can not lay down because I feel like I am being gutted with a big knife and left to die. Lately these moments are very often.

So this “magical” drug they placed me on is supposed to help but at what cost? I will be going through a fake menopause (that many people who take the drug never come out of) and hoping it doesn’t kill the part of my brain that produces hormones. The doctor described this medicine to me as “being just like chemotherapy for endometriosis” and I think that it is holding true to its description so far (minus the killing of the endometriosis because I can’t see inside me to know that).

Because of all of this I have been absolutely drained. I am exhausted and cranky. I just want to sleep for 10 years and wake up feeling better. I have had the worst brain fog and memory malfunctions, which I am thinking is from the pain medicine I take. I am not 100% and am putting every ounce of effort into trying to be as close to that 100% I can be.

The main reason for me posting this is to possibly educate some of you out there that may not know that having a disease can alter your brain, make you more irritable, make you more emotional, or make you shut down. These things can come from chronic pain, stress from trying to find/fight doctors, or stress from just trying to live your life while dealing with everything that you are dealing with.

My disease is invisible to all of you, but I still have it. I still have the pain and I am learning to live with it. Please keep in mind that there are many invisible illnesses that may be affecting the people you talk to on a daily basis.

To those of you fighting your own battle, keep looking up. Have hope that it will get better. Fight for your health. You can do this.

The Other Side of Mental Health

Hi everybody,

It has been a while since I posted last and the reason why is actually the topic of this post. Pain. Illness. Anything that causes you physical distress can also affect your mental state.

I have been in an unbearable amount of pain recently for no known reason. I have been to emergency rooms and doctors offices looking for answers but no one has any yet. All I have gotten so far is “take this pain medicine”, which I absolutely despise!!!! If I refuse said pain medication then they think that I am not in as much pain as I say and it can’t be that bad. No one stops to think that maybe I don’t want to be addicted to pain killers, I don’t want the side effects, I don’t want the added mental numbness. All of this feeds depression, telling me that my ailment is not as bad as I think it is and to just ignore it as best I can. It feeds anxiety, telling me it is much worse of an issue than anyone is willing to look at.

I think that sometimes people forget that being sick can make someone more depressed, more anxious, more irritable for no reason. And not all illness is seen on the outside. I just had a college professor (with good intentions) tell me I looked fine when I told him I might have to leave early due to pain. I don’t think he meant any harm by saying this but he made me have to try and justify my pain to him. Honestly this made me unsure of myself. I shouldn’t have to justify my pain to the person trying to teach me college courses. It is real. I have many invisible illnesses that you can’t see, that doesn’t make them less real.

Anyway that is all I am going to write for today. Just remember everyone goes through their own battles, whether that is emotional, mental, physical, ect. Be patient. Be kind.webmd_rf_photo_of_pain_word_collage

Anxiety

Hi everybody!

Anxiety is the subject today because I think this is probably the most common and most under recognized of everything I have talked about so far. Anxiety is weird. It can come out of nowhere and make you panic. It can make you feel angry for no reason. It can lead to other issues like depression.

I have had anxiety for as long as I can remember, I just didn’t know what to call it for a long time. I didn’t know my weird off the wall mood swings were because I was having anxiety. I have always been a worrier but never knew getting up at least 10 times a night in elementary school to make sure my homework was really done was anxiety. I still do odd things like that but at least I know why now.

Anxiety is caused by triggers sometimes. I say sometimes because I still do not know all of my triggers but I know a few. I know that if you are a middle aged man that triggers me into an anxiety attack. If you are yelling, even if in fun, that triggers me into an anxiety attack. If I am somewhere new, if there are a lot of people, if I am in a stressful environment, if there is any confrontation all of these things send me into an anxiety attack.

Now everyone has different triggers. You are the only one that can decide what those are.

Sometimes if my kids are really loud, or fighting, that can give me anxiety. Then I have to find calm relaxing ways to stop it. Sometimes that is just sitting down on the couch with my children and reading a book or putting on lavender essential oil to help me feel better. Everyone is different and require different means to calm themselves.

I also do not recognize when I am having an anxiety attack 6/10 times. My significant other has to tell me it is happening because anxiety starts out small and builds until it is something affecting your whole body. It may start as stress but in the end you are not able to have a conversation because of the physical involvements from anxiety.

You can be a fully functioning person and still struggle with anxiety!!!! You can work a good job and have great friends and still have this battle. Anxiety does not discriminate. It does not care how much money you make or how hard you work. It is out there and I am sure many people you know have it.

So take a moment to make sure your family and friends are okay. Ask if they need help. Sometimes that is all that someone with anxiety needs, support.

Despair

Hi everyone,

Today I want to write about this thing called despair. I want to share its evils and show its desires.

I have been having a lot of anxiety lately and am not sure why. I have tried everything I can think of to try to make it better and it just isn’t working. It is almost like sometimes my anxiety is more physical than it is mental. Some of you may think this sounds strange and others read that statement and completely understand what I am saying. Well what I am saying is that sometimes my fight or flight symptoms (elevated heart rate, shortness of breath, ect) stick around long after the perpetrator in my brain is gone. I don’t know what to do about this and that is where despair comes in. Despair likes anxiety, it is like they are old pals. Despair is like you are in quick sand and are slowly being swallowed alive. You don’t even realize you are there until you can’t move. When anxiety and despair are together it is like you are shattering and there are pieces of you falling into this quicksand. You scoop, digging for these pieces of yourself but they get lost.

I have a couple of things that I would like to clear up about despair before I go on. 1. People that are feeling despair do not want you to feel pity for them. 2. Telling someone to just be happy does not help. 3. I want to be happy too.

That is a big thing with me lately. I want to be happy. I want it so bad that I try to make myself, or shove everything down inside of myself so that I am “happy”. I want so bad to be able to show my kids a happy healthy mother. I want for them to grow up in a mentally stable home. I know I do not offer that. My brain is broken. I keep taping it back together but tape falls off.

Today despair got me in a bad place. It had me questioning whether I should leave my family. Whether I should commit suicide. Whether I should start smoking again. Whether I will always be broken. Because that is what despair wants you to think, that you will always be broken.

I may always be broken. I will always fight though. I will always try to be better. I will always find something to hold onto in the quicksand so I can pull myself back out eventually. I am suicidal. Logically I know that is not an answer. Mentally I think it may be. This is the battle I have daily. I know many of you have these battles also but are afraid to talk about them. If you are in the middle of a war in your brain please just know I am down in the mental trenches with you. I am fighting alongside you. I will help you in whatever way I can. Even if there is nothing else in your physical world you can control, mentally you can fight these demons.

 

Please also know that if you or anyone else you know ever needs help there are national hotlines that can get you the help you need.

Deep Dark Depression

Hi Everybody,

Today I am going to talk about depression and what it can do to a person. I will talk about how depression shows itself differently. How this seemingly easy thing to classify is truly hard to understand. I am going to talk about how depression affects parenting. Hopefully I can show how there is no need to stigmatize this extremely prevalent issue that is happening all over our world.

I have depression and have had it since I was in grade school. I do not remember a time that I did not have depression but I can tell you this, I didn’t truly know that I had it until I started going to counseling. In grade school I shunned away from people and didn’t really like making friends. I was a good kid, made good grades and strove to be the best but was socially anxious. When I hit junior high was when I knew something was wrong so I told some people to try to get help and I was classified as a teenager that just wanted attention. So I stopped telling people. I kept all of the self hate, sadness, and numbness to myself. This is NOT something you should do!!!!

I remember vividly being extremely anorexic. I drank two slimfast drinks a day and exercised drastically. At one point in time I was walking 7-10 miles a day, doing around 1500 ab crunches, 100 push-ups and still had two P.E classes at school that I did. I was trying to run from my feelings. I was being outrageously unhealthy and on the outside I was being praised for it. This caused my depression to unfold tremendously. I thought all these people around me just liked this tortured person that I presented to them daily so I kept it up, until I shattered my ankle. Then everything halted. I couldn’t walk 10 miles a day anymore, I was benched at P.E. and I hated myself. Because that is the thing, I manifest depression in one of two ways. The first way is self hatred, and the second is complete and utter numbness.

The numbness set in then. I would get home from school and just sit in my room and stare at the wall. For hours every night I would do this. Eventually I would fall asleep and then get up the next day and start again. I would tell people that I did not care more than I said anything else. I didn’t care though, about anything. I tried to seek help multiple times for this because I was getting into trouble at home for not being happy. Let me tell you this from someone with experience from it; This DOES NOT WORK. Being mad at someone, that will internalize everything you say to them, for something that they are already mad at themselves for is counterproductive.

I then started to try and find ways to make myself feel something again which lead me to self harming. I was not suicidal at that time but was very destructive. I hid every last injury I made. I continued on this path for a long time until I started seeing a really good counselor. Even then I was not fixed and I think that is something some of you need to hear. Counseling does not completely fix you. It shows you ways to handle the stressful situations better then what you are doing so far. It teaches you how to handle destructive tendencies and how to cope with traumatic events in your life.

I got older, my counselor moved away and I stopped trying to find a new one. I had my daughter and got pregnant with my son. That is when I noticed my depression was back and worse then before. I felt like I had fire on my insides and it was burning away who I was. It left nothing in its place. I went to counselors and was yet again not taken seriously. I was told to find God. I was told to consult my husband (not married). I was told that I was just sad. I was not just sad though. I was suicidal.

I had convinced myself that I was a bad parent for not being happy all the time. I couldn’t properly take care of them if I have these issues inside myself. I was trying to find help and no one listened, no one understood. I never tried to commit suicide while I was pregnant because I ABSOLUTELY love my children! I did then and I still do now. That doesn’t change the way my brain is functioning though. It doesn’t mean that I am fine just because I never did anything because waking up every day thinking I would make the world a better place if I was dead is not okay. It is not healthy. I knew that I just didn’t know how to change it.

I did eventually go back to a counselor. I got more help. I am better now than I have been in a long time but I am not fixed. I probably never will be. That’s okay. I take one day at a time and go from there.

If you are a parent and have depression please just know I may not know exactly what is going on in your life but I do understand the absolute love for your children with the never ending numbness, pain, struggle to live. I assure you that there are people out here that care even if it seems like there isn’t. There is hope. Today is a new day and tomorrow will be too. As long as you keep trying to be a good parent, you will be. We can do this. I will try to help you.

Anyone can have depression. The happy person in the gas station you went to this morning, to the angry person you see at the restaurant arguing about their order. It is more common than you think.

Please remember that if you or someone you know ever needs some help you can always contact these national hotline numbers!!!

Getting to Know Me

Hi everybody!

This is the very first blog written by myself, Kali Marshall. I am here to talk to you about parenting and life in itself. Hopefully I can do some good by writing these things and letting you guys get to know me.

I grew up in a small town in Missouri. I lived in a troubled environment where my mom was a meth addict and my father was a mentally and emotionally abusive person. Thankfully my mother got clean over ten years ago and I have an amazing relationship with her now. My father is a different story and I am going to go ahead and say that he will be the subject of at least some of my posts on here.

I lived with my father from the time I was in second grade until I was able to move out of his house and in with a friends mother in high school. Soon after I did that I was legally emancipated from both of my parents. Because of my childhood with my father I have now grown up to have a horrible slew of mental health issues. I know right, this is soooo taboo to talk about! It needs to happen though. We need to talk about how the mother that loves her children with all of her heart can be severely depressed, have crippling anxiety, have zero self esteem,  trust absolutely no one, have an off and on eating disorder and the worst for last, battle with suicidal tendencies.

Now please read this carefully, I DO NOT NEED ANYONE’S SYMPATHY. I am here today typing all of this up so that hopefully I can help someone who may be going through the same things.

All of these issues that I have mentioned that I have are not typically talked about in open conversation. They need to be. We need to be able to reach out to those around us for help, without judgement. We need to be able to effectively educate the people around us about mental health disorders and how normal appearing people can have them. Productive members of society can have them. We need to not shame someone for coming out and talking about the problems that a large percentage of people in our world have.

That is something I have had to come to terms with. I can not be ashamed of saying “I feel suicidal today, I need help”, “I feel very depressed today, I need help”, “I am having an anxiety attack, I need help”, “I have an eating disorder, I need help”, “I am a victim of gas lighting, I need help”.  We need to make even the strangers on the street feel like if they needed to come to your door and ask you for help, you would help. Now I do not completely know how to do this but I am hoping that by educating and sharing my story it will start the process.

Anyway these deep topics are what most of my material will be about and I hope you like reading them!

 

Please remember that if you, or anyone you know needs help there are hotlines you can call!!!