So I guess introductions are in order. My name is Leslie and I'm a 43 year old woman married to an extremely wonderful (and thankfully patient) man named Joe. I have three stepchildren from Joe's previous marriage and we've been blessed with a beautiful grandson as well.
I lived in Pennsylvania for my entire 42 years of life, within 20 miles of where I was born. Joe and I moved to South Carolina a year ago so that he could get a job at Boeing. I spent many years working in the title insurance industry till I finally burned out in spectacular fashion two Novembers ago with my second nervous breakdown. That breakdown now defines me. Not because it happened, but because of what I've learned.
How it happened: I was working for a new start-up title company after being laid off from a great job that I loved, because of the housing meltdown. I didn't think that opening a new title company was a great idea in the market we were facing, but a job is a job and I really needed one.
I was working for a husband and wife that I considered friends. However, business was harder and harder to come by. I was unable to pull previous clients, partly because I didn't want to screw over my old boss and partly because I'm a shitty saleswoman. In fact, in my hiring contract, I specifically had it written in that sales was NOT part of my job. I also continually tried to get the husband to get his title insurance license so that if everything every happened to me, the business could continue. To his detriment, he did not listen to me.
Monday before Thanksgiving 2011 I woke up and couldn't even face getting out of bed, let alone going to work. However, I had a therapy appointment scheduled before work, and my therapist, Betty, was always quite amazing at helping me work through my issues. I had been on anxiety and depression meds for a few years and had been in therapy for probably close to 10 years by that point. Meds, with no therapy, is not useful. You must face the demons and learn to overcome them or the meds are just masking your symptoms and you will never get better, But I digress.
I forced myself out of bed, got dressed and got in the car. I had been crying on and off the whole time. When I started my car, I was faced with my biggest pet peeve, Christmas music on the radio before Thanksgiving had even arrived. Now angry, I began crying harder. The drive to Betty's office was something that I probably shouldn't have done, for safety's sake, but I could only think of getting to this safe place and finding a way to calm down. What happened at this safe place, was that my brain completely let go on me. Probably because I knew it was a safe place to allow it to happen.
The hardest decision that I ever made was allowing Betty to interrupt my husband at work to come and help me. I was strong. I didn't need help, I could get through this. But the more she begged me (privacy laws prevented her from doing it on her own) the more I realized that it had to happen. I also allowed her to call my bosses to let them know what was happening and that I wouldn't be in that day.
When my husband arrived it was decided that the hospital was the only option. Joe drove me to the emergency room and I remember only a couple things from that day. One of those things is that I willingly signed myself into the psych ward.
I spent a week in the psych ward. It was not a pleasant week, but I learned a lot about myself. I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and very low spectrum bi-polar disorder. My husband ran himself ragged that week, going to work during the day, stopping at home to pick up things I needed, coming to the hospital for visiting hours, then going home, shoving dinner down his throat and trying to get to sleep. Rinse. Repeat.
My bosses called my husband once during that week. They weren't calling to see how I was, they were calling to ask him to bring work to the hospital for me to do. He quit my job for me that day.
Upon my release from the hospital I was admitted to a day program for a month. Monday through Friday, 9 to 3. Group therapy, art therapy, one on one sessions. This was were I learned that I was severely codependent. I had never heard of the condition but once I saw the symptoms, I realized that I had nearly all of them. Melody Beattie takes pages upon pages in her book "Codependent No More" to define codependency. She lists 231 symptoms. 231 symptoms. Those symptoms are grouped into 14 different groups: care taking, low self-worth, repression, obsession, controlling, denial, dependency, poor communication, weak boundaries, lack of trust, anger, sex problems, miscellaneous and progressive. You can find the full list of symptoms here. I have way way more than half of these symptoms.
After the one month day program, I moved to a month of evening group sessions. We talked about our day, the road bumps we encountered and received help on dealing with those road bumps.
A one week stint in the psych ward, 2 months at outpatient treatment and continuing therapy, resulted in a shift in perception that has lowered my anxiety, mitigated my depression and allowed me to live my life with happiness.
I learned that there are many buttons in my mind that can be pushed to make me angry, frustrated, sad, hopeless and probably worst of all, compliant. I've learned that my old bosses and others in my life, were and are, experts at pushing those buttons. Sadly I lived a long time not being completely aware of those buttons and the people who were pushing them. Too much pushing sent me down the path of a mental breakdown, but it also brought me out to new knowledge about myself.
Don't get me wrong, I still have THOSE days. But I know now, what buttons are available to be pushed and what to expect when someone jabs their finger into one. My success rate at dealing with these button pushing is getting better. I don't always succeed, but noticing not succeeding is a success in it's own way.
I'm happy to offer advice (I'm not a licensed anything except a notary public, so this will not be medical advice!) to help anyone who is suffering.
Hopefully I haven't scared you away and you'll tune in for the next installment!
Until then...just breathe~
No comments:
Post a Comment