Excited about Special Education services?

As I sit and sign the paperwork to get The Artist into Special Education services at school, I'm actually excited. That sounds weird....Who in their right mind wants their child in Special Ed.? I know it means help for him though. We are fortunate to be in a school district and school that truly cares about the individual needs of the students. I know in my heart as I sit here that my son is going to be a success in life. I know that I've done and will do everything in my power to give him all the opportunities he needs to succeed.

Just 3 years ago, I wasn't even sure I would be able to continue to raise him. The depression I suffered was so severe that I was having suicidal thoughts and thoughts (only thoughts, never acted on) of hurting my children. You may be thinking to yourself that you could never think that and I hope you're right, but I never in my worst nightmares imagined I would have those thoughts either. Or maybe you've been there like me and you know exactly what I'm talking about. I never, never had any intentions behind those thoughts, they just kept popping into my head. I think my brain was under so much stress that it was just trying to cope.

My depression was a culmination of many things. First and foremost was my un-resolved anger towards my mom. Strangely, growing up and as a young adult, I was never resentful of my mom. In fact, we were always close. But somewhere over the years, I began to resent her for my belief that she didn't protect me from abuse. I'm not sure when it started, but it built and built and it finally crescendoed and I was on the verge of losing my whole extended family or so I perceived. Along with that, I was suffering from post-partum depression, the sheer agony of having to give up breast feeding after only 4 months, a at-the-time undiagnosed 3 year old with Asperger's Syndrome and sensory issues, an infant with food issues so severe that a miniscule amount of offending food would set us down a path of pain and suffering, a move from one state to another, and probably many other minor things I'm not thinking of.

The depression was so dark, it really left me feeling hopeless. I remember rocking Mr. Gusto (my youngest son) as an infant, in his dark bedroom, crying and crying. I couldn't go out of the house with the boys by myself because the thought was overwhelming. What was WRONG with me? I'd made it through so many difficult things in my life, why couldn't I get through this?

After a terribly wrong diagnosis by a psychiatrist, I went through an ordeal I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies (well, maybe one or two, LOL.) I suffered severe side effects from the prescription medications he prescribed and then even worse withdrawal symptoms from those same medications. I was in the hospital several times. I was close to losing everything.

When I finally stopped ALL the medications and emerged from this "perfect storm," I was committed to being my own advocate, to becoming healthy in my mind, body and spirt, to not trusting every word someone said just because they had the initials M.D. behind their name, or they worked for a governmental agency that was supposedly established to protect U.S. citizens. And I began to dig and read, and read some more. And what I found was shocking.

Mainly, I found that staff of government agencies and private businesses were choosing to sacrifice the lives of adults AND children, the most vulnerable, for the sake of money in their pockets. (Boy, karma is going to be hell for those people.)

But I also found that I didn't have to do everything that those same government agencies recommend and I could make my own choices about my and my children's care. I found a community of people that believes in loving themselves and others and that believes that there IS peace in this world, despite what the media would have you believe. In this community, I have found a way to release all my anger and resentment and to radiate love wherever I go. As a result, I am attracting only people that are as loving or more loving than I am. The people who aren't...well, they've either left my life or have changed when they're around me.

So, when I sit down to sign releases for my son to get special education services, I'm thrilled, not only because he gets the help he needs, but because I am here to experience it.

Lowest of the Low, Part II

So, it was going to take a couple of weeks to completely wean off the medication that the psychiatrist had prescribed and at first, I didn't experience any withdrawals. However, once the dosage became significantly smaller and my brain started reacting to the lower amount, everything changed. And that was it, this drug was a mind/brain altering drug and a heavy duty one at that. Every night for close to two hours, I would curl up on the couch in a fetal position with a veritable mountain of blankets piled on top of me and shiver uncontrollably. It felt like the flu every night except, thank goodness, it wasn't contagious. My mother wanted to take me to the emergency room the first time she watched me go through it. But I knew there was nothing they could do. I had to suffer through it.

The worst part was that the anxiety continued even though the dosage was decreased. As a result, I was still taking the anxiety medication on an almost daily basis. If I didn't, I was pacing the floors non-stop and couldn't interact with my children. So, I took it. And I was still taking the very-well-known sleep medication so that I would get more than a few hours sleep. At some point, the desperation set in. My mind was a mess. What was wrong with me? I had been through much worse it seemed--I had suffered the death of my father at a young age, along with abuse as a teen, and a traumatic c-section and I always bounced back. Why wasn't I bouncing back?

I was despondent, desperate, and feeling extremely guilty for all the time my mother and mother-in-law were having to spend with me and the boys. My mother-in-law accused me at one point of just making it all up. My mother began to say that she just couldn't come down anymore (she lived about an hour away). I was disrupting their lives and they, like me, were starting to feel that there was no end in sight. I was scared to death that it would never change, I would be this way forever.

And so it happened, truly The Lowest of the Low, I hit bottom. I told my mother-in-law that I needed to go to the local psychiatric hospital. I cried the whole way there. I didn't want to go, but I didn't know what else to do.

I told the doctor who did my intake that I "just wanted to feel better." I can still remember sitting in that cold chair across from him with my head hung low, not wanting him to admit me but at the same time terrified that he wouldn't. Surprisingly, he did admit me. (I say surprising because I wasn't having serious suicidal or homicidal ideations which are usually the requirements.)

So, I suffered through the embarrassment of a strip search (not invasive, but very uncomfortable nonetheless) and walked through those doors that were clanged shut and locked behind me. There was nothing happy about this place as you can imagine.

I met with the on-call psychiatrist and he proceeded to tell me that it was not possible to have withdrawals from the drug I was taking. I very nearly laughed at him. My husband called the original psychiatrist but he didn't return his call for two days. What a compassionate doctor, huh? I cried every time my husband came to see me. I didn't want him to see me there but he was my lifeline.

For the first time through this ordeal, I was prescribed an anti-depressant. I made the acquaintance of a woman around my age who was there because she had aborted a multiples pregnancy after having spent years going through fertility treatments to try to get pregnant. I stayed at the hospital for 3 days and was released.

About two weeks after coming home, I woke up one morning with terrible indigestion and stomach upset. This went on for weeks, I would wake up early, early in the morning upset to my stomach. I tried eating more, I tried eating less. I prayed a lot. I thought it must have been the result of the anti-depressant so I quit taking it. I then decided to look up the side effects of the anxiety medicine I was still taking. Not only was severe reflux and nausea on the list, but many, many others. The other major drawback? Because it was a drug that impacted my central nervous system, it was highly addictive. So, quitting it was akin to quitting a highly addictive illegal drug. But I was SURE that the reflux was caused by the anxiety medication. Fortunately, I was able to wean off of it with not as many troubles.

UN-fortunately, my reflux continued. I went to see a family physician who told me that severe reflux could be a problem related to the brain, so I underwent a CAT scan. It was a nerve-wracking week before I received those results and of course, they came back negative. I knew in my heart that the reflux was medication related. The only medication I was still taking though was the very-commonly-prescribed sleep medication and surely it wasn't that. The family physician finally sent me to a GI doctor who told me that I needed to have a colonoscopy and upper endoscopy. Yeah, NOT.

Just a couple of days before I was scheduled to have the colonoscopy, I looked up the side effects of the sleep medication. I was blown away. It had as many side effects if not more than the anxiety medication. I stopped taking it and started a supplement which included Valerian Root. Two days after I quit taking the prescription sleep medication, I woke up with NO pain, no reflux and I had slept better than I had in a very long time. And I CANCELLED the colonoscopy. Things were looking up!

Please feel free to comment. It took a lot for me to put this in writing as only a handful of people know what happened and I would rather forget about this time in my life. But I know now that God sent me down this difficult path for a reason and that He wants me to share it in order to help other people.

Up next, my thoughts on the original psychiatrist, his diagnoses, and a bit of my and my boys' lives since the hell finally ended.

Lowest of the low, part I

Due to the stresses of my youngest son's health issues and the extended lack of sleep that they caused, a major move (from Omaha, NE back to the Austin, TX area), my failure (as it appeared to me) to nurse as long as I had hoped, and some additional extended family stress, I began to suffer from major depression and severe insomnia. Upon the recommendation of a trusted counselor, I made an appointment with a psychiatrist. After reviewing my paperwork and interviewing me for a lengthy 15 minutes, he diagnosed me with some pretty serious mental health disorders. And prescribed some pretty serious medications to treat them. I was pretty desperate at that time and wanted more than anything to be a better mom, a better wife and most of all, a better me.

So, I took them. Shortly after I started taking them, I started having major panic attacks, a couple that sent me to the emergency room. I'd never had panic attacks before and let me tell you, I know why that name is ascribed to them. Even though I'd never had them, the psychiatrist told me that I was having breakthrough symptoms and he continued to increase my dosage, as well as prescribe anxiety medication. And the panic attacks continued. It was so bad I was scared to leave the house or even be at home alone with my boys. My husband, mother-in-law and mother were lifesavers during that time, as well as a Stephen's Minister that was truly devoted to me.

The turning point: I am fortunate to be very good friends with a person who works with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and she said to me one day, "Julie, if you didn't have this kind of anxiety before, then it HAS to be the medicine causing it. You are your only and best advocate."

So, I called the psychiatrist and said I wanted to get off the medication. It was around this time that he started taking longer and longer to return my phone calls and I rarely, if ever, actually spoke to him. It was usually one of his office staff. He prescribed a plan for weaning off the medicine and explained that I could potentially have withdrawals from the medication. I thought NOTHING could be worse than the panic attacks, but boy was I wrong.