Birthday, Mother's Day, Novel and Lemonade

It has been a few days since I wrote in here. Mother's day was wonderful! Heidi gave me a plush, hotel style huge robe. I love it! Bob was home for the weekend and we went out to dinner, and then on Sunday he made me pancakes the agreed to stay just long enough to get some sleep..(I hate sleeping without him) and got up at 3:00 a.m. to get back to Decatur.

For my birthday, it was Anne of Green Gables' theme. A recording of The Lady of Shallot, by Alfred Lord Tennyson - his poem set to music. The recording artist sounded like one of Celtic Woman. Then I got a puzzle that looked like the house of green gables, then a quote from the book framed: Tomorrow is fresh with no mistakes in it., I got season 4 of Greys Anatomy and if the weather was sunny Heidi had people lined up for a tea party. She even make a sparkling grape juice labled "Raspberry Cordial" like Diana drinks in the book and movie. Also, they got me a book of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poems to read. And then the famouse cake. Best cake I have ever had! Better than the cake I had around eight years old made by a neighbor - butter brickle. It was even better than that. So on Thursday this last week, Heidi and I went to Deluxe bakery and pastry shop in Iowa City and tried their morsels. I asked if I could have some frosting (to try to make my own cake) and they gave me both the frosting and the filling. They had never had that request. Hmmm I'm a little; hmmm; bizarre? embarassing? ah, a character is what my mom would call me.
Let's just say between my birthday and Mother's day it was all good. Slight depression, very short lived.

I had an MRI to check my head out to see why I was having mini seizures or shocks in my head. There were some things they found. One was sinusitis, another was cerebral Atropy. My brain is doing what happens to people more in their 70's. My memory is attrocious. I also learned that there may be a way to treat my PTSD physically. I don't know how but I definately will ask my Doctor about it on the 18th

The medication changes were right on the money. I'm feeling so much better! It is hard not to look to the future because I have been down this road so many times. I have a brother who thinks my "vacations" to a psych unit is a cop out. He has depression and PTSD and is miserable. But even my psychologist has said that with what he has dealt with his entire life, therapy might be more harm than good, but with the right medication he could feel much better and wouldn't find the need to self-medicate.

Depression is widespread in my family. Environmentally was an easy culprit, but abuse and psychologically we each came out damaged. There were a lot of mind games and you never knew when you were in the clear and away from dad's belt. Each of us has a bit of PTSD and depression.

I am going to try to change this blog somewhat. Since I am not following TrueHope at this time, I am going to be finding ways to cope and share them here, talk about what life is like on meds. When I am securely planted somewhere else I will attempt it then. I have been doing my 'house of the week" reward thing and giving a rose to someone every Monday. These two projects keep my mind occupied. I've considered making my life story into a book, but there would be too much collateral damage I think. As scattered to the wind we are, I still have love for my brothers and sister and their family. Maybe I can do something, change the names, give instances that are similar but not the same. I think it would be obvious to my family even if I altered facts and sold it as a novel. Maybe I need to do it to get it out of my system. I am ready to turn all those lemons I've been tossed into lemonade. I have actually been making homemade lemonade and orangeade. Way better than store stuff. I have decided I will answer when someone asks how I am, I will say, "Need to make some lemonade today,, otherwise I'm great" If I could look at it that way that would be great. Something that comes with Bi-Polar and depression is that you are in hell and even making lemonade is impossible. But I am going to attempt it.

I'll keep you posted.