79pounds

Open Child Support & Custody

i have half custody of my daughter. our kids are grown and in the passed few months none of the kids are around much. its pretty weird.

Open Breakups & Divorce

i have been separated from my second husband on and off since the summer of 1998. my first husband died in 1993. my second husband was my first husband's best friend and we married less than a year after my first husband died. up until two years ago i had a very bad habit of saying my husband and always meaning my first husband. i have a boyfriend, who i've known since my first husband and i were separated. my second husband has a girlfriend. i do not want to get divorced at all.

Treatments

Couples Counseling Working / Worked

we aren't together enough to become more than what already is. and we aren't focusing because when apart we see other people.

Forgiveness Working / Worked

he'd have to be forgiving me, more than the other way around. i just realized that. he's been right about a lot of things that i was definitely wrong about. though its too late to fix that and i don't know how it may have gone anyway. we've had to deal with a lot that has nothing to do with he nor i. a real lot of things.

Leave Working / Worked

we are apart too much to really "be". lately i feel apart and before i didn't feel that way. the idea of divorce makes me feel like i can't breathe. why can't i fix this? if i were living in europe full time and everyone in my life were there, i wonder what i would choose. yet i don't find out. and every time i turn around there is something more happening here and my husband says there always will be unless i make a clean break and don't look back.

Love Working / Worked

i love my husband. i love my boyfriend. i love the kids. i love my family. eventually you have to love what is in front of you, is how i feel now and i never viewed life like that before. not that you still can't pick and choose, but the risky stuff becomes less and less. risky starts to seem stupid. and adventure starts to seem foolhardy, though most of that i think because of 911 and all the strict stuff at airports.

Music Working / Worked

i always listen to music. always have. my father was a professional musician. and i play instruments too. half of my family are artists.

Pets Working / Worked

i love all of my pets. i'm so glad i'm not allergic to all animals anymore. i was up until 9 years ago. i could only tolerate certain breeds of dogs, like poodles. though i fed cats outside. i still feed strays. in fact i do even better now. i tame them. i have them fixed. i bottlefeed them if needed. i adopt them out. maybe it is therapeutic. i truly love all of them. i have one that likes opera music. i've had several that come when called, just like dogs.

Reading Working / Worked

i read for entertainment and information. i haven't read entire books on relationships. i'm in a bible study now. maybe there is something in there about relationships.

Support from Friends & Family Working / Worked

my family says if things weren't as complitcated as they are they would force me to live in europe full time. but because of circumstance they can't. i love my family, even with the complications, but everyone living all over the place has always been a complication in my life. i viewed it as interesting and exciting when i was young. i had energy then. plus i'm sure i was told to view it that way. its a worldly life etc., but as you get older and more aware of bad news n things like 911

Talking Working / Worked

i think we've been more like holding our breadth. adulthood has become more and more legal responsiblities. always more. and now this new thing of dealing with lots of death and illness. i miss good european conversation where everyone talks and talks all the time and really listens just about anything. in usa people talk at each other, its more of a work until you die place in usa. i can't live in both countries anymore. i'm too old for it really. i don't adjust/block out as easily now

Open Brain Injury

i was in five car accidents in a 1 1/2 year period in 1995-1996. i was not driving. i worked as a pro photographer, location shooting. 1983 i was in a car accident in miami. numerous cheerleading accidents as a kid. plus a fall from high branches of a tree and my bike which knocked me unconscious, and the same year a blow to the head which left me with total amnesia, as in i didn't know what the couch i was sitting on was, where i was, what walking was, remembrd nothing, still missing.

Treatments

Distancing Working / Worked

avoid excessive stress. for me that was more emotional stress. anyone causing me stress had to go permanently. you only have yourself to rely on, especially with this kind of an injury. you come into the world alone and you will leave this world alone. I have to be okay. i had been through the head injury thing before. i went right back to routines and habits again. avoiding dramatic people of any sort, along with evil people of any sort. protect yourself. find your biorythmns.

Open Widows & Widowers

my first husband died in 1993. i married his best friend less than a year later. we are separated, but on great terms basically. up until two years ago when i would say "my husband" i was always referring to my first husband and my second husband knew this. i don't do that anymore. however, anytime anything important happens i still think what would my husband think of this, etc., and i mean my first husband when i do that.

Treatments

Prayer Working / Worked

i noticed after a friend of mine died recently that i wasn't handling it well, until i let myself make believe he was still alive. then i'd say to myself how do i feel now? we can talk at a cemetary. still here just a different place. we can hang out there instead of at a marina. i wondered if i did/do this with my husband. i don't actually "talk" to him anymore, but i do still think about him, his image is there, his thought process, his reaction would be this. its 16 years later...

Open Miscarriage

i had a "miscarriage" in 2001. i was pregnant with twins. one fetus died and i became deathly ill from it. the emergency room doctor said he had to take the one that was alive too because it was too risky. we put up a plaque in our cemetary for the babies so i could still talk to them, which i used to do all the time. it haunts me. they should be alive. it never should have gone the way it did. i can picture them. i caught our landlord going through our personal things and called the

Treatments

Grief Counseling Working / Worked

group counselling with people with a similar loss.

Open Mortgages & Foreclosures

i am a loan officer/originator. i have always refused to sell ARM (adjustable rate mortgages) even though they are much easier to get through and we generally make more on them. it is the worst thing for the customer. now that real estate has bottomed out, all the people in the industry for quick money have left the industry because the "easy" money isn't there. every day we have people coming in to refinance and we can't help them because they bought high. bush says he'd fix it, he didn't.

Open Homelessness

i have no right to join this community. i am not homeless. but this is the best site. you people really know things. you have depth. i'm so glad i read this. perhaps all people are homeless. war or destitution can happen at any time and our system doesn't help. others commit atrocities rather than be homeless. THEY are the evil of the world.

Open Pet Bereavement

my cat died. i found her today, 1/21/2008. she was nine years old. its in my journal. i kind of freaked out. she was NOT sick! i do animal rescue. it is very hard when an animal dies especially when you thought they were fine and did everything right, doctor, antibiotics, bottlefeeding. in 2005 i had decided to keep a black loving kitten which was related to cats a friend of mine rescues. she died of distemper.

Open Seasonal Affective Disorder

i hibernate in cold weather. i'm not as happy. i don't get as much done. i'm 1000 times more of a person when i am living beside the ocean, especially in a hot climate with a very large swimming pool. i can't even handle the three seasons they have in north florida. i NEED the 10 months of summer of the south. i also don't trust anything i think or do when in a more northern climate because i am not the real me, unless i am living where it is tropical.

Open Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

i stroke out if anything is too emotionally stressful. i can't stop it. it feels like sand falling through my fingers and then nothing. its gone. i've had multiple car accidents which made memory lapses 100 percent worse. and then i have the lapses from accidents as a child plus witnessing things that i didn't understand and who knows what else. i use routines to make up for the accident's memory loss. i'm still trying to figure out all of the emotional one. so many people have ptsd

Treatments

Art Working / Worked

i'm an artist. music, painting, photography. i've done art for so long and i've never patterned the whens. though playing music i definitely do more when inspired in some way.

Crying Working / Worked

when i first started recalling things that i hadn't recalled at all, i'd start crying. it was cathartic. sometimes i sobbed. i couldn't believe what i was recalling. it was like brain food after i recalled. my mind felt clearer and more flowing. like i had had one of those lead covers a person wears for x-rays on it and it was just lifted off. perhaps our brain doesn't allow us to recall until its sure WE are ready to see it?

Guided Imagery Working / Worked

do this often. not as good as automatic writing but it touches on things that i may not have found otherwise and then you come back to it and keep going with it.

Music Working / Worked

i always listen to music. however, i expanded my automatic likes to bring on memories and YES it did work. lots of memories, what a surprise. a lot like guided imagery and automatic writing.

Reading Working / Worked

i just started reading up on this in the last ten years or so. reading up on amnesia, in a dsm, all relateable. and on the effects of various stresses just recently. it ironic, if kids are exposed to too much it creates disorders. however, if they are exposed to nothing it creates various forms of evilness. what is the happy medium?

Talking Working / Worked

i vent in general. when i recall something new i can actually watch it in my mind like a movie and i'm like wow. once in college i was jarred in the middle of a sound sleep by the noise of my flat mate throwing a television onto the floor and screaming at someone. which brought suddenly back the image of my stepmother attacking my stepsister in the middle of the night. she was committed. it was gruesome. the woman was truly insane. feeling helpless and so small wanting to stop it an

Open Pre-menstrual Syndrome (PMS)

always had bad cramps and mood swings, my body worked like clockwork. so i'd hide from everyone the couple of days before & during, give in to food cravings & take 1600 mg of ibuprophen with peptobismal & that would take care of it. lately i am late every 6 weeks or longer. i am crampy before AND after but don't need as much painkiller. would love to know what is happening with my body. i feel like the pms is permanent and seem to only feel really normal and perky once i finally get it

Treatments

Oral Contraceptives Working / Worked

no cramps, no mood swings, no bloating and MINOR cravings. i ruled my life. boy do i miss the pill.

Open Arthritis

i have sport injuries that flare up in bad weather. lately the number of places and the frequency is much more. i also tore a ligament in my left ankle and now i am limping on it for the next few months which will also be an arthritic site. i suddenly feel old. will a hot and dry climate make it all go away?

Treatments

Anti-Inflammatory Diet Working / Worked

would like to know about this.

Ibuprofen Working / Worked

gets rid of pain.

Swimming Working / Worked

i think a warm pool 85 degrees or better should be able to cure anything.

Open Stroke

i have multiple head injuries. another in the brain injury section said that stroke people have many of the same symptoms as brain injury people. so here i am.

Open Obesity

i need to get real. i am two inches shorter than i used to be as the doctor informed me upon my last visit that i have shrunk! that means i am OBESE at this weight. i need to get real. who would have thought! i was always too thin...not anymore.

Treatments

Avoid Certain Foods / Chemicals Working / Worked

trying to avoid chocolate, refined sugar, caffeine and frozen dinners. the first three cause cancer. frozen dinners will pack on pounds. very bad foods.

Cycling Working / Worked

this didn't work, but it was fun combined with garage sales.

Swimming Working / Worked

ALWAYS WORKS anything a person does underwater has 4 times the effect of doing the same thing above the water. however, i need water that is at least 84 degrees which is regulation water anyway. hard to find in this colder area of florida.

Open Amnesia

i've had many head injuries in my life. the most recent, from car accidents, but have also had falls from trees as a kid, cheerleading injuries and even muggings. you name it. oh and diving accidents. the worst is as a kid and it happened twice and isn't quite back yet. and there was a woman/girl drugging people with biological warfare drugs that destroy brain tissue and cause amnesia.

Open Autism / Autism Spectrum

IN SUpport of someone who has a child with this.

Open Adoption

wanted to comment on a subject so

Open The Financial Crisis

we downsized to a house that is 1100 square feet instead of 2000 square feet. stocks are not doing well right now. business is sluggish but still okay. still adjusting to everyone's panic and having a smaller place is actually easier in many ways.

Open Life After Divorce

"legally separated" on and off for around a decade. would actually like to be together, haven't found a way to fix this

Open War & Terrorism

interest in topic.