Journal

So, the latest few things in my life which are very positive and moving are my new therapies and outlook on life due to them. ....i started with a new phsycologist and psychiatrist as well outa need recently. I had no choice and it turned out to be just what i needed. The woman that does my counciling is very light and airy and had an approach that a lot of people might have a hard time with....i find it refreshing and relaxing. She makes me feel relaxed and comforted. I have been feeling so scared in my life and so in need of confort....yes in pain and yes suffering but there are so many emotional issues going on in my life that don't have to do with my own physical problems and have to do with my husband that my emotions are running ragged all the time. My pain is at a high and my depression is consuming me. When I go to see my counciler she runs me through what has happend new in the last week for me. What is on my mind. She will do a meditation for me if I need it. She gives great advice about how to deal with situations in my life ---she is the first  counciler to do that for me! She has many helpful tools for me to take with me when i leave so I am not just getting help when i am there. I love her relaxation CD and I usually hate those.

The man who does my meds is hard to read. I am not sure what I think of him yet. His first decision to up my medication has been a good one so far. The effexor is helping even though it does have some side effects already that are not so welcome. I also go to a support group through him that, so far, seams like it might help. It teaches tools that through "mindfulness" will bring ways to deal with life to live healthier. I look forward to learning more. I have only been to one session. 

My life, after on only several weeks of seeing my counciler is already seaming more barable because i can see answers i have never considered and am living my life in a different way than before. I am surprising myself with how i can control my temper when i am in pain and when my husband is hard to deal with how i can find good answers to his suffering....how i am able to come up with them now with these tools is really beyond me. 

thanks to her. 

It is quite obvious that our vacation sparked up the hardship of my husband's schitzoeffective dissorder. the poor man has been suffering since about two weeks before we left on the 20th of March. That is almost 5 and a half weeks now that things have been bad for him. I have been very upset about it. My worry always comes out in anger and so over vacation i didn't fully understand what was going on and was very upset for him treating me badly. Course, i am not saying he should be that way but the poor man does go through this battle in his head that i never seam to get when it first starts.

It has progressively gotten worse over the weeks. The doc changed his antianxiety pill from Kolonopin to Xanax which has helped a little bit but a very small bit to say the least. Then the registered nurse upon a check up did finally change his antidepressive medication. I thought this a good move. 

I admit I don't always deal with his problems in the most contructive way to help him. I feel awful that i might say something that hurts his self-esteme issues or might hurt him in some way. (course he is super sensitive which makes it hard) but i still always want to do the right thing.

I always feel somehow responsible. I always feel quiltridden and always feel sad. 

Right now i have my own sadness and struggle. Not only am i still dealing with my own pain on top of all his anxieties and self-esteme battles. I am also dealing with the sadness of the fact that my husband has decided he doesn't want children ever. Yes, it would have been a real struggle for us. It would have been a miracle if we ever would have had one. espeically since we have had sex maybe 2 times in the last 3 yrs but hey...i haven't stopped hoping for miracles yet. Even though I am down and still suffer from depression here and there I do still believe in miracles. I still hope for good things like a baby. 

Maybe I hope for something so wonderful and beautiful because so much else in my life isn't and maybe is is the wrong reason to want one. I woudln't want to be wishing for a child to help fix problems. I think that is just not the answer for anyone. If that is so...i hope it comes to me.

If this realization is correct i just need something good in my life. I need something each week to keep me going so i can deal with what i absolutely have to. I am having trouble finding a job so maybe i can find that.

i just have to write today. feeling a bit down. my trip to las Vegas wasn't at all what i thought it would be. I made things happen that i really wanted. I more than anything wanted to go and lay in the sun and enjoy some relaxation time just doing nothing. That was something we did for a  few days in a row. Thank goodness for dessert weather. It did seam that was something my husband enjoyed too. Feels strange saying it was something he enjoyed but I have noticed it at home too....why in the world wold I think it would be different on vacation! dunno.

He has a really hard time "liking things". He doesn't know what to do with himself at home anymore because he "doesn't know what he likes". he says it is hard to get interested in things.I am told that is the meds he takes for  schizoaffective dissorder. They tend to wipe you blank. Sure do....

I thought we would go on vacation and have time together cause we don't get that much here at home due to his very demanding job. Thought we would even be passionate and maybe intimate....which is almost never. Instead....the other side of him was here with me....the side that was only interested in what he wasnted and was pretty much full of anxiety due to all the people around (which he didn't tell me till half the vacation was gone....don't think he even knew). The side of him which.....had no compassion toward what we could do that we might both enjoy together or how hurt my feelings might get when we ranted on and on about how horrible this vacation was and how every bit of it was just a drag ..."why in the world did we come here". I had just spent almost a year planning for this one and saving every paycheck right into the bank for this one. I had stressed over the travel and tortured myself over the meds and ...on and on. He was brutal with his comments and didn't stop for two days with his complaints about the hotel and how expensive everything was. It was like a nightmare. I wanted so badly to be no where near him. It wasn't him at all. I didn't even recognize the man. 

Then when we were in casinos all he wanted to do was play slots and in the past we haven't spent a lot of time there because the smoke gives me migraines. We would be walking back to the room for me to ice my head and he would say let's play penny-slots and sit right down. About the third time he did that right after i told him I had a headache I just said 'you stay and I will meet you upstairs later.' True enough ...he stayed. 3 hrs later he showed up at the room. I need the time cause I slept off the migraine. Just needed some fresh air is all (and some ice). 

His illness took a hold of our vacation as if to strangle the life outa it. I couldn't believe it. Yes...mine alters our vacations too but because I have had mine for 5 yrs we kinda know what to expect and how to alter our vacations to accomodate my pain and migraines. I take the proper meds ahead of time and also avoid certain things. This vacation was our first one while he has been ill. His illness became active about a year ago. 

I feel awful that he is pretty much not okay with crowds and here we go off to Vegas. Yep...crowds galore!  Not a good choice. Wish we had thought of that when we booked. Poor guy. When he suffers he becomes this jerk that I have patience for only a few days and then I am fed up. He is self centered and noncomunicating. I usually get a clue within those few days that something isn't  right but there isn't a cure. The cure is for him to feel secure again and for his anxieties to go away. Only he can do that. Meds only do part of the job. 

I feel very unequipped to handle this man. He wasn't this way when we got married and it is just such a crazy thing to happen now when I am sick and feel totally run down all the time. What kinda cards are these to be delt? 

I still feel mad at him for the way he acted on vacation and realize that he can't help it .Even though he can't change how he acted I am still mad. How sad is that.

My time there wasn't totally lost. I kept trying very hard to dwell on all the good things around me that I could. I wanted it to be a time away....things I couldn't possibly do here at my home. I loved so much of the trip. My favorite part of staying at the MGM Grand Hotel was that they had a lion habitat and each day they brought from a preserve a few lions to visit. They were just beautiful! A few trainers would play with them and hang with them inside the habitat. The trainers sometimes would just stroke their fur and hang with them. I would love that. I watched them almost every day. I love animals. 

I enjoyed opening my curtains to sun every single day. The sky was bright blu and the dessert mountains were in view. We really had a great view from our room window of the strip and of the mountains. Very nice! I enjoyed a bit of Penny-slots too but I am not one to play for long. I have kinda bad luck at that stuff. 

WE saw a cirque de sole production while we were there. I loved it very much. What talent. I wish we could have seen two! Hopefully some day I will see another. That is my second one now. 

I loved that it was so warm and dry. The heat felt tooooo good. I enjoyed being by the pools and soaking in the sun. It felt like pure vitamines. I kept my head covered mostly and just covered myself in sun block but loved it just the same. 

So....you see even though I spent the first part bitching...i tried my best to kinda let my husbands complaining roll off and enjoy what i wanted to do while in town. also, i did yell at him three days in to all that complaining and tell him he had better stop because he is ruining our trip and i am fed up with his mouth. told him if he was that unhappy i would call and change his flight to tonight and send him home where he would be happy and i would finish the trip alone. that seamed to do the trick for the complaining anyhow. :) 

well....i am off to snd my kitchen cupboards and a bit of painting today too. sun is out. wahoo.