Six Days Med Free- The Struggle is Real

First things first, it is Eating Disorder Awareness Week so if you are someone who struggles or has struggled with an eating disorder, from over eating to under eating and everything in between, please take a moment to evaluate where you are concerning those things and PLEASE reach out for help if you need it! For those of you who don’t struggle, it is highly likely that someone around you does so take the time to observe and reach out to those who you feel like may need help or even to just extend a compliment to someone who looks like they need it. Eating disorders only exist because of our cultures unrealistic and unreachable beauty standards. PLEASE keep that fact knocking around in your brain as you watch TV, see advertisements, etc. Be an advocate for working towards change and growth on the INSIDE not struggle and shrinking on the outside. Go here for more info.

Moving on from that, I am 6 days fully off medicine and I don’t feel so hot. I have had what I can only assume are withdrawal symptoms because I am not otherwise ill. My head has bothered me on and off, I have felt dizzy and a little out of it. I am also struggling with learning what it means to deal with “regular” emotions. For most of my life I have been regulated by medicine. Things both little and big really did not make me feel anything, I just figured out how to deal with the issue rather than having to deal with feeling the issue.

This weekend my kids were REALLY on it. By on it I mean they were bickering constantly and not listening to me and whining and all the other things kids do on a regular basis that generally have had little to no effect on my mood. Not so yesterday. I really thought I was going to cry and then have to pick up my exploded head off the kitchen floor at one point. I was so exhausted with telling them to stop it or don’t or asking why they couldn’t just >fill in blank<. It really upset me and that is not something I am accustomed to dealing with. I am so hyper aware of my emotions right now too because I am trying to make sure that I am regulating them in a “normal” manner, but the truth is that I really don’t know what that means. I had to ask a friend if my feeling like I needed to cry and scream was okay or if something was wrong with me.

It makes me so sad to think that at 31 years old I am really terrible behind on the emotional understanding learning curve. I have been told or assumed for so long that emotions are bad and too much of them are even worse that I just genuinely don’t know how to be okay with feeling. I am going to get myself into counseling so I can hash all of this out once this week (which is really stressing me out because I feel like I have SO much going on I don’t have time to breath- another thing I am not accustomed to feeling), is over.

I jokingly told my mom that being off meds has helped me understand why people do drugs. Life and feelings are hard, which makes weed and wine seem like not such a bad idea. Obviously I have no plans to switch from pharmaceuticals to wine in order to cope but I certainly understand the appeal right now. I have never understood addiction because I have never needed coping tools outside of my legal drugs, but even 5 days out of the med loop I can say that I should not be so judgey towards people get caught in a cycle of substance abuse as a way to deal with life. I know that is technically what I have been doing for 15 years but no one calls that addiction we just call that normal.

The bottom line is that I have signed up for a war. It may only be against myself but I actually think that may be the worst kind. At least when you are against someone you know your enemy and can run or hide or chose to fight. When you are fighting against yourself there just isn’t anywhere to go. I fully realize, as I have a few days into quitting meds every time I have tried, that I am SO incapable of doing this on my own. The ONLY hope I have is in a God who I believe is with me and keeps his promises.

Clearly I am not fit to handle life all by myself. I am incapable of joy and peace as well as management of reality at the same time. I am in a place right now where I believe God would have all of us be all the time, and that is a place of complete dependence on Him. I wake up knowing the day will not be well if He isn’t fully in it with me. I know I will lose my grip on any chance at peace and joy if I for one moment assume those things will occur in my life by my own works. I am completely dependent and it is hard.

Photo Graphy- Arizona Desert, Butterflies and Space Age Hotels!

I apologize to all of my avid readers, (HAHA) for my absence. I have been super busy with school and sick and on a mini vacation to see my personal Peter Pan in Never Never Land (aka Tasha in Tucson).

Most of this blog is really just for me to post the photos I took during my trip because I got some really amazing ones, but I will give a quick update for those interested. I had a 2 week virus turned sinus infection that really knocked me on my butt, so exercise has pretty much been out of the question. Eating well has continued to go smoothly, although I did have some questionable meals on my vacation which had me in the bathroom for 3 days afterwords. That could also have been partially due to antibiotics but either way, pizza is not worth the mess created in my intestines at this point. I am also officially OFF MEDS! Only 3 days so far, but I am still on a just over 2 month NO PANIC ATTACK streak which is beyond amazing. I cannot even describe how amazing. I have had a few moments, mostly associated with being sick, but I handled them without medication and without it being a whole day ordeal. The lifestyle changes are NO DOUBT where credit is due and I couldn't be more pleased! Other than that school is bonkers, much more busy work than last semester, on top of the fact that Jesiah is in a major production and has dress rehersals for the next week straight followed by 6 performances, all of which I have to attend because I am in charge of makeup for all 120 kids. AND my inlaws will be here next week which I am super stoked about however my baseboards are grimey and laundry never stops and dust is everywhere and I have no time to think about or deal with any of it. Wishing for magical baseboard cleaning fairies to arrive. I think they're called maids and will do a great job at a semi reasonable price.

Okay so here are the photos. Some are from the drive and then an assortment are from the botanical gardens in Tucson which has a butterfly exhibit. Butterflies are some of my most favorite little things and it was beyond enchanting to spend over an hour searching for them and watching them surrounded by beautiful plants. As I have said before, nature and its constant creating of the most beautiful things that exist really move me AND I really love taking pictures, so when I get to combine the two I am pretty much in heaven. ENJOY!

So these cactus plants are called Saguaro and only grow in the Sonoran Desert which is located in southern AZ and northern Mexico. There are SO cool and HUGE. They can live to be 150-200 years old and the largest ones are about that. The more arms the older they are. I was totally enthralled by these things. In some areas they went on for miles like a cactus forest- SO COOL!

As I got to the end of the desert and nearer to the city the moon was ENORMOUS. I felt like I could reach out and grab it.

 Here come the butterflies!

The last of the photos will be of this completely random motel I found after stopping for gas in the middle of nowhere. It is a Best Western Space Age Lodge built in 1968. There is a restaurant which burned in 1998 so it had been redone but the signage and other aspects are original. It was so random and wonderful I had to stop for photos. There are a few other sign type pics from that some little town, population 1700, as well as the giant solar wind maker things in the mountains that make me feel like I live on mars.

If any of you know a big boss man at Nat Geo and wanna drop my name as a potential freelance nature photographer accepting free trips to Africa and what not, lemme know. ;)

Photo Graphy- Seal Beach.

I am working at getting over the sick and needed desperately to get out of my house, as did my kiddos. So this lovely Sunday afternoon we left my lazy, worked for the past month straight hubby home to sleep on the couch and watch car television and went to La Jolla Cove. As unthrilled as I have been living in San Diego for the past two years, I have to admit that there are some real gems to be found around here and one of them is the beach in La Jolla. La Jolla is mostly lots of rich people and the stores that sell only stuff they can afford, but man is it ever beautiful. The water is clearer than many other parts of the Pacific down here, the sand is nice and there isn't a huge seaweed wash up which also tends to be common at other beaches I have been to.

The kids and I had never been to Seal Beach- named so because of the 50+ seals that call the little cove their home and roam freely amongst the tourists and local beach goers. I had read that the city was going to fence off the cove because stupid, ignorant, childish people were harassing the seals and really stressing them out. I was expecting the whole area to be fenced off but it wasn't! You could literally walk right down onto the rocks and come within petting distance of the really barky and really stinky seals!!

Siah was about one rock level away from the closest seal.

Presley preferred to keep her distance.

After we hung out with the loud, blubbery, brown balls of barking stink we went down to the actual beach where the kids explored tide pools, collected sea shells and got into the ocean because children are unmoved by icy cold oceanic temperatures. There was a lot of cool marine life to look at!

Right after this shot Presley dropped the bag of goldfish and a feeding frenzy ensued. MINEMINEMINE!

I found the oceans version of an alien. Yikes.

Lets do that NEVER!

Let your feet hit the sand.

More people who need mental evaluation.

"I'm a loner dotty, a rebel."

It was a wonderful afternoon. I always tell people I don't care for the beach but the reality is that every time I am there I feel better when I leave. I love looking at the ocean and all the miraculous life God created in it. I love watching my kids splash and play and run from waves and race to show me the pretty shell they found. So if you ask me if I like going to the beach and I make some comment about not swimming in large bodies of water because that is a sharks house and if a shark walked in my house I would not hesitate to kill it, therefor I understand the concept of territory, you can know that although I don't put my bathing suit on and play in other "peoples" houses, I sure don't mind sitting on their front lawn admiring their landscaping.  The ocean reminds me how little I am, and how big and creative God is, which for some may be intimidating but it calms me down. It gives me peace and reminds me I don't have to accomplish everything, I wasn't created to. Life is so much bigger than my day to day and of you don't stop to see the seals or ocean aliens or MINEMINEMINE birds, you aren't really living.

I really love this song, REALLY love it. Give a listen.