FullaBella's Journal, 14 Oct 13

Recipe for Disaster: Monday, raining, and DH in a really ugly mood. Oh, and just for giggles, I decided to decrease and eventually eliminate the antidepressant medication three days ago so I'm at 25% of what I have been taking since prescribed in ... June?

So with this journal I will remind myself that no amount of candy ingested by me will make him sweeter and no quantity of carbs will clear the cloudy skies. Today is definitely the day to repeat the mantra: when I am sad, I will remember I am loved.

I was reflecting on Heather's journal this morning regarding not considering food a treat. I remember when I first read here on Fat Secret the sound bite that really put this in perspective for me: I am not a dog, I don't reward myself with food. So true and it really did encourage me find other things to give recognition to activities and celebrations. But this morning I was thinking about how many times I caught myself giving Mushy a treat whenever I didn't have the time to stop and play and give her the real attention she was craving. And in the pattern of learned behaviors, she'd take it because it was better than nothing. Tying this back in with my emotional eating apparently whenever I needed attention but didn't have time for me I did the same.

But with pets, just like ourselves, feeding her needs with food led to her being overweight. Even before I began paying attention to my own intake a year ago I was already focusing on hers. Maybe that served as a precursor to my recognizing emotional eating and finding ways to tame the doggy inside me.

Getting DH to stop 'treating' Mushy is ... not working. He just loves the bonding they do over a bowl of ice cream. I regret it because it's one of the few things he does that makes him feel like he's connected to her yet it leaves me trying to calculate how to adjust her RDI.

Sounds like a job for Keld to do the math and figure out how many ounces of kibble I need to reduce her 'real food' whenever DH & Mushy do 'fess up to how much ice cream he let her have. Then like asking a drunk driver 'how many beers have you had' I will take that answer and multiply times four. It's insane.

But I'm stalling. I need to journal that it all begins with me. I have to take care of myself first so I can be around to take care of others. I don't want to be on the antidepressants anymore nor do I want to cling to them as my lifesaver for dealing with my life.
Yet, I wonder if, once the 'even keel' of the antidepressant leaves my blood stream, will I be capable of maintaining a gracious reaction to life? For example, yesterday DH told me the reason he goes NOwhere, does NOthing, not even go outside to enjoy the beautiful backyard I built primarily for him is because... he's afraid.

Fear.. sucks. It's the same emotion that's held me back so much of my life. Now it's extending his (life) but ... and I type this with complete acknowledgement that life and death is in the hands of someone far greater than us humans ... what's the point? When he complained how frustrated he was that his life has been reduced to sitting in his recliner or laying in bed 24 hours a day because he was afraid of a virus if he goes outside or comes into the store... I know my pre-medicated response would have been one of those beer sound bites regarding 'go with gusto, go big or go home, either get busy living or stay busy dying.'

And now that he's in such a crappy mood today I, of course, in my enabler co-dependent way, wonder if it's tied in with my minimal (uncharacteristic) response. If my sitting quietly, listening, looking at him with compassion and empathy and saying only, 'I understand' was misinterpreted as an absence of care or concern.

So this morning as he began his pick, pick, picking at me over first one thing then another, I gently asked 'I don't want to bicker, what's wrong?' He said 'nothing' but continued. I wasn't about to start suggesting reasons for him to be unhappy with me but I didn't want to sit and absorb it either. My self love and care, my 'treat', was to remove myself from emotional punching bag territory. He is not without outlets. In my protective reaction I decided to go outside early. Let him phone a friend and gripe about me, screech about politics, rant about the shutdown or whatever he needed to get it out of his system. Mushy and I curled up in the lounge chair under the umbrella and prayed our gratitude the rain was only a slight mist. We needed peace and serenity. Okay, *I* needed peace and serenity and as she's my velcro baby she goes where I go even if that means being wrapped inside my robe to stay warm and dry.

The atmosphere hasn't changed, the rain continues, but journaling about it has lightened my soul.

Mojo is still here. Saturday I stared down the dessert buffet at a Kiwanis fund raiser and this was AFTER letting my 16 year old grandson drive me in my car for the first time ever. Yikes! On reflection of that, remembering how I stood in the parking lot to serve as the 'cone' for him practicing parallel parking, I wondered if cutting the antidepressant had made me suicidal or just plain stupid. Geez, one wrong move, foot on the gas instead of the brake, and I'd have been on 'World Dumbest Nana's'. Seeing the folks across the street on their porch with a video camera was a great 'here's your sign' alert.

All in a day, right? Thank you for stopping by and reading.
Bells