I’m Growing!

I am truly amazed at the leaps and bounds by which my personal development is progressing recently. I had another one of those really awakened periods yesterday morning. Interestingly enough, it was under similar circumstances to the last one, where I had to take some Excedrin to get rid of a headache in the early morning, but was unable to get back to sleep before the caffeine kicked in, so I was forced to get up. I think I could learn to like these headaches if it brings this much value to me every time! 😆

This time, instead of launching a long blog post, I ended up shooting off a total of 3 long emails to different people. The first was one to my step-mother (boy, is she ever going to regret agreeing to listen to me!), the second was to my dad (step-father) and the third was to my mother. The third one is what counts. I had some thoughts and revelations around my mother’s health situation (a long and complicated story, stretching back across numerous decades) which I ordinarily would not have shared with her. Somehow, yesterday was different. I took the time to express my thoughts in as loving a way as possible, even though I thought that the concepts and viewpoints that I was presenting would not necessarily be welcomed by her. At the same time, I was able to put into (mild) words some of the frustrations that I’ve felt in communicating with her and the feeling of superiority or inequality that I get from her at times.

To be honest, I couldn’t believe that I actually sent this long, rambling letter to her. It represented a major milestone that I was able to just put my thoughts out there and to try to be more open with her, even if I thought her reaction might not be favorable. I was preoccuped most of the day with a crushing anxiety in my chest that she was going to completely freak out and be terribly unhappy with me. Fortunately, when she did finally respond sometime in the afternoon, it was quite different and far more accepting than I could have imagined. She refutes any attempts to belittle me or lecture to me, but I promised that I would bring it to her attention the next time it happened, since I was unable to provide her with a specific example when she questioned me on it.

What a pleasant surprise! Now, this weekend we are off to visit my real father and step-mother, so I imagine that I will have more to report once we return, but in the meantime, I am just completely overwhelmed by my sudden progress.

One last note, for those of you who have been concerned, my doctor visit Monday evening yielded a careful analysis of the tingling feelings that I described to be symptoms of anxiety. She wrote me a script for Ativan to be taken, as needed. I later came to a conclusion that should have been obvious to me before, but somehow wasn’t. I had weaned myself off of the additional anti-anxiety medication (Lexapro) because I didn’t feel that it was doing much for me and I wanted to go back to just my anti-depressant and nothing else in the way of meds (this was the same time that the neurologist weaned me off of the migraine preventative that wasn’t working). I thought that I had suffered no ill effects from discontinuing the anti-anxiety medication and the doctor wasn’t concerned, but I realized later that … duh… these new symptoms were just the anxiety presenting differently from what I was used to. Therefore, it wasn’t that I was able to discontinue the medication with no problems, I just didn’t recognize the new problems for what they were. So, I have put myself back onto the Lexapro and will call my doctor to let her know. After a tingling spell Tuesday morning, I have not had any further incidents. Woohoo!