Anxiety Attacks

One of the many fun and entertaining things Adored Wife deals with is anxiety.  The line between "anxiety attack" and "panic attack" is a little fuzzy and the two probably shouldn't be rigidly separated, at least in AW's case.  A panic attack seems to be more intense, but they're probably generally synonymous.

The really weird thing as AW explains it is that she's not necessarily anxious about anything, although if there is something specific going on then her brain will usually latch on to that as a focus for the stress.  But she's perfectly capable of being edgy and nervous without anything circumstantially bothering her at all.

When the anxiety is kicking in it's generally a bad idea to startle her or make loud noises or even be in the same room breathing.  One of the accommodations the family has had to make is that when "Mama's feeling nervous," it's best to be quiet.  Graphics Magician, in particular, isn't good at being quiet and often gets fussed at when all he's doing is being his normal annoying high-energy twelve year old self.  AW would be the first to tell you that she feels guilty about this but when you're in the middle of a panic attack it's hard to think rationally.

Oh, and when someone is experiencing an anxiety attack you definitely shouldn't come up behind them and poke them in the shoulder, jump back until the twitching stops, then step forward and poke them in the shoulder again.  Or at least I would imagine this is a bad idea.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Keeping Perspective

We've been through some interesting times.  Here's a partial list of adventures of our family members:

Chronic illness.
Premature birth.
Surgery.
More surgery.
More surgery.
A little more surgery.
Several moves.
Getting fired.
Car trouble.
More car trouble.
Lots more car trouble.
House trouble.
Car wrecks.
Financial troubles and debt.
More financial troubles and debt.
Still more financial troubles and debt.
Troubles with health insurance.
Troubles with medical bills.
Troubles with unethical businesses.
Getting hit by a car while walking.
Having the house flood.
Having the house flood some more.
Yep, more flooding.
Having the house burgled.
Bullies.
Illness of family members.
Academic troubles.
Troubles at work.
Having people in our house yelling at us.
Relationship issues.
Chronic pain.
Dental troubles.
Runaways.
Suicide attempts.
Two stays in a psychiatric facility.
Self-mutilation.
Gossip.
Depression.
Anxiety.
Anger.
Mania.
Loneliness.
Lots of counseling.
Death of pets.
Death of friends.
Death of family members.

I could probably come up with some more.  It's been eventful, honestly, and nineteen of the items on the list are in the here-and-now.

How do we keep perspective?
1. We pray.
2. We joke.
3. We show love to each other by spending time with, taking care of, and affirming one another.
4. We remind ourselves that whatever else may happen God's in control and "this too shall pass."
5. We count our blessings.
6. We stay focused on what's important.

It's amazing how well that works.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Merry Christmas

No posts today, friends.  Wherever you find yourselves and in whatever circumstances, may you know the peace that comes from being in Christ the Savior.

Merry Christmas and God bless.

A Life in Charades

As mentioned, Adored Wife deals with anomic aphasia, the frequent inability to find the right word.  This of course means that the rest of the family deals with it, too.

Case in point, and one of our running gags--sometime back AW wanted someone to get the ketchup out of the cabinet.  And the word "ketchup" simply wasn't there; her brain wouldn't retrieve it for her.  And so what she said sounded like "Could you get the....(flaps hands, pointing)....the.....(more hand flapping).....ARGH!  CONDIMENTS!"

"You want the ketchup?"

"Yes!  That thing!  Thank you!"

So whenever she's hunting for a word, one of us will invariably suggest "condiments?"  And then she'll glare and throw a kitchen towel at us.

But AW lives much of her life in charades.  When the word's not there, as often it isn't, she'll gesture and demonstrate and point, and the rest of us have gotten very good at figuring out what she's trying to say.  And this is normal for us--it's only weird when there's someone else around who doesn't understand our particular brand of communication.

Condiments!

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

A Used-Up Introvert

I'm wired as almost pure introvert.  There's a bit of a misconception that introverts don't like people. We do like people just fine, it's just that a) we're more comfortable dealing with people one at a time as opposed to groups and b) we're drained by people time and recharged by alone time, as opposed to extroverts who are the other way around.

This is one of the reasons people sometimes don't believe I'm an introvert; they have a misconception of what introversion is.  I can look like an extrovert, and I have a copious amount of people skills.  But I'm an introvert.  (Also, it's more like degrees of introversion versus extroversion rather than two distinct categories, but I'm WAY to the "intro" side of the scale.)

I came home the other night having been interacting with people at work literally the entire day.  Other than a couple of brief bathroom stops I hadn't had a moment to myself.  I'm not complaining; that's my job and it was an unusual and interesting day.  But I get home and one, I was extremely hungry, and two, I was absolutely peopled out.

And Adored Wife was making supper (which I appreciate) but it wouldn't be ready for awhile, PLUS she'd had a difficult day and Graphics Magician had a difficult day and they needed my attention.   That's fine, I love my wife and son and when they need me I want to be there for them.  But I paid a price for it.  What I really could have used, I think, was to inhale a couple of sandwiches and then be by myself for about half an hour.  What I got instead was deep interaction, which under normal circumstances I not only don't mind but I look forward to.  But I was used-up and hungry and getting more and more stressed by the moment.

It was kind of weird.  I could FEEL myself withdrawing and going into automatic pilot; I was having to force myself to be civil and engaged.  We ate about half an hour after I got home and I didn't enjoy it, which is a shame because Adored Wife had worked hard on it and I'm sure it was delicious.  By the time we got to it I was ravenous and not really up to people (even my family) and I think I tasted every third bite.  After that I explained that I loved everybody and that I wasn't upset but that I had to get some alone time.

And I left the house to get out to the library.  Twenty minutes in the library, and I was fine.  I was feeling great, my brain was working, and I went home and spent a very pleasant rest of the evening with my family.

Hi, my name is Henry, and I'm introvert.  Sometimes I need some "me" time.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Adored Wife Says "Hi!"

This being a blog about how our oddball family deals with things, I'd like to introduce my partner and best friend Adored Wife.  She'll occasionally be guest blogging, and I'd wanted to give her a chance to say "hi!"

She's looking me with that "deer in the headlights" expression.

Adored Wife, talk to me.

"Sorry....um....got nothing.  My brain doesn't operate like that.  You know that."

This is actually true.  I do know this: AW has verbal issues and it's probably unkind of me to put her on the spot like this.  But I will get her permission before posting, so if you read this you'll know she's okay with it.

I've just read her this.  She laughs and says "I guess."  Adored Wife is used to me.

She just chimed in with "that I am."

More from her later.  Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

How The Hurricane Got Her Name

I have twenty-five years of family life to look back on and tons of stories to tell; it's going to be a little difficult picking and choosing.

I'd like to tell you have how Social Hurricane got her nickname.  I use aliases on my blogs for privacy's sake: on a previous blog my twin brother, with his consent, was always referred to as "Skippy."  But I didn't come up with calling Second Daughter "Hurricane."

Many years ago when Second Daughter was a sturdy preschooler Adored Wife's grandmother came to visit us at our home in West Virginia.  Grandmama was a small, fragile eighty-something year old and a delightful lady.  Born in Switzerland and married in Argentina, she'd not come to America until my father-in-law was elementary school age.  She spoke several languages, had a charming accent, and very European manners and style.

What with one thing and another Second Daughter, who knew she was coming, didn't see her until church Sunday morning.  The preschooler spies her across the sanctuary, charges her delightedly yelling "Grandmama!", runs full tilt into the small elderly woman giving her an enthusiastic hug around the knees, and knocks Grandmama down.

Fortunately there was a pew right behind her and she wasn't injured.  And she thought it was hilarious.

In conversation with my father-in-law later on the phone Grandmama related "[first daughter], she is such a sweetheart.  But, oh, that [second daughter], whoof, she is a little hurricane!"

And Grandmama never called Second Daughter by name again.  She was "Little Hurricane" from that point forward.  And Little Hurricane was delighted by the nickname and she and her great-grandmother got along famously.

Even fifteen or so years later the name still fits.  Except not so little anymore.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Family Pets

It occurs to me that I've made very little mention of the various family pets but you'll probably need to know a little something about them if you want to understand my family.  Plus they may figure in a few funny stories here and there.

We're currently sporting one pet, Oscar the cat.  He's a registered Lazy Overfed Shorthair Domestic and he's at the moment trying to make me feel better.  I've come home from work early, having woken up this morning with a low-grade fever and a scratchy throat, and I'm typing this lying in bed.  It's been a bit of work keeping him off my keyboard.

We've mostly been cat people over the years.  I'm not sure how that happened--there was a stray cat in Texas and Adored Wife, against my expressed wishes, started feeding it.  Once you feed them they're yours and we had Sunshine for something like fourteen years--I'd have to count up.  Then there was Tiger, who I brought home as a fluffy kitten in a moment of insanity.  Then there was Oscar and his brother Felix, adopted together from the shelter, and now we're down to Oscar.

We've also had two ferrets, a couple of fish, and several small rodents here and there.  We've never had dogs.  We've toyed with the idea here and there over the years but dogs are way more responsibility than cats and quite frankly most days our lives are pretty full already keeping various crises juggled.  Oscar, in comparison, asks only that the food dish be kept full.

Here's hoping all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Ministry of Presence

I have to be straight with you--I often wish that God had made me a wiser man.  James 1:5 is one of the Bible verses I go back to a lot--"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, Who gives to all freely and doesn't rebuke for it."

What this has to do with my family is that I often don't know what I'm doing trying to be a godly husband and father to my mixed-up wife and mixed-up kids when I'm such a mixed-up man myself.  I mean, I'd like to be the voice of wisdom and righteousness but in the words of the great Indiana Jones, "I'm making this up as I go along."

But one thing I'm pretty sure about is that it's a good idea to spend time and demonstrate care.  If Graphics Magician's having a tough go of it, I try to make sure I'm spending a little extra time with him.  If the Basement Artist is feeling a little insecure, I want to be there for her.  Ditto with Adored Wife and Social Hurricane when it's been a rough day--I wish I had better advice to offer, but I can at least let them know I care about them enough to invest an hour or two.

It's sometimes referred to as the ministry of presence--even if you can't offer a solution to the problems being faced, you can still be there for the person in need.  It's something we try to practice.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Family Movie Nights

Adored Wife can't go to movies.  She hasn't been to a movie theater in three years; she can't sit down for the length of time it would take to watch one.  (A half hour is about her limit before she has to either get up and move around or go lie down.)

In a recliner she can last a lot longer.  Also on longer car trips she sits in the passenger seat and leans back.  And we know you're not supposed to do this because in the event of a crash the seat belt's not effective when you're reclining but sometimes you have to make accommodations.

So we do family movie nights, usually on Fridays, and it's always a grand thing when a movie we've been wanting to watch comes to the Redbox video rental.  We see lots of really cool movies two months after everybody else sees them in the theater.

And you know, it's much cheaper doing it our way and somehow not seeing the film when it first comes out hasn't significantly diminished our quality of life.

Adored Wife can drive, grocery shop, and cook.  She can stand longer than she can sit and as long as it doesn't involve excessive amounts of bending over or any heavy lifting she's all over it.  So on family movie nights she makes pizza, and we have chips and root beer and carrots.  (We have carrots so we can pretend we're eating healthy.)  And the whole family will watch a movie downstairs with our pizza and chips.  We even have a few friends over from time to time.

And AW gets dibs on the recliner and can last through the whole movie.  We like Pixar movies and James Bond and the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and recently we did Mel Brooks' "To Be Or Not To Be."  And it's a fun thing and the family always looks forward to it.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Saturday Night Pharmacy

One of the chores that typically gets done on Saturday evenings is setting up the medication for the week.  I tend to set up mine and Adored Wife's, Adored Wife has until recently set up Social Hurricane's, but SH is taking over that chore now that we seem to have the prescriptions stabilized.  Basement Artist takes medicine for asthma but that doesn't require a lot of setup, and Graphics Magician doesn't take anything on a regular basis.  Tylenol for headaches and growing pains and occasional melatonin for insomnia are about his only pharmaceuticals of choice.

Least complicated to most: Daily I take St. John's Wort for depression and chondroitin for a bad knee.  Otherwise a few vitamin supplements and I'm good.

Social Hurricane takes a few odds and ends on a daily basis but I couldn't tell you the details.  Lithium is her maintenance drug for bipolar disorder and she takes some vitamins.  She has a couple of emergency drugs she can take if the mood swings or the hallucinations get too bad but those aren't part of the Saturday night setup.

And then we get to Adored Wife....counting antiseizure medication, a blood pressure pill, and medicine for nerve pain and anxiety plus several supplements the doctor recommends AW takes eight different things daily.  Some are once a day, others twice, one pill is thrice, and two pills are four times a day, so Saturday night getting the pill cases set up for the week is a bit of a complicated process.  I don't mind; it's not a difficult chore and it's a very satisfying thing to see it finished and checked off for another week.

She also has some prescribed pain killers and muscle relaxants she can take on an as needed basis but they can leave her a little loopy (or just plain put her to sleep) so she doesn't take those unless it's really bad.

Needless to say we get by the pharmacy pretty frequently.

So, that's Saturday night pill setup at my house.  What's yours like?

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Meet The Introvert

This is Basement Artist.

She's dealt with insecurity issues her whole life.  She was born three months early, a two-pound three ounce preemie who looked a lot like E.T and had to deal with some major surgeries at a very young age.  Developmental psychology suggests infants need to learn that the world is a safe and secure place from the outset or they may never get it; we've always wondered if BA's considerably rough start might have led to her fundamental shyness and uncertainty.  She's wondered this herself.

She also has damaged vocal chords from early intubation and this hasn't helped the social awkwardness.  She's wired as almost pure introvert and doesn't like to get out much.  She cherishes a tee shirt that says "Introverts Unite.  Separately.  In Your Own Homes."  She will sometimes deliberately make herself do people things.

She currently lives in our basement, although she does pay a modest rent and helps out tremendously around the house.  She's at the beginning of what promises to be a long engagement with a very nice guy from Montreal she met on the internet.  (He's been down for visits and I've suitably checked him out before giving him my blessing to ask for my daughter's hand in marriage.  He's a good guy.)

She's a gifted writer, a very bright young lady, and tremendous fun to be around.  She's a natural talent at drawing, with a whimsical eye, who frequently leaves little sketches around the house.  Like this self-portrait:

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

It's Not Easy Being Adored Wife

I've been married to Adored Wife for twenty-five years, and have known her since January of 1987--we met in college and had a two and a half year engagement.  We've been through some ups and downs but overall get along very well and have many shared interests.  I describe her in all honesty as my best friend.  Obviously she'll figure very heavily in a blog about my quasi-normal family.

Here are some of the things AW deals with on a regular basis:

1. She's epileptic, and has taken anti-seizure medication for longer than I've known her.  She's had a few periods in her life when the seizures weren't controlled and those have been entertaining.  Why yes, I have done CPR on my own wife, thanks for asking.  Hasn't everybody?  She's been seizure-free for several years, thankfully.
2. The medicine she's on to control the epilepsy has its own set of side effects and that complicates most other medical things
3. A few years back she had disks rupture in her neck, and had surgery to try to correct that.  She's suffered some probably permanent nerve damage and pain management is a big concern.  Also occasional muscle spasms and unable to sit or stand for any great length of time (a half hour is about her max sitting or an hour standing.)  Most trips are built around finding someplace where she can lie down, or at least recline, for a while.  Amazingly enough she can drive (although not for great distances) and can even ride some roller coasters (at least the ones with full neck support.)  The doctor cleared her for roller coasters (cheaper than chiropractors) and moving is easier than staying still if she's up.
4. She's had several small strokes over the years and has limited peripheral vision, balance issues, and right side weakness.
5. She has face blindness (prosopagnosia), word finding difficulty (anomic aphasia), and memory issues.
5. She suffers from anxiety and panic attacks.

Despite all that:
1. She has a mischievous sense of humor.
2. She has superlative organizational abilities.  (Far better than mine.  Not that that's hard.)  She's particularly good at putting together trips and events.
3. She is an active correspondent over various forms of social media.
4. She's a wonderful cook.
5. She keeps up with the children and the household affairs.
6. She's active in the church.
7. She's active in the community theater.
8. She's been a librarian, editor, church secretary, choir director, Vacation Bible School director, disk jockey, caterer, waitress, special projects manager, jewelry maker, photographer, concessions coordinator, homeschooling mom and probably other things that slip my mind.

Also, she's cute as a button.

That's a little bit about my partner and the love of my life.  You'll be hearing more about her in the blog.  I hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Depressive Episodes

I'll be occasionally talking about depressive episodes on here--this is by way of introduction to how I deal with it.  I take St. John's Wort on a regular basis--it's one of those natural herbal things that medical clinical trials have demonstrated really does help with depression.  If I'm off of it for a couple of days, I can tell the difference and Adored Wife can really tell the difference.

About every year and a half or so, I go through a major depressive episode.  A doctor has diagnosed it as clinical dysthymia, and it's no fun.  Episodes have lasted anywhere from eight to eighteen days.  The last one was in December of 2014 and lasted sixteen days so I can probably look forward to one somewhere around next June or July.  Whee!

When in a depressive episode:
1. I wake up early and can't get back to sleep.
2. I have no enthusiasm about anything.
3. I am extremely disinclined to work.
4. I'm prone to spending excessive amounts of time fidgeting and fiddling with things (this is called "somatic preoccupation.")
5. My sense of humor disappears, as does my patience.
6. My creativity disappears.
7. I get temperamental and sullen.
8. Really weird things happen in my imagination.

Basically I don't have any fun and I'm no fun to be around and all the world seems sad and gray and dull and pointless and stupid.  I make myself get out of bed and get my work done through sheer force of will, but it's exhausting.

Having occasional bouts of depression makes me more empathetic to other sufferers.  Sometimes people try to cheer me up--I appreciate the effort but if you've never been "depressed" yourself you might have a hard time understanding that it just doesn't work that way.  When I'm depressed things that I would normally find funny or exciting or challenging simply don't have any effect on me.

And I really, really, really don't appreciate the thankfully rare people who think I ought to be able to just snap myself out of it.  It doesn't work that way, either.

But it does come to an end and the brain starts working again and it's a wonderful feeling when that happens.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Frustration With Bullies

I try to approach most things with a sense of humor.  I have a tough time thinking of anything funny about bullying.

Basement Artist dealt with bullies in her day and Graphics Magician deals with them in his.  Social Hurricane ran across bullies but never had any really significant issues with them if memory serves.  (I think she scared most of them away to be honest with you.)

It's a serious problem in our day and age and one that frustrates me tremendously as a parent.  Any time one of my children has mentioned bullying, what dad really wants to do is go find these little jerks who think it's entertaining to torment others and explain a few things to them in no uncertain terms.

I do understand that's probably not a workable idea.  But it makes me feel helpless and I don't like feeling helpless.  I know there are mean and cruel people in the world and that sooner or later my children will have to learn how to deal with them.  And I also know that my own children aren't perfect angels either and sometimes children really don't intend or understand the harm they wind up causing.  And I also know that teachers and school officials deplore bullying and try to curb it but they're not miracle workers.

And I really do know that, to take my son as an example, he really, really, REALLY doesn't want me to go charging into the school and throw my weight around.  He'll survive a few middle school jerks.  He knows he will.  But the embarrassment of having his dad go in and try to fix things could wind up haunting him for decades.  He'll take the bullies, thanks anyway.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless. 

Lines of Salt in the House

Among Social Hurricane's other issues she suffers from hallucinatory episodes.  She's twenty years old,and she's seen the monster that lives in her closet.  When it's bad we occasionally have to repeat things because, while she heard us, she didn't know this was an instance where the voices were real.

The psychiatrist is willing to put her on antipsychotic medication but that has so many unpleasant side effects (plus we keep the pharmacy so busy already) that she chooses to deal with things with a container of salt.

See, SH knows this stuff's not real.  Knowing doesn't really help.  But if she puts down a line of salt on the floor the monsters can't cross that.  So there's a line of salt in front of her closet because that keeps the monster in and there's a line in front of her bedroom door because that way the terrors in the rest of the house can't get into her room.  It works for her.

We know it's been a bad night when we get up and there are various lines of salt in the hallway.

We just step over the lines.  If the Hurricane needs to put salt down, she needs to put salt down.  And Adored Wife makes sure she buys SH her own container of salt when she goes shopping so the Hurricane doesn't use up AW's cooking supplies.

SH also burns incense sometimes when things are bad because apparently the creatures don't like the scent and it helps to keep them away.  I don't like the scent either but if Social needs it I can put up with it.  Of course sometimes I think she just likes the incense herself and tells me she needs it for monster-repellent so I won't bug her about it.

We do reserve the right to kid her about the salt usage.  But not too much, because otherwise she might chase the monster out of her closet and into ours.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.