caroline marie's Open Salon Blog

Quick! What are 10 good things in your life right now?

Fri, 18 May 2012 15:05:14 -0400

Right at this moment I am grateful for:

1) The spring sun sparkling on the green leaves outside my window.

2) Working from home today! I don't FEEL like going into the office, so I don't have to.

3) The fresh blueberries, vanilla yogurt and plain cake donut that is waiting for me in the kitchen.

4) The perfect evening I spent last night out in the warm windy air, drinking wine, eating guacamole and talking with my friend about our day, our struggles and those moments when something that we glimpse in a stranger makes us love them.

5) How my spiritual director lightens my load, frees up my soul. When I am with her I cry, cry, cry and then I leave feeling like someone has seen my heart and I am okay and everything is going to be all right.

6) My 110-year-old dog has been such a cute, curmudgeonly companion all these years. May he stay around for a couple of years more...

7) Summer is near! Time for patio parties, swimming in the sun, and maybe a vacation somewhere...

8) Yesterday's good news that my boss will be sticking around for awhile. I love her and wouldn't want to stay at my job without her.

9) There are so many cardinals around this year! They are my favorite bird -- I love seeing flashes of red in the trees and hearing their call.

10) I have a summer project to work on -- editing the picture book I wrote last spring-- and hopefully sending it off to be published.

What's wonderful where you are?

Passing Storms

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:04:38 -0400

I am about to make a broad generalization that has proven true for me thus far: alternative health care (eastern, integrative, holistic, etc) works better than western medicine.

I have convinced my daughter to more regularly take the GABA supplement our integrative clinic recommended and I already see her returning to her functioning self. Her regular, regulated self. Yesterday was a regular day.

The storm (for right now) has passed.

Last night she even went to a birthday sleepover party. A regular girl thing that she was able to do. Beforehand, she was nervous and excited. Do you realize how fantastic this is?!

Yesterday, to prep for the party, I took her shopping for new pjs, a birthday gift, etc. We laughed together. She whined and begged for things I could not buy her, but the whole day was not ruined when I said "no." She did not obsess. There was occassional irritation, frustration on both ends -- in other words, it was a regular mother-daughter outing, and I am relieved.

Since she was up all night at the party, right now she is taking a nap. In the 6+ years she has lived with me, this is probably about the 3rd nap--including when she is sick, etc-- that I have seen her take. Her mind is relaxed enough that she can fall asleep when she is tired!!!

In my last post, I wondered about my parenting goals for Penny. Here is one that I need to remember: healing her brain. Penny's brain and neurochemical functioning took a beating in utero, as an infant and in early childhood. Much of what I do is an attempt to help her brain to heal.

When neurons are firing normally, Penny experiences a range of emotions. When they are not, she seems trapped within a cycle of anxious misery.

Someday in the very immediate future, I expect that Penny will decide that she doesn't want to take the GABA supplement anymore. Or maybe it will stop having the same effect. Then I will try other things. I am not going to leave Penny trapped in misery.

Where Do All the Bad Feelings Go?

Mon, 9 Apr 2012 17:04:00 -0400

My daughter woke up as a two-year-old today.

She cried, screamed and wailed like only a toddler can. Her shrieks sounded like "waaaah, waaaaah." At one point, she kept repeating "I'm hungry, I'm hungry" while her breakfast was right in front of her. I believe she repeated it for a solid fifteen or twenty minutes. I think she might have forgotten how to feed herself.

I am trying to use words to describe the scene that went on this morning, but I don't think I can accurately convey how frightening this mental breakdown was to witness. You will have to trust me when I say that yes all 7th graders act like toddlers to some extent, but this is different. Terrifyingly different.

When this was happening I got on the phone with our mental health case worker. She could hear the wailing and the repeating of the same phrase over and over in the background. I had to decide if I should take my girl to the hospital. I decided to take her to school instead.

Sometimes I let her stay two-years-old and will talk, comfort and generally treat her as such. But other times, like today--the first day back to school after spring break--I push her into trying to function in the outside world. I rely on my instincts to tell me when to nurture and when to strengthen her "coping" muscle, or perhaps more accurately, when to create new grooves in her brain.

There are some people in my life who will criticize either choice I make. Fortunately, there are even more people in my life who support me and my parenting instincts.

The holistic integrative clinic that Penny goes to prescribed valium for her breakdowns, probably the same thing she would be given at the hospital. I have not yet picked up the prescription. I feel very uneasy about teaching Penny to take a chill pill when she feels too yucky. On the other hand, I am relieved to have this as an option when she gets too out of control.

Here's the thing. Penny has an unbearable (to her) amount of grief, rage and probably shame inside of her. It is a bottomless pit as evidenced by the fact that none of the following things have yet reduced their presence in her soul:

1)Giving her free range to scream, sob, hit, throw, stomp: get it out.

2)Nearly 6 years of talk therapy

3) Several alternative therapies, including biofeedback, therapeutic massage, etc

4) Medication. This alleviates some of the behaviors and symptoms, but all the bad feelings are still there

5) Therapeutic parenting.

I often ask myself: what is the goal here? Can she ever scream and wail long enough to empty the well? Can she ever learn to talk, use her coping skills to reason the feelings away? Can we empty the well or is the goal simply to subdue (medicate, etc.) for now? If she is at a point where she wants to hold onto the feelings and refuses to be healed-- is the goal to prop her up just long enough to get a basic education, get through adolesence, etc?

What am I trying to do?

Until very recently I was quite naive. I honestly used to think that some of the above methods could heal a broken soul.

Penny's school got out 10 minutes ago. Will she just take the city bus as usual? Will she call me for a ride? Will she wander off aimlessly, like a toddler? I am sitting here on pins and needles.

Love and My Blog Hiatus

Sun, 1 Apr 2012 16:04:17 -0400

I have written the beginnings of about a dozen posts in the past several months, but can't seem to finish any. My outer life is going fairly smoothly at the moment (knock on wood) and my inner life has been focused on love, shame, god, and other such things I can't figure out how to write about without sounding cliche.

I feel myself changing. Or maybe it's just becoming clearer to me what needs to change.

Today I read the Sunday paper and a Parade Magazine interview with Michael J Fox. He says of his Parkinson's "Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it."

My greatest trial of the moment is my daughter's mental health, but the truth is it is not THAT bad. She's a beautiful girl with a giant heart, and with medication her rages and mood swings only interfere with our lives a few times a month.

For whatever reason-- childhood traumas, etc., I am just not that good at handling it. Her rages leave me feeling so shaken and powerless, that I become incapaciated for days afterward. By the time I am recovered, another rage is often looming on the horizon.

Other people in a similar situation might not be as shaken, but then it's not good to compare ourselves to others, is it? The challenge is to admit our shortcomings, and then.........here comes the corny and cliche part I can't say any other way.........

choose love. Love myself and my shortcomings. Love my child and her rages. Despite my fearful, shaky powerless feelings in the face of rage -- choose the most loving response.

Literally say to my child, "I love you even when you attack me. I love you no matter what."

Choose love again and again and again.

But sometimes don't. Because I am human and flawed and sometimes yell back at her, and sometimes leave the house and sometimes can't cope.

And that's okay because sometimes I can.

I have been flexing the love muscle more and more. Not just with my child but with others too. And I have been working on not feeling ashamed when I can't muster love, but also not using this humanness as an excuse to let fear and anger grab the reigns.

Mr. Fox's statement is a reminder that there is a way through my current trials -- and my only hope is to make it through the most loving way possible.

There's more.

I am lucky.

The Universe (God, Spirit, the Creator, Mystery, whatever) has guided me into a situation where I can face my childhood demons -- being raged at and (sometimes) passionately hated in my own home-- and diminish the power of those fears by becoming more myself, more the person I was meant to be, that we are all meant to be: peaceful and loving.

This would not work if it was a spouse, for example, who was raging at me, because to stay in an abusive situation with someone who had equal or greater power than me would be to allow my soul to be crushed. It would not be a self-loving thing to do.

Rather, the Universe sent me a child, a loving child who has the capacity to trigger my fear and anger response, so that I could practice not giving in to fear and choosing love instead.

Without my child I would be a much lesser person. Hopefully this positive effect is mutual.

These are the things I've been thinking about while not blogging-- how to shine the light on the parts of myself I am ashamed of and how to keep growing into the person I want to be.

Back to Blogging My Mildly Entertaining Days

Mon, 6 Feb 2012 00:02:06 -0500

The astoundingly mild weather we are having is causing me to leave the house regularly and have fun-- something that is unprecedented for me in February. Instead of winter blahs I feel pretty good.

After Penny's bad week, I picked up her up from school on Friday and declared a Night of Fun was about to begin. Sadly, for Penny fun = 2 things: junk food and movie theaters. So we went to Sonic for cheeseburgers, then Ben & Jerry's and then off to see "Big Miracle" -- the whale movie.

I chose the whale movie because it was declared "heartwarming" and therefore I assumed the damn whales were all going to make it to freedom, and Penny would cry tears of joy then drift off to sleep that evening with a smile on her face even after a rather harrowing day.

Unfortunately *spoiler alert* the BABY whale dies goddammit, so Penny cried all right but it was not what I had in mind. Also, when we got home there was an email waiting for her from the school counselor asking if she would be willing to meet with the 2 culprits on Monday -- thereby revealing that they would not be suspended from school. Guess I'll be marching back into the principal's office.

Saturday I slept in delightfully late, then played Wii Sports & Wii Fit with Penny. I love how much she still loves it when I agree to play games with her. Afterwards, I dropped her and a friend off at the mall, then met my own friend there to see "The Descendents" which I enjoyed quite a bit. It begins with George Clooney waking up to a life that he had been sleepwalking through thus far-- and that theme interests me on many levels. I also loved the Hawaiian houses and neighborhoods. I would gladly live on a beach.

After the movie, I saw that Penny had not texted me as I asked. In fact, I told her at least 7 times that she must check in with me via text. I then discovered that her phone was turned off as my calls were going directly to voice mail.

This made me very, very angry but I still went with my friend to have a glass of wine and some dinner. Penny called before my salmon came, and I stepped outside to yell at her for about 5 solid minutes. After dinner I picked her up and she told me about "The Woman in Black" that she had just seen. It was not scary at all, she said, but her friend screamed a lot. (By the way, I had checked the movie out on commonsense.com and decided that it would be okay for her to see.)

When we got home, I was the one with an email from school waiting for me. It was from my professor who had just received my very late Final Paper from last semester and she declared it was excellent. (Bolding and underlining by professor.) I then got the brilliant idea to read my paper to Penny as she went to sleep, because surely by page 6 or 7 she would be snoring, and any possible scary bits from the movie would be erased. The idea was brilliant because it worked and Penny drifted off to sleep listening to how the Creator lures each of us to our most creative, loving life path and what it means to pray.

*Womanly matters alert* I then got my period which explained why I was so furious with Penny for not texting me. I swear I only yell like that when I am premenstrual.

All that night I dreamt about "The Descendents." In my dream version, my cousins and I inherited gorgeous beach front property in Oregon but the cousins were plotting to take it away from me. Other stuff happened to, but nobody cares about the dreams of strangers.

Today I slept in delightfully late but unfortunately it was too late to take Penny to Sunday school. The class was touring a Mosque today and got to wear head scarves and Penny had kind of been looking forward to it, so there you go - I suck.

This afternoon a friend and I went to see "The Artist.' I found it interesting to consider the story elements that need no words, and those that do -- but overall I found the movie only mildly entertaining. Afterwards we went to a Tex-Mex bar for wine and guacamole. I also had a tuna taco that was so flavorful, fresh and delicious it might have been the highlight of an overall pleasant weekend.

Afterwards I stopped at the co-op for some groceries, picked up Penny from her friend's house, came home, did a load of laundry, skillfully directed Penny's attention away from some potential melt- down moments, took the dog for a lovely evening walk/jog, tucked Penny into bed, cleaned the bathroom and now here I am blogging.

Last February my weekends consisted of moving from the bed to the couch and back again.