I agree with David! Don’t worry about the happy stuff, “Relish it!” One of my friends reminded me to use the “garbage in, garbage out” rule, so that it does not become poop in your brain! Even people pleasers can listen, without holding on to everyone else’s garbage! Good Luck and Congratulations on having a great husband and being an awesome mother!

Since my ownly child(my wondeful son is about to tur 29, I can safely say that you are 100% correct! They are their own people, and the good news is that even when we think they aren’t listening, much of what we’ve tried to model for them makes it through anyway! As a single mother, I received gobs of advice on child-rearing when my boy was growing up. I know I made mistakes; it comes wiyth the terrotory, but I couldn’t be prouder of the man he’s become:sensitive, loyal, hard-working and with an intact belief in God. Believe me, during his teenage years I often wondered what kind of monster I was raising! His rebellion manifested itself in hostility, disrespect in his manner of speaking to ne, holes punched in walls–you name it! I can’t tell you how many times in the past ten years he has asked forgiveness for those behaviors and admitted their inappropriateness to me. Of course, as mothers do, I had already forgiven. He’s also now a neat freak, this boy who had leftover sandwiches under his bed that looked like science projects and dropped his clothing whereever he happened to take it off. I never would have imagined him with the orderly apartment in which he now lives, and I would have laughed if anuyone had foretold this development.
We are now not only mother and son, but good friends. I worried about the things I didn’t model for him such as fiscal responsibility, but his own inner person has become my extreme opposite. Whenever I verbalize that I feel badly not to have taught him those skills, he now tells me I was to busy showing him how to love and care for others, and that he feels that is the legacy I was meant to give him rather than a large bank account or valuable worldly possessions. The “ppop” in my own brain tries to keep me from accepting that accolade, but through prayer, medications and counseling, i’m learning to give myself credit for the things I did RIGHT, not an easy task for those of us whose self-esteem wasn’t bolstered when we ourselves were young. Your visual image of “poop on my head has prompted me to gret a roll of toilet paper and tear off a little whenever those self doubts try to resurface, wip my head and flush the tissue away. One therapist with whom I worked taught me that symbolic acts such as this can make a real difference in our mental health. So get yourself a roll of nice, soft toilet tissue, and flush away the poop that’s still trying to bring you down. Savor the “happy things” and store them in your heart to be taken out and dusted off the next time you feel like your kids are missing out. From reading your blog, I can gaurantee you that they’re not, that God gave them you as their mother for a reason. Perhaps it’s your realization that they do indeed have their individual characters which will fill in some of the gaps we mothers always seem to feel we’ve left. Your wisdom in acknowledging that tells me that your children are blessed! to have such a mother!
God bless you for giving me a visual which sparked my own inner store of creativity to fight off the despair that’s a part of all of our daily lives. I just found your blog yesterday, and am convinced He led me to it. You are undoubtedly reaching way more people than you imagine and giving them all kinds of springboards as well.

Hi,
I really love to see your self awareness. And your children sound so delightful.
I have a 3 1/2 year old and a 24 year old. Both my eldest daughter and I are blessed with depression and mania== bi-polar. At this moment I am grateful to be who I am. Thankful! I pray that my youngest does not also develop any brain disease– what some call “mental illness.” She is adopted so it feels good that she wouldn’t get that gene from me. Though if she does God will give me strength to make it through. My husband is a very good man. Supportive, accepting and on an even keel. I am blessed.
Peace,
Anne

Im not sure who you are but I am sure we share the same brain…I have been reading about your relapse and your anxiety and your kids…Im sitting here thinking is this for real? Is there actually another person that gets whats inside of my head?
thank you

It’s so wierd…I was feeling that exact same way 2 years ago, also. I would constantly drink and party, and I didn’t know who I was hurting. And then I’d realize I shouldn’t have gone out all night, leaving my son with my fiance, coming home drunk and passing out after I defended my drinking (and saying some things I shouldn’t have). I worked midnights for 3 years, and I was a security officer for a casino. We would get the drunks, the bloody fights, bloody “medicals” where we’d get an ambulance, etc., etc. Every night there was something, and at the end of our shift, it was time the bar opened. Our “breakfast” consisted of getting plastered by noon. Then going to bed, and doing it all over again. I knew I had anxiety, and went for help. They had overdosed me on Effexor (spell check) for about a year. When I had to take an ambulance from work to the hospital, I really thought I was losing my mind. The doc said that the mental hospital had been overdosing me, and I’m lucky to be here. If I would’ve stopped breathing, I could’ve slipped into a coma, and died. So I quit the meds….I had to be weaned down to a quarter of a pill. It took a very long time. But now I’m not on anything. I quit drinking Oct. of 05, quit my job in Jan. of 06, my fiance and I got married in May of 06, and my anxieties are at an all time low. It’s at a normal level, where I don’t even feel that I have anxiety. I was scared of losing my fiance, too…I thought my world was falling apart, and something was wrong with me all the time. So I’d make it a reality when I would go and drink. I was really hurting everything by doing that, and I didn’t realize it was my fault back then. I do think of the happy times now. And when things get tough, I say to myself, “Don’t sweat the small stuff, sweat the big stuff, and there isn’t any.” My life is the greatest it’s ever been, and my husband and kids are happy, too. Kids are so darn smart sometimes. Sometimes it’s as if they can see right through you. God love ‘em. Thanks for sharing your story. I totally know what you went through. It does help all of us to know we aren’t the only ones.