My PTSD Struggle

I feel so touched to have had many of you reach out to me. I was specially touched that most of those who reached out to me are from my Panamanian community, though none is Panamanian,and from friends around the world. So, here's how my appointment went.

It turns out I am not over my PTSD as I thought. PTSD, for those who don't know, stands for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You remember how on this post I shared some thoughts that had crept on my mind about postponing my screening labs? Well, my thoughts might have tried to go to the right place, but there was a physical response in my body that sent me cascading down this rabbit hole.

I googled PTSD and here are some of the symptoms one might experience:

• Negative thoughts about yourself, other people or the world
• Hopelessness about the future
• Memory problems, including not remembering important aspects of the traumatic event
• Difficulty maintaining close relationships
• Feeling detached from family and friends
• Lack of interest in activities you once enjoyed
• Difficulty experiencing positive emotions
• Feeling emotionally numb

Who read my mind when making this list?

It all boils down to my fears. My fears spark chemical processes in my brain. I remember this happening last year with one of my checkups. In that time, my checkup wasn't still for another week, but I had been feeling flu symptoms. It starts burrowing in my mind that its cancer. I spoke to Bod Gunn, who is one of the few I can talk to and have him understand me 100%. He just said "Just go and do your labs a week ahead. You'll feel better instantly. It's what I do." And that time I did. 

The fact was that I had no coping mechanisms in place. The fear was greater than my conscious mind thought, my body reacted to it, and with my early menopause and out-of-whack hormone balance including hypothyroidism, my brain also had no way of coping. 

My doctor tried to explain it to me with a drowning man example. He survived a shipwreck and nearly drowning. Getting on another boat would be a catalyst. He could spend the rest of his life avoiding boats if that is how he copes. I have a check up every six months. That is my boat and I have no way to avoid it (unless I wanted to live oblivious which would in time make it worst on my fears). My traumatic event comes back to me on every check up. The cancer community call this "scanxiety." I thought it was a term of endearment to the nuisance that is having to do checkups, but it is so much more than that that the cancer community even named it. 

"Are you afraid of dying?" asks my doctor.

"I'm confused," I admit, "because I don't want my cancer to come back. I do wish to see my girls grow up and grow old with my husband, but then I'm here because I'm having self-harm thoughts and thinking I deserve to die and cancer should have just taken me away and spared my family from me."

Jeez, Louise! I cried for the entirety of the 60 minutes with that lady. I'm crying right now as I put it down in writing. These lies are just so appalling! 

She goes on to tell me that no happiness experienced is in vain. The fact that I could lose it all with one bad lab result doesn't take away the beauty of feeling joy in little things and happy memories. "It's about taking it one day at a time," she says. She goes on to tell me I need therapy in Let It Go!

There are videos in YouTube that show how Frozen and Frozen II are metaphors for mental health. Guess I could analyze that on the 100th time my girls make me watch Frozen II. (The "ah aah ah aah" of the soundtrack produced by Kaylee is driving us insane).

I got to let go of my fears, let go of cancer. It won't be easy. She says I'll need both therapy and medication to help me cope and get me in a good place again. She was happy the last time we saw each other was 18 months ago; and despite of how I'm feeling now, she feels I'm doing much better and looking a lot better too. She is positive I can get back in a good place in a shorter time frame and with less medication needed.

I was honest with her and I told her I was skeptical. I was skeptical that anything could help or that things could get better. I was skeptical when I heard her say I was a good mom and a good wife and human deserving life and happiness. I was skeptical that I could learn to let it go or that any of it would help. Poor doctors! They have to deal with us know-it-alls. But I told her the things she had said to me the last time had helped me move on from Kinsley's death, I had learn to let her go, and I had improved with her help. So, even though I'm skeptical, I'm here... aren't I?

I appreciate your words to me, even though I'm skeptical. You know I keep it real. But I appreciate them and my Spirit within me must receive them and pass them down to my heart despite what my brain thinks. I truly believe it was the right move to get help and hope to share with you better news soon. Please remember to keep praying for my hubs and his employment situation. Pray that God can give him wisdom in what should be his next move and his next entrepreneurship and that he may also feel capable and worthy and a good husband and father. It's hard on a man when he's struggling to provide and be "the man." But as my dear Sue always tells me: "But God." Even in the storm and struggle, God makes a way and calms the seas. The wind and seas obey Him; may I do so as well.

I reached out in my depression

Linda, Emmalee, Mom, and Kaylee making our 2020 sparkle sign!

So, I have an appointment tomorrow with my psychiatrist.
I haven't been to see her since October 2017. If I'm honest with myself, I did needed to see her between that time and now. But I was doing so much better. I was making friends, finding purpose in my life, feeling part of the community, feeling useful, feeling like a good mom and teacher, feeling I was being less of a burden to my husband, and even raising a pup with my family. But I'm not OK.

I went for my six month check up with my oncologist yesterday. Hooray! The labs are clean. He was a little concern with one test, but not too concern to raise any alarms. I can't convey emotion through writing easily so let me tell you that "Hooray!" was a sarcastic one. I'm feeling sick. I feel no energy. I'm tired all the time. I wake up feeling worse than when I went to bed. My head hurts constantly. My mood is terrible. I have no motivation, no joy, no excitement. I get out of bed out of pure obligation to my role as a mom and wife. If I were single, I would be stuck in bed til Kingdom come. Because my physical exams and check up came back clean, it was the oncologist who suggested I visit the psychiatrist to see what's ailing me.

"Do I have a mental illness?" I asked my oncologist through the tears.
"No. Everyone just needs a little help from time to time," he replied.
"But if I'm trying real hard, and I am, and I still need to see a doctor and take medication for it then I must be ill."
"Depression is an illness. You are right," he concludes, while he hands me a tissue paper to wipe the tears flowing down my face.

"Isn't there a cap to how much one can suffer?" I ask my heavenly Father. "If I already battled and still battle cancer, shouldn't I have a break from having other health issues?" I can't take it. Our finances can't take it. Do people realize how expensive it is to pay for my labs and oncologist appointments? How up the real zinger that I can't get medical insurance with a precondition of breast cancer! Now I need to add therapy and antidepressants to that bill. I've been battling with self.harm thoughts and the thought of spending more money on me just intensifies these thoughts.

I did something I was reluctant to do. I sought help from a friend. I've never been able to open up to friends about my self-harm thoughts. My husband doesn't understand that I bite my nails to the point of bleeding as a relief from these thoughts.  I like the pain. I mean, it gets so painful that at times I can barely do the dishes or cook. And I really hate how my hands look. But I feel such a release from making my inner pain manifest somewhere.

The more I talk to God and talked to this friend of how I feel, I realized some things about myself: I don't feel I deserve to have survived. My self-harm stems from the thought that I deserve to have died from cancer and not survive. I'm not worth all the money we spent on my treatment and my surgeries. I'm not worth all the hardships I make my family go through. They don't deserve a mom who is always tired and always cranky and can get no relief. Is this what psychologist refer to as "survivor's guilt"? It's so much more than just having watched Kinsley and Kara die when they were far better people than me, but it extends to the pain I feel from putting my family through this ordeal. Whenever I speak of my cancer journey, I never say "I". I always say "we." It didn't just cost me a lot. It cost my husband, my daughters, my mother, my father, and everyone that loves me and supported me. And it just doesn't stop. I finally feel I'm getting better and this happens! I go backwards. I'm bad again. I become more absent, more isolated, angrier, and sadder. And I know the girls can see it.

It was hard recounting to my friend face to face the thoughts that go through my mind. The images that go through my head that I don't even tell the hubs or my mom. She fears for me so that she wishes I had gone to psychiatrist first and the oncologist later. She tells me to be hopeful since the last time she was able to help and was able to improve for many months. She listens to what to her are clearly lies from Satan leave my mouth. And she gives me an amazing piece of advice...

Are you ready for it?
It's really good...



"Lower your expectations."



Simple, right?
Correct?
I believe so.

She continues telling me: "Your anxiety lives between the distance of your expectations and your reality."
Now, that advice can mean many things. so let me make clear what she meant. Lower your expectations on yourself as a mother, as a wife, as a Christian. Don't expect yourself to be perfect, to have it altogether, to get it right right away. Be kinder to yourself and how you speak to yourself. Lower the expectations of a perfectly clean house, or getting all you wanted done today, or your kids behaving or doing this or that. You would never talk to someone else the way you talk to yourself. But if you are beating yourself up, you will give back that hurt to those around you, you will continue to believe you deserve pain.

She gives me a second gem of advice.
She says: "Allow yourself to be where you are. Let yourself acknowledge that you are going through a hard time and let that be your reality and let yourself feel it and grieve about it."

Oh, Dear God, Hallelujah! And by the way, I did not say that "hallelujah" sarcastically. I have seldom reached out in my pain and find someone who allows me to grieve. It's why I was so reluctant to reach out. I remember in 2017 when the strength of my thoughts finally convinced me to seek medical help, I was sitting alone in my apartment fearing for my life wondering who I could tell. Anyone that came to mind felt like an unsafe choice. Now, this was my prejudice, so it doesn't mean it was true. I could have been met with sympathy and care, but at the time I didn't feel safe opening up to anyone I knew. I had been burned with their faith talks and their "victory in Jesus" phrases of how to deal with my cancer, which is a very real and visible illness, to let them further wound me when I spoke of my very invisible and often denied illness as is depression. God was kind letting me hear someone else tell me my struggles are real, our time has been hard, and it's OK to suffer from our Valley of Death. After all, He never said we wouldn't walk it. He said He'd be with us when we did. "We have Getsemani," she says.

I often tell other people who suffer from depression that there is light at the end, there is treatment available, there is help at hand. I will live by my words and go to my appointment tomorrow and have hope that the scientific advances in medicine and mental health will help me out again. I open up this part of my life because I feel I'm not alone, but I also know that most won't open up about it. It's scary. When I open up about these struggles I have many women and even some male friends send me messages where they share with me similar experiences they've been keeping locked in.

Pray for me, please? Pray for that appointment tomorrow. Pray I can find the help I need to get the start of the year I wish I was having. Somehow, even with everything we're going through God has been spoiling me. I mean, this friend lets me meet with her in her house and talk while inside her very amazing hot tub. It's true what they say: Money can't buy happiness, but it feels better crying in a hot tub. LOL. In all seriousness, God has been spoiling me. We are currently staying at my cousin's house while she is visiting Honduras. We've been here since the 8th and will be here till the 20th. It's like a stay-cation. We really feel like on a holiday. And it's weird to feel that because we are almost through the mid of January and my husband has not been paid a penny from his work on December. That is very disheartening, and yet we feel on vacation? So amidst our hard, God shows us His kindness and how He is above our situation. The girls have enjoyed our stay here that they've worked on their school work faster and more efficiently to enjoy the pool in these summer months. Even the hubs has gotten to vent and enjoy the balcony sunsets. And that's how I carry through, searching for Him everywhere and finding Him everywhere I look. Isn't that amazing, even in my depression?

Dear God,
I am sorry I don't feel worthy of your love. As my God friend Sue told me: "Don't contradict your elders." You know better. If you say I am worthy of love, I am. If  you decide I am worthy of surviving, I am. It must be that You still have purpose for me down here. And I want to be well to carry it out. Please continue showing up for me and showing me how much You love and care for us. Please, please, please let this year be different career-wise for my husband and help him find decent and just employment. Please let us find more stability this year. Please let us continue to rely on You for provision and dependence. Thank you for the ways Your body has showed up for us in carrying us through. I love you, Father. Help me get better. Amen.

Look at that view!

Clayton has always been my favorite place in Panama

Bentley the dog has been well behaved in her stay.

The One thing I did to make this year one of the best

The year is ending and two things have changed this year. First, I've barely written here. That greatly saddens me.  I really love pouring my heart here, sharing with loved ones far away a small window into my heart and my life, hone my writing skills, and sort of document my life. So much happens and we forget so easily. Indeed the days are long but the years are short- too short! When I write and I read back, I get to re-live those memories, sharpen those images of what life was.

Do I remember what it was like barely sleeping and changing diapers  to two babies at the same time? Do I remember what it was like barely getting a chance to take a shower or go to the bathroom uninterrupted? Or not having to wipe little butts and noses? Honestly, I just remember that sleep training my girls was torture, but I don't remember what really made it so terrible. My sleep deprived brain barely got to process those thoughts and store those memories. But I remember sitting with a child that was smaller than my arm praying I would never forget what it was to stare into her eyes and feel wonder. I remember praying I could remember what their baby head smelled like. I prayed that hearing them say "Mommy" would forever bring me joy. And now I understand how their tenth "Mommy!" in the day just wants to make me disappear, and how one day I will long for that feeling again too. I want to remember. I want to document. I want to recall with precision how I felt and what I said and what I prayed and how I saw God's mercy poured into my life.

I forget. I forget His mercy. Today I had to go do my extensive lab exams for my upcoming appointment with my oncologist. I told my mom I was not feeling so good and that I would change my appointment to next year, so I might as well do the exams next year as well. A thought crept in my mind with all the slithering vile of Satan: "What if you spend the rest of the year celebrating joy and love just to find out at the beginning of the year your exams did not come back clean?" I would lie if I said that it didn't get to me, that it didn't fill my heart with fear, and it didn't fill my eyes with tears. It did. I hate that those thoughts are part of my life. I hate that they could be true. I hate that I really don't know if they'll be true, and I hate most that people's response to that fact is :"Trust God." Trusting God doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It means that I trust His Word in the things to come and find peace in His purpose and plan for my life, but it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Hurting is not antonym of trusting God. I wish more people understood that. But because of the second thing that happened this year, I got over that really quickly, shook it off, went on with my day and I can honestly say the fear is not following me nor am I letting it creep back. Satan can whisper His lies, but I can shut them... but shutting them doesn't come naturally.

So the second thing that happened this year is that I wrote a whole lot more in my personal, handwritten journal. I got to build up my relationship with God in ways I hadn't in many years. I got to seek Him at early mornings and share time just the two of us. I hadn't been consistently writing in  my journal since 2009. That was shocking to me. I got to change the dynamic of that alone time with Him. I had been coming in compunction, pointing out everything I was doing wrong, everything I wasn't getting right with every single one of my roles and relationships, especially my relationship with Him. No wonder I wasn't consistently coming back. It was a penance! I was coming before "God the judge" and forgot about "God the father."  I didn't know how to approach God the father. I didn't know if I even believed in ABBA. "Does He take care of me? Does He give me fish when I ask Him to feed me because I feel I'm getting snake!" I came to expect that God's plan for me was a good plan in the overall story, but not for me personally. Boy, was I deceived by the Devil BIG time. God the judge was not even my judge. He was not saying anything to me. It was I who was doing all the penance and contrition. I started changing the way I approached God, because when there is something wrong with your relationship with God you have to remember He doesn't change. It was you who changed. It was I who was coming to Him to pour out all my shortcomings and my inability to overcome them. It was I who was not being grateful for all the wonderful things He fills my life with.

I started pouring more and more my fears in our alone time, which brought to light my fear of feeling happy or my fear that He only had a hard road prepared for me. I started treating Him like a friend who besides understanding how I felt also hurts when I hurt. You have to remember He loves us. The Father hurts when His children hurt. He also knows that hurt makes us grow and change and live. He is a good Father, a loving Father. And I got to spend the year knowing this Father personally, changing lies that had me in shackles. The light of His Word brought the lies crumbling down and allowed me to see my loving Father once more. The more I spent time with Him alone and in His Word the more I understood how these lies were designed to rob me of joy and peace. Satan doesn't want me spending time with Him, being strengthen by His love and being held in my weakness by our fellowship.

My life was greatly blessed by my local church too. I joined a small group that has been a family to me in a foreign land. But they gave me more than camaraderie and companionship. They challenged me spiritually. They challenged me to do more for Christ, more time in His Word, more time in prayer, more time spreading the gospel. I also joined a Bible study. Oh, waking early on Sundays to get there in time was no longer difficult. The thirst I had for the truth and life I was receiving in my Bible study had me up and strengthened. We spent three months just studying the book of Ephesians, breaking it down verse by verse. It was amazing!

The more these things were happening in my life, the less earthly desires I had. I had no need for bigger homes or bigger vacations. I had no need for better looks or better behavior. I had no need to be a perfect mom or a perfect wife. I had no need to wallow in self-pity or in identifying as a cancer patient. I had no need to commiserate on my immigrant status or our financial status. These things still haunt me and are still part of my day to day, but they just hold less and less power on me and how I feel. Like the genius Jon Foreman put it so eloquently:
"I wanna be rich in memories, not money,
Our love is our inheritance, honey
Our inheritance, honey."

And so, I hope next year I am able to post more here. I hope I can keep sharing my life with you, with it's ups and lows, with it's good times and bad times, with it's lessons and truths found. I hope I get to write more of what it's like to walk close to God and closer to His truth and His Word and His people. I hope it continues to transform me and mold me and I can remember. Don't forget to remember. And if you tend to forget, put it down in writing, in pictures, in drawings, in whatever form you can make yourself remember. Remember His goodness in the first years of marriage, or His goodness in the early childhood days of your children, remember His goodness in the teenage years and the empty nesting years. remember his goodness when you were single and when you had all your family with you for Christmas. Don't forget. Don't forget it comes from Him.

So, my dear friend Laura says she wants to capture the wonder of her children's childhood through the most amazing pictures. For this, she carries her very heavy camera around. Now, I'm not as talented as she is, but I've been trying to take the camera more places. Here are a few shots from this past week:

We baked many christmas cookies and a christmas sugar cookie house (no gingerbread this time), but I didn't take pics of it with my cam.

She didn't want to eat her pink cookie!

Isn't she the most gorgeous grandma ever??!!!!

Those sparkling eyes!!!!

My sweet girl!

Who is loving the blue tree? 

Of course, she thinks the pink tree is hers. 

Poor Bentley better watch it! The labs only wanted to say hi though, no rough-housing.

These girls live the high life!

Why does her smile take my breath away more than that view?

Tio Boris and Tia Yami. We love them so much!

My greatest blessing!

Tio Boris was a huge hit with the girls! They miss their grandfathers back in Honduras!

My Panamanian Family. Drakonivich is standing in for Tia Lilly who refuses pics.

I was telling my mom how Rodolfo and I both agreed 2019  had been in our top 3 for "worst years of our life." I mean, we took a beating this year. A serious, hard, soul-breaking beating. It was not as intense as 2016 were we battled cancer, and it contended with 2017 for second spot where we also face terrible financial insecurity, new country, my long, hard battle with PTSD with some depression and anxiety. I mean, this year we survived by the tip of our fingernails, but my mom asked me to name all the good things that also happened this year, and it made me realize it wasn't all bad. In fact, the more I listed things, the more ashamed I felt of naming 2019 in our top three. I don't think that ranking was a wise thing to make at all considering that even in 2016 where I lost so much, I gained so much in friends, support, family, provision, and LIFE!

So here is our year in review:

*The girls took the swim course and made it to the swim team. They spent the year training from Tuesday to Friday, making friends and having lots of fun.
*We got our homeschool books to start first grade with Emmalee and Kindergarten with Kaylee having a more formal school year and feeling their education was headed in a good direction.
*I quit my job. This was a tough decision because my boss was extremely kind to me and I didn't want to disappoint him. But quitting freed up the space to work on my mental health that sorely needing mending and work on my eating habits and yoga.
*Mom got really into yoga. And it has made such a difference in how I feel.
*Mom got into keto. I wished I would have kept doing keto longer and I definitely plan on starting as soon as possible this year. It made a difference in how I felt, how I looked, my energy levels.
*Dad finished his masters. There were times during the year where we felt this would be impossible, whether because we didn't know how much longer we could keep up paying for it or if he was going to pass that last class that was grueling. But, he graduated!!!
*We got our legal status. How did we manage to pay for all the paperwork and fees to get our legal papers can only be explained with divine intervention. The fees were WAY beyond our means, and somehow we managed without needing to ask for a loan. Praise the Lord. Do you know what it's like to have peace when you see a policeman? Agh! It's heaven!
*The hubs had employment year long. It wasn't as we expected. It was harder than ever before. It was less paid than ever before. But for an illegal migrant to have had provision year long and managed to feed us and provide for our needs even after I had to quit my job for health needs was amazing.
*The hubs got to back to the gym. We found this gym that had a $20 membership fee and we felt that the hubs needed a place to blow off steam and recharge his energy and work on his health. It has been a huge blessing.
*The girls started piano lessons. We found this free online piano academy called Hoffman academy, that along with what mommy learned being in piano lessons, has been enough for the girls' musical training.
*The girls joined the gym team. This was so hard I thought it would never happened. We could by no means afford this. Mommy got a standing mixer as a gift from Tia Yami to start my baking business. I started selling cupcakes and cakes and have been able to afford the girls gym classes without being a burden to dad. Here's hoping I can continue doing so in 2020. The girls love it and dream of becoming ninjas.
*Lila, like my girls call my mom, finished her certification too. Only she goes back to school when she is as accomplished as she is. She is such an inspiration.
*We joined a small group and we joined a bible study group. I can't keep writing how huge a blessing these two where.
*Our pup Bentley turned one! I mean, that pup nearly broke us. I would reconsider having a puppy in such a small apartment in hindsight. But she has been such a blessing. Emmalee especially loves her pup. Kaylee has learned kindness caring for her. And mommy has found a relief from her dreaded night pain. See, Bentley sleeps right over my feet, helping them sooth when they hurt from my neuropathy. I love her and pray to be kinder to her. Mommy was not very kind when she came home to bitten books and furniture. After losing Alee, having Bentley turn one seemed like an important milestone.
*We had two vacations courtesy of Lila. These where huge soul-refreshers and such wonderful family time.
*We had Abuelo Edgardo, Tia Sara, Tio Tito, Bram and Pilar stay with us and visit.
*Yuju, as the girls call Abuelo German, seemed like a goner. He spent 3 weeks in the ICU. He pulled through and spent a Christmas at home on his feet.
*My family in Honduras keeps strong. Dad lost his cafeteria and Abuelo Rodolfo struggled with money too, but their families kept together and strong. Tio Luis finished highschool and started college, Tio Javier finished college and tio Kris stepped up as his dad's greatest support. Abuela Martha is healthy and going around town with friends. We miss them terribly.
*Tio Ditto and Tia Lia got their permanent residency in Canada and are very happy in their jobs and life there. They got to spend Christmas with Lila.
*Tia Jenny had tried for many years to get pregnant. She had started the year crying because her treatment had failed. And a few weeks later, she was pregnant with twins. She had two healthy twin boys who are today 3 months old.
*Emmalee had her first cantata with mommy. It was such an amazing thing to see her up there.
*Dad got a PS4. This seems so frivolous, but after we had burglars take our PS3 at the beginning of 2018 I had felt so violated and deprived from something I knew my husband had long waited for too. We waited long again but through friends and family sending him graduation gifts he got to get his long awaited fifa time.
*Mom lost 40 lbs. I thought this was impossible, but now I'm going for those remaining 15!
*Mom got over her PTSD. This was only possible with my time with God. All the praise to Him because He is capable of bringing me out of the pit of darkness and making me stand in the rock that is Him even when the world felt shaky and falling over.
This definitely shows 2019 was actually a year of blessing.


Steve, our pastor, asked us to name a few things we needed to stop doing or start doing this coming year. Here are mine
+stop going to bed late, start raising up earlier
+stop eating bad food, start eating good food. If you think this one is just for looks, you are sorely mistaken. Food is medicine. Food is fuel. Fuel yourself properly to properly serve others. This will be my year's motto.
+stop wasting time, start investing it in your relationships, especially in knowing and loving the Lord.
+stop using bad words, start seeing your mouth as a blessing fountain,

They sound simple and easy. Well, here's to sticking to it to being faithful in the little to be faithful in the more.
Happy new years, family and friends around! Make this your best year by making it your closest one to God.