Mental Health Update

My mental health has been AMAZING! I finally started ART therapy (accelerated resolution therapy) and determined it wasn’t necessarily for me. My therapist and I have an amazing connection but the light therapy component was not effective. We will continue talk therapy and can fall back on ART if needed.

I think ART wasn’t working because the medicine IS working so well. I have been on the same medicine with a few adjustments for almost a year. I am able to handle the hard days with little to mild irritation and notice those times are right around the time of my period.

I have been excercising routinely for almost 6 months and am seeing and feeling the difference. I’ve also cut back my sweet intake - the hardest thing to kick. I have a goal in mind and have no doubt I’ll get there.

Mindset is everything baby.

2023

Wooo! It’s been awhile.

Hey hey! I’m BACK and I think I figured out which direction I’m going on here. It’s just going to be me and my life: my likes and my dislikes. Current products I love and grievances I have. There will be some mom wins and some mom loses. It’s called balance baby!

Buckle up!

I’m back!

Hey hey friends! It’s been a while since I’ve updated this space so I’m here to bring you some new Dana content.

I thought therapy was going well, until I took some assessments and they told the therapist that I wasn’t a good candidate for her therapy. I’ve been on a search to find a new therapist for about 2 1/2 weeks now with very little success. I was told I qualify for something called modified EMDR, yet a lot of providers haven’t heard of modified EMDR so I’m lost in my diagnosis. IF YOU HAVE ANY LEADS… LMK!

I have not lost hope though, I am staying upbeat and positive AND I’m still taking my medicine. I recently went back to my psychiatrist and was a little worried with her suggestions to increase my meds. I’ve been doing really well with the medicine dosage but for some reason the Dr. wanted me to go up another 25 mg a dose. I am a little weary just because the medicine is working and I don’t see the need to increase or take more medicine if one is working.

I bring this to my blog in hopes someone has been through this or has some good advice on what I can do.

In other news, Rowan starts kindergarten in a week and I am so excited for her! I know she is ready for it and will do amazing, I am just worried and feel anxiety about having a Kindergartener. That means more social interaction with other children’s parents… And I’m panicking. I have really bad social anxiety and have found talking to new people especially parents to be daunting. I know I can get through it, because I’ve overcome talking to MinnyRow customers in the past.

One thing I learned in treatment was to remember the times that you DID the hard thing before and realize you can DO the hard thing again.

Be well my friends and please comment, leave advice and remarks, it helps so many people.

D

Learning and unlearning

The sign I needed today.

Ok ok, it’s been a minute!

If you follow along on Instagram you may have heard that last week was really tough. I canceled a therapy appointment with a new provider because I couldn’t get myself to commit to another intake appointment. I voiced my concern to a dear friend and she didn’t judge me but asked what my body was telling me. My body told me sleep. I met up with her to talk through my feelings and it helped TREMENDOUSLY. I canceled the appointment, asked my Mom to watch Luca a little longer because I was feeling down, and I SLEPT FOR 2.5 HOURS! After that nap, I felt SO good. Listening to my body is something I’m learning to do and I think it’s paying off. When is the last time you listened to your body and gave yourself grace?

SIDE NOTE: My friend also left me with this tidbit… women basically endure 3 weeks of body changes, EVERY MONTH. Ovulating, going through 4 different cycles in less than a month… No wonder I feel crazy emotions the week before my period. I never track it anymore but am starting NOW.

I also have had a breakthrough with my motivation to workout. Another fabulous friend sent me a video explaining how dedication is the motivation you need. I started thinking about that and realized I dedicate time for myself for self-care (nails, hair, shopping etc.) but I don’t prioritize self care as exercise. Once I realized that, I realized I can be dedicated AND not liking working out. I can’t wait to FEEL like working out…motivation IS the dedication. MIND BLOWN. 🤯

I am committed to putting in the work and dedication for the entire month of August. I will work out every day starting August 1st, no days off (not hardcore just consistency) and I know I can do it. This is where YOU come in. Do you need an accountability buddy? Do you need to take a stupid walk for your mental health? Do you need a group of women who are trying to understand life’s crazy ride? If YES, holla at your girl and I will coordinate schedules and find something that works for most. SO again, whoever wants to form a little walk group (kids or no kids) and want to talk about life’s crazy ride, please reach out.

All right now for this distorted thinking pattern I am trying to unlearn.

My brain works in such a way that it’s either all or nothing with my thinking, decisions, picking a right and wrong behavior, etc. When it comes to thinking like this I can’t see the middle or common ground. When I was struggling with organic vs non organic, my sweet girlfriend told me that it can be BOTH. Again 🤯 - I am such a feeler and believer that one action is correct and one is wrong. I’ve never been able to live with both of anything and it is time to try.

I still need more input on recycling, composting and trashing, but hey I know I can’t learn, unlearn AND know EVERYTHING.

I can’t wait to dig in to this more and try to figure out this next piece of the puzzle. You know I’ll keep you updated! 😉

I am loving finding my people in this crazy ride called life. LOVE YOU ALL.

“Friends are the best kind of therapy.”

My weekly jam getting me through the daily grind: Sam Smith “Love Me More”

I am a new person.

It’s been almost a month since I completed the PHP program and I can proudly say I can see the benefit of it and am so happy to have gone through it. I am still continuing to take my medicine and I’m committed to them through the winter - the hardest time for my depression and anxiety.

I feel amazing. I have been working at MRM for about 3-4 days a week. Today was the first day I was there for an entire shift. It felt great smiling and getting to know new customers. I remembered how much I enjoy the customer interaction and learning about everyone. One of our missions is to create a community where it feels like you are an old family friend and you know what, we are succeeding because of me. It feels good to brag a little. 😉

I am still struggling with my want to be holistic vs. rx free and maintaining a healthy regime. I have completed 2-3 workouts/long walks and feel good in my body but still can’t get motivated to work out. I will keep trying and making it a priority these next few weeks.

But I am struggling with this. I always try to do holistic methods for pain - acupuncture, chiropractic care, essential oils, self care- manicures and pedicures, eat organic and choose bottled water. After those don’t work I usually wind up back on medicine. Taking medicine every day worries me. If I want to have another child I would need to be off one or more during the first trimester and the weeks trying to conceive. I was holistic with Rowan’s pregnancy and had severe anxiety. With Luca’s pregnancy I took Zoloft thoughout and felt great. I was so worried I damaged her with the medicine, and guess what, she’s thriving! But this medicine is different.

So holistic or prescriptions meds?

Random other struggles that I would LOVE advice on is the following:

Do I get a job for extra family cash or give my all to MRM?

Do I need to continue providing organic fruits and vegetables and most of our groceries for my family or can I risk buying products with processed foods and additives? I have learned so much on organic practices and conventional methods over the years and try my hardest to avoid toxins and pesticides that are in our foods. I follow the dirty dozen and can proudly say both Luca and Rowan eat primarily organic foods. If you didn’t know I’m a germaphobe that fears contamination. (I’ll get into that someday…)

Do we continue recycling or should we start composting?

Do we need to continue recycling? I have heard that it takes just as much gas and fuel to recycle as it does trashing things.

These are my current worries and I am so grateful I have been able to think clearly and enjoy my life.

It always gets better.

Please let me know your thoughts below, I love opening up and hearing new viewpoints. XOXO D

ONE WEEK POST!

I am one week post graduation from the PHP program! I feel really good.

I enjoy my time doing things that were incredibly hard 4 weeks ago. I still really enjoy my sleep but also see the purpose of a regular schedule. I had been in survival mode, barely getting by and now I can see things clearly again.

MinnyRow Market is going really well and I am able to talk with customers and have conversations again without being petrified. I can see the future and want to continue giving it my all. It is a privilege for us to have gotten this far and success is working hard making it work day after day. I continue to see good things for MRM and our work life balance.

My next challenge is maintaining a healthy workout and eating routine.

I have always had a sweet tooth and it finally caught up to me. Last year I was both under weight and “over” weight in 12 months due to anxiety. I took a liking to nightly sweets to relieve anxiety for a job well done and making it through the day.

And now it’s come to this, I need to limit sugar and move my body more. A recent blood test showed my glucose levels are high and I am on the border of being diabetic. That scared me!

I am committed to walking 3 miles twice a week, on my treadmill or through the neighborhood.

I am going to replace sugar cravings with fresh fruit as often as I need to and especially when I want those late night sweet cravings.

I will keep ya updated how it goes!

Lost

I have 2 days left of the program and I feel more lost than I did last week. I am back in a depression cycle and cannot see the light right now. I am incredibly insecure with who I am and what I want to do with my life. Everything looks really gloomy right now, and I’m trying to accept that it’s ok.

Trying to give myself grace and it’s hard.

My brain keeps telling me I should be doing this, like this person is, “look how well they’re handling life’s circumstances” and then I start spiraling. I can’t stop the comparison and fear that my way of life and being is affecting my kids and something is wrong with me.

It also doesn’t help that I can’t find a psychiatrist with any openings until late July or August,

Feeling discouraged but my positive affirmation for the day:

I am able to change.

*I wrote this blog post yesterday when I was in a dark place and today I feel so much better! My affirmation was on point. Cheers to one more day and being done with this part of my chapter and getting back to me.

8 days in

Luca says “Hurray!”

I am 8 days in and I feel good. I started the week upset with my progress: my psychiatrist wanted to put me on a mood stabilizer that is commonly used in people with Bipolar Disorder and I was hesitant. When I questioned the doctor about it, he said he was focusing on symptoms and wouldn’t label anyone for up to 6 months. That reassured me but in the back of my mind, I can’t shake the feeling that I may always need medicine or that I could be Bipolar. I brought my hesitation to my group and they echoed what I already know, if something is helping your health, it doesn’t matter what society tells you you are. Here I am a week into the meds and I feel more like “me” than I have in a long time.

The beginning of the week I felt as if I was back in grade school with the amount of check ins and group bonding activities we had to do. I find them to be a waste of time but try to stay present and participate because there is a reason this program exists and works. I’ve watched 4 people “graduate” the program and they all seem to be feeling better with the tools they have acquired.

I am proud of how I have presented myself to my fellow group members. I have told them numerous times that I am trying to get the most out of the program and am willing to share my vulnerable moments because this is our family’s last straw. Peter gave me an ultimatum that I need to figure this out, with him, through therapy and utilizing the tools I learn so I can get out of this cycle or he will leave. (more on this later) We have been in this cycle of my depression for years and I can’t figure out how to be me.

Through opening up and sharing my struggles, I have connected with so many of you and have been given the best advice and lessons learned.

Have you ever felt this way? Has anything helped? Has your partner ever given you an ultimatum out of love?

Thank you for the love and support. Wish me luck as I finish the remaining half of the 15 day program.

I respect my own uniqueness.

My anxiety was my joy this week.

Rowan had her first and hopefully only surgery this week. Rowan needed 3 teeth removed because she had a compound odontoma, which is basically a sac of tooth particles, in the way of her adult teeth and it needed to be removed.

I was a mess with anxiety the days leading up to it. I didn’t know how to manage my thoughts about it and brought my concern to my group. They had so many ideas how to ease my anxiety. They told me I could call the hospital and tell them my concerns, they told me to voice my daughter’s needs and my own, (I told the doctors I was coming into the OR room until my baby was asleep and they allowed it), they told me to call and ask for reviews on the doctor anonymously and they reassured me that my baby would be ok.

About an hour after surgery started they came back with great news. The teeth were extracted with no major concerns. My girl was a champ and spent the rest of the week resting with very minimal pain.

She will have the most adorable gummy smile for the next few months!

PS: How is this for parallels… I also had 3 teeth removed (from my skiing accident) when I was a kid too.

Depression is a cycle I’m desperately trying to figure out.

One of my homework assignments last week was to describe my positive cycle when I’m coming out of a depressed state. To get to the positive, it’s helpful for me to look at the depressed cycle first.

When I first experienced these cycles in college and I told close friends I felt depressed, more often than not, they would ask how are YOU depressed? (Btw, hearing that does NOT help.) On the outside looking in, it may appear like I have my life together but internally I struggle on a day to day basis doing simple tasks. Especially since opening MinnyRow Market, although I have been incredibly happy, day to day tasks such as having conversations with customers, answering emails and making small talk with adults has become some of the hardest things I’ve had to do.

When I am depressed and on my darkest days, I am exhausted, terrified, unable to make decisions, and find myself irritated with everyone close to me. I stop doing my chores and I need constant sleep unable to do my Mom or store duties.

I notice when I get in these cycles, I stop caring about the way I present myself, I stop trying to be put together. I stop feeling ALL together.

What helps? Naming the depression and anxiety and asking for help. Almost every time I take a shower I seem to wash some of the pain away, just like the newborn days, a shower makes me feel a little more human.

Sharing what I am going through has also helped tremendously. Naming each feeling has helped and I’ve started to try my hardest to tell my negative self talk that it’s not real.

I try to get in to see my acupuncturist and I start taking the days, one task at a time. I know I’m starting to feel better when I dress myself up and do my make up and hair again, I realize my depression is fading.

When I start to come out of these states, the guilt starts to sink in. The days that I have missed are gone and I have to insert myself back into my life and what was going on when I was away.

I am getting better at predicting these cycles but when they come out of the blue, that is when they are the most terrifying.

May 2nd

On Monday May 2nd, I did something that almost ruined our family. As a plea for help, I tried to kill myself.

I struggle with depression and anxiety and took myself off my meds in March. I was convinced my meds were causing weight gain and was hopeful I could manage myself through exercise and vitamin D ie. warm weather. Slowly but surely the depression and anxiety snuck in my life and made it unmanageable for me to live the way I was. April was the coldest month of the year for me. (I am currently back on meds and feel better but know I can’t go back to the way I have been.)

With the support of my family, I was admitted to the hospital and spent 48 hours in the elopement ward which was 100% not the right spot for me. Elopement means basically unable to leave, locked into a hallway with nurses watching you, and I promise you they don’t care about you, while you wait for someone on the outside to care. I was treated as if I were a criminal because get this, there wasn’t available space for new mental health patients. Can you believe this? They sent a suicidal person to an elopement ward with 3 clearly crazy men who stared at me the entire time. We HAVE to fight and change our mental health system. I promise there will be more on that some day.

I was let out as soon as I agreed to accept the help they were providing which was a 15 day partial hospital stay. I was set to begin my 15 day treatment plan when our house came down with Covid-19. Treatment was delayed until after our Texas trip and starting June 2nd from 9a-3p, Monday-Friday, I would begin a new chapter.

Today is the day and although I feel like a failure, my cousin left me with this thought, “Even if you don’t see or feel this, you are not a failure, you are brave. Brave because you are walking into change and ready to face yourself. This is not failure. Failure is doing the same thing over and over even though it is not working for you nor for your families greatest good.”

How I’m feeling: Scared, nervous, anxious, like a let down, or an absent employee, but ready to admit I need help and need to change. From 9a-3p I will need to be free from distractions (no kids) and on my computer with 10-12 other patients and get my life back in order. For the next 15 days I will have to surrender control in my life in regards to my kids, my day to day life, and some of my duties. It may be the most vulnerable I have been in a long time.

Huge thanks to my husband, my parents, Peter’s parents and a few close friends who know about this and have supported me in so many ways. I have been relying on them for the past month, asking for help which is incredibly hard for me to do at times.

Thank you for listening and wish me luck.

One thing I am incredibly thankful for, is that the medicine finally started to work so I could enjoy our trip to Texas and that I could be here today sharing this with you.

You are not alone.

Day One Fun

“The braver we are, the luckier we get.” - Glennon Doyle

This is 36.

I do not know who I am yet I do know everything terrifies me. I need help, I’m channeling Glennon Doyle by turning to writing like she does. Here it goes. Hi, I’m Dana and I struggle with depression and anxiety.

My life is a mess at most times, and I’m here to vent and to talk about my days. People always say I should write a book and I’m starting with a blog.

I am one of a kind. I’m here to get therapy in my writing. I am a caring, socially awkward, and anxious human who had a traumatic experience at 13 and have been trying to come to terms with who I am since the day my life changed. I am a mom of two daughters who KNOW who they are and it terrifies me because I don’t know who I am. I am married to the most wonderful and terrific husband who is also so sure of himself and it’s what attracts me most. I worry that I am not smart enough for my family but apparently that’s my anxiety and depression talking.

I pretend I’m normal every day. I wake up always wanting more sleep and can’t wait until I can lay down again, I make naps a frequent thing. Again this is called depression. I wake up and more often than not, I dread dealing with the kids. I love them with all my heart of course but almost every morning, Rowan wakes up with such an attitude about everything, and guess who she gets that from…

Oh yeah, we also opened a successful business as husband and wife, in the middle of a pandemic, and are still here making it work, day after day! Talk about anxiety…

I will be updating this space as often as I see fit, please subscribe, follow along, join me and my family.

I will be talking about depression, parenting, and being an entrepreneur and basically my life whenever I have those ah-ha moments and experiences. I can’t wait to tell my story!

Is it one day or day one?