Beginning
So here I am, starting a blog. My title? Beginning. Not very creative, but I don't want to get bogged down in creativity when it's already taken so long to get started. The important thing has to be, to just start.
At 58 years old, I am just beginning my life. That is to say, my new life. The old one no longer suited me, and to tell the truth, it never suited me. I've been overweight since college, gaining weight year-by-year, until now I am at the grand total of 209 lbs. I'm only 5' 2 ½" inches. On my frame, that makes me about 99 lbs. overweight.
My weight is only the first item on the list of things I need to change in my life. It doesn't feel good to know that for 58 years of my life, I've pretty much skated. I've been afraid of many things, and my way of dealing with them was to avoid them. Not good at socializing? Find a husband who is extremely outgoing. Not assertive? Have your husband deal with any problem that comes up. Easily stressed in a work situation because of social anxiety? Don't get a job. Insecure about how you feel about yourself? Blame others internally, while knowing on the same level that you are the one who is inadequate.
So what happens when, after 57 years of little progress in your life, your husband passes away? You find yourself afloat, panicking, and for the first time in your life, responsible for yourself. You blame yourself for not living up to your potential, and on top of that, you are suffering from depression and anxiety. Guilt, self-loathing, and fear pile up on you, and you spin into an abyss that you feel you can never climb out of.
In my case, I was also dealing with having to figure out what to do with a stockpile of things that my husband bought and stored at his "place of business." Most of it had nothing to do with his business. He bought things with his mother's inheritance money and had it shipped to a spot he rented at a warehouse so that I wouldn't know about it. This, while owing thousands of dollars to the IRS that he refused to pay over decades because he didn't believe it was legal for the government to tax its citizens.
It was too much to handle this all at once. I dealt with it for a while, but then the enormity of it crashed in upon me, and I crashed as well. I couldn't sleep for worry, so I started drinking some wine I had around the house. The wine didn't work, so I went out and bought vodka. Then I would still wake up during the night, and every time I woke up, I'd drink more vodka to get back to sleep. Then in the morning, I couldn't face the day, so I drank to stay asleep.
I never thought I would ever do any of this. I was never a drinking person. Up until this point, I had maybe 5 drinks per year, and all of them while I was out at restaurants with my husband or family. I was self-medicating. Me, a person who was extremely anti-drug. Me, a person who looked down upon people who couldn't handle their own problems.
This went on for about a month and a half. I'd run out of vodka and go to Costco or Total Wine, feeling ashamed every time I went. I hated myself, I was afraid of facing life. I stopped returning phone calls from my family, to the point where they had to call a neighbor to come and check to make sure I was all right. That was the point where I realized that I had to tell someone what was going on. I told my daughter, then I told my oldest sister. My mom is in her 90's and she's a worrier like me, so I didn't tell her. I stopped drinking immediately, my daughter came and stayed with me for the weekend, and my sister came and stayed with me for a week.
During that time, I was almost paralyzed. I couldn't function for fear. I had a deadline to clear out the warehouse spot, and there was a lot of stuff in there. I was afraid the IRS would raid my home and take everything away.
A few years before he passed, I had convinced my husband to hire a tax company to handle the tax problem, but he didn't keep records for his business and I had no idea where to start. He had hired the attorneys, but he only gave them a few records from the years before he was an independent contractor. I was afraid to call the tax company, because I didn't even know where to start. It was too much to deal with all at once, and I was in panic mode.
Luckily, with the help of my sister, I found an emergency mental health clinic run by the county. Thank God! I went there with trepidation, but also with hope. It was the only place to go to immediately get a prescription, and I couldn't rest day or night. If I went the normal route, it would take me over a month to get into an appointment with a psychologist, and I needed help now! I was not suicidal by any means, but I was in such a state of panic that I couldn't deal with even the easiest day-to-day tasks in my life.
The psychologist was a very young and kind man, who assured me that medicine would help me. He gave me a long-term anti-anxiety/antidepressant drug, along with a short-term one that would tide me over in the meanwhile. He gave me a blood test, that on my next appointment showed that I had done damage to my liver (not permanent) in the short time that I had been drinking. I went to weekly counseling appointments for a time, but I didn't have a lot of faith that they would help. I stopped going to them after a little while. I'm still thinking about whether I made the right choice on that; I may return to them.
To shorten the story a bit, with the help of my sister and the meds, I cleared out the warehouse space and got the ball rolling with my taxes. I continued with my monthly psychologist appointments, but that episode of panic and self-loathing itself had left its mark upon me, and I knew that I had to do something to change who I was. The "me" that I was before my husband passed away had to go. The mood stabilizers weren't enough. I still disliked myself. I was and am, still depressed and anxious. I needed to become a person that was proactive, not reactive. I needed to be happy with who I was, and I needed goals and a way to meet them. To do that, I needed to change.
Change is not an easy thing, especially at my age. But I was amazed at the amount of help you can find online, especially in TED talks. This is my testimony and my journey. I am at the beginning, but I have hope that I have found the right path.
At 58 years old, I am just beginning my life. That is to say, my new life. The old one no longer suited me, and to tell the truth, it never suited me. I've been overweight since college, gaining weight year-by-year, until now I am at the grand total of 209 lbs. I'm only 5' 2 ½" inches. On my frame, that makes me about 99 lbs. overweight.
My weight is only the first item on the list of things I need to change in my life. It doesn't feel good to know that for 58 years of my life, I've pretty much skated. I've been afraid of many things, and my way of dealing with them was to avoid them. Not good at socializing? Find a husband who is extremely outgoing. Not assertive? Have your husband deal with any problem that comes up. Easily stressed in a work situation because of social anxiety? Don't get a job. Insecure about how you feel about yourself? Blame others internally, while knowing on the same level that you are the one who is inadequate.
So what happens when, after 57 years of little progress in your life, your husband passes away? You find yourself afloat, panicking, and for the first time in your life, responsible for yourself. You blame yourself for not living up to your potential, and on top of that, you are suffering from depression and anxiety. Guilt, self-loathing, and fear pile up on you, and you spin into an abyss that you feel you can never climb out of.
In my case, I was also dealing with having to figure out what to do with a stockpile of things that my husband bought and stored at his "place of business." Most of it had nothing to do with his business. He bought things with his mother's inheritance money and had it shipped to a spot he rented at a warehouse so that I wouldn't know about it. This, while owing thousands of dollars to the IRS that he refused to pay over decades because he didn't believe it was legal for the government to tax its citizens.
It was too much to handle this all at once. I dealt with it for a while, but then the enormity of it crashed in upon me, and I crashed as well. I couldn't sleep for worry, so I started drinking some wine I had around the house. The wine didn't work, so I went out and bought vodka. Then I would still wake up during the night, and every time I woke up, I'd drink more vodka to get back to sleep. Then in the morning, I couldn't face the day, so I drank to stay asleep.
I never thought I would ever do any of this. I was never a drinking person. Up until this point, I had maybe 5 drinks per year, and all of them while I was out at restaurants with my husband or family. I was self-medicating. Me, a person who was extremely anti-drug. Me, a person who looked down upon people who couldn't handle their own problems.
This went on for about a month and a half. I'd run out of vodka and go to Costco or Total Wine, feeling ashamed every time I went. I hated myself, I was afraid of facing life. I stopped returning phone calls from my family, to the point where they had to call a neighbor to come and check to make sure I was all right. That was the point where I realized that I had to tell someone what was going on. I told my daughter, then I told my oldest sister. My mom is in her 90's and she's a worrier like me, so I didn't tell her. I stopped drinking immediately, my daughter came and stayed with me for the weekend, and my sister came and stayed with me for a week.
During that time, I was almost paralyzed. I couldn't function for fear. I had a deadline to clear out the warehouse spot, and there was a lot of stuff in there. I was afraid the IRS would raid my home and take everything away.
A few years before he passed, I had convinced my husband to hire a tax company to handle the tax problem, but he didn't keep records for his business and I had no idea where to start. He had hired the attorneys, but he only gave them a few records from the years before he was an independent contractor. I was afraid to call the tax company, because I didn't even know where to start. It was too much to deal with all at once, and I was in panic mode.
Luckily, with the help of my sister, I found an emergency mental health clinic run by the county. Thank God! I went there with trepidation, but also with hope. It was the only place to go to immediately get a prescription, and I couldn't rest day or night. If I went the normal route, it would take me over a month to get into an appointment with a psychologist, and I needed help now! I was not suicidal by any means, but I was in such a state of panic that I couldn't deal with even the easiest day-to-day tasks in my life.
The psychologist was a very young and kind man, who assured me that medicine would help me. He gave me a long-term anti-anxiety/antidepressant drug, along with a short-term one that would tide me over in the meanwhile. He gave me a blood test, that on my next appointment showed that I had done damage to my liver (not permanent) in the short time that I had been drinking. I went to weekly counseling appointments for a time, but I didn't have a lot of faith that they would help. I stopped going to them after a little while. I'm still thinking about whether I made the right choice on that; I may return to them.
To shorten the story a bit, with the help of my sister and the meds, I cleared out the warehouse space and got the ball rolling with my taxes. I continued with my monthly psychologist appointments, but that episode of panic and self-loathing itself had left its mark upon me, and I knew that I had to do something to change who I was. The "me" that I was before my husband passed away had to go. The mood stabilizers weren't enough. I still disliked myself. I was and am, still depressed and anxious. I needed to become a person that was proactive, not reactive. I needed to be happy with who I was, and I needed goals and a way to meet them. To do that, I needed to change.
Change is not an easy thing, especially at my age. But I was amazed at the amount of help you can find online, especially in TED talks. This is my testimony and my journey. I am at the beginning, but I have hope that I have found the right path.
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