New to this!

[bttrfly]

honey, don't do anything right this minute. read the post i made and answer those questions please. i'm asking for a very specific reason.

[Rejoice]

My sleep is pretty different every night. Fairly poor in the past week due to anxiety and late night conversations with H. Maybe 5 hours a night, which is better than it was the first week or so at least.
I do wake up fairly often through the night.

I'm not always able to eat but since the first couple of weeks I've been forcing down a small meal every day. Last night I had something that probably qualifies as a meal.

[bttrfly]

what about reading? how difficult is it for you to read and fully comprehend longer posts the first time through?

[Rejoice]

I'm doing fine with reading. Doing a lot of reading, actually.

[bttrfly]

Ok, Rejoice, here's the bottom line:

your brain and body are in a state of shock right now.

I asked those questions to get a baseline of where you're at.

I understand because I was there too, 8 years ago.

I couldn't sleep - I napped.

I couldn't read more than a paragraph or two at a time, and needed to re-read even short posts people made to me here several times.

I had panic attacks.

I constantly felt like I couldn't breathe.

I could not eat more than three spoonfuls of food, maybe once a day.

That wasn't enough.

I needed to stay healthy for myself and my son.

My parents had given me a NutriBullet

I made myself a smoothie every day.

*Vegetables

*Fruit

*Protein powder

*Spring water

*16 mushroom blend

I made one smoothie every day.

It took me all day to drink it.

I forced myself to drink the whole thing.

It helped.

Don't worry about eating if you can't.

Make sure you have a smoothie with the healthiest ingredients you can buy.

Start there.

You need to stay healthy for your children.

For yourself.

Start there.

[bttrfly]

Rejoice, here's a checklist:


1. Daily Smoothie

2. Breathing exercises. Breathe in deeply, then exhale to a count of 6. Next breath, exhale to a count of 8. Next breath exhale to a count of 10. Keep counting as high as you can.

3. When you're having a panic attack:

* breathe
* look around you. Name 5 things you can see.
*Name 5 things you can touch
*Name 5 things you can smell
*Name 5 things you can hear

4. Go for walks. You have to move that stress energy out of your body. Take the kids to the park, if one is nearby. Move your body.

[Rejoice]

Thank you bttrfly. I appreciate the practical advice.

[bttrfly]

got slow it down girl. back to basics.

[Dats000]

I have briefly talked about how my history has affected me but I'm mostly focusing on rebuilding my self esteem, etc.

I have been reading the six pillars of self esteem by Nathaniel Branden. It was recommended by my IC. It has been very interesting and helpful. It deals with psychological health, achievement, personal happiness, and positive relationships. There are exercises in the books like finishing sentences that I work on. Just reading the book would not be enough for me. doing the exercises gets it in embedded in my brain.

[Dats000]

I guess it terrifies me because it seems so final.
I love him with all my heart and even worse, I can't stand the thought of my kids going through this. My own parent's divorce left me scarred my entire life... I'm begging God every day to not let that happen to my kids. They are so secure right now and he is about to rip everything out from under them.

Coming from someone with extremely high anxiety, I’m telling you that detaching, following Sandy’s rules, exercising, reading self help books, stretching, meditation, meeting with my IC weekly, getting back into photography, etc. allows me to get out of bed in the morning, go to work and be the father that my kids need. None of this stuff came easy. Example: exercise, I had to make it a goal to just do 5 min so it wasn’t so overwhelming. Now I’m doing over 3 miles a day. You can do this!