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I am going to be married 10 years come November + my husband + I have tried a pitiful amount of counseling with a one on one and then just this past Feb we did a weekend retreat called retovallioule- something like that through the roman Catholic church. I put it to him in terms of that if you don't come on this retreat with me them I am going to divorce you. Well he stood proud and said we would go and I better be ready to be able to handle his truly being opened!! Well, we went I, with no hopes or ideals of truly saving us and I doubt he did either but he turned around and started this letter writing which this type of communicating is all about and he wrote on and on about how great I was as a mother and wife and how we needed to go back to "dating "each other again etc.... a totally changed man and not what he nor I expected. We then had a 6 week follow up which forced you to continue to communicate in the written word and then discuss it- it totally took away the "ANGER" on both our sides- but as soon as it ended so did his writing and his sweetness,he is not a physical man, he is an avoider so I am the pusher! which makes us go round and round we have 2 girls ages 7&6 and he is a very good father and provider - I had to teach him not to hit and spank and after one good talk he never hit them again- I assume he came from a very hard up bringing- show only the "Fathers-knows best to everyone" and never was given warmth ,openly,nor love and affection. Everything must look perfect know one knows our business! when we went to the marriage counselor he slipped and the counselor said "Is that how you always speak to your wife?" well when we left he cursed him and said he would never go back to him again. we did go back about 1 year later and he said in the parking lot on our 3r visit- "As far as I am concerned there is nothing wrong with us and that is how he's going to see it from me" - so that ended yet again. So, we did this class 6 months ago or so and well- he acts like everything is just fine- But I am miserable! I feel so alone- There is just too much to go on about -but if I go to counseling for me myself- would it help me to feel better and accept his rigidness and everything I thought I loved about him Which is what i can't stand now- so cold I learn to regain myself back again?I feel I have lost me along the way- and I have not been an angel either- BUt- I can't help it if I got ill and had to stop working- 9 years ago I was smart and I took care of myself as a single working woman and besides having disability I also have a private insurance policy which pays me also. So, it is as if I am still making my full salary- but he acts like I don't contribute. Our house is paid in full and we have money in the bank in 401k s 529's savings accounts and no credit card debt and yet due to my illness he won't let me add onto our house to make my life easier and his- though I saved at least 100,000 so I could add on. I think our problems are all because I am not "perfect" and I am Broken because before we got married he asked me "What about your illness?" I should have run then!!! We spoke long and hard about it and well I never thought that it would turn into such a debilitating mess where I can't walk somedays and shop too and then sometimes I am good for a few weeks. The crux of it all is I still have know real diagnose of what is wrong though they say I am not dyeing from it. Mentally unsure of if I am the abuser or if it is he Please help
Already Tried: 2xs marriage counsler and a weekend with a 6 week followup through our church
I want to first start by talking about the retreat you went on. He seemed to have changed. He was writing his true emotions. Once you both left things went back to the same. Let me explain why. He was comfortable at the retreat. He didnt have the pressures that he has at home. People often change when they go on vacation because they are able to leave their life behind its like having no worries. When he comes home, he is back to dealing with the same problems. At yhe retreat he took a break from his resl life. He was able to fully focus on you without any distractions. You feel his life growing up was not a place where a lot of affection. This is something he would struggle with. If you werent raised with your oarents hugging you, then it would be hard for him to understand a family that does. It is almost like he needs to be taught how to be an affectionate person, how to be the man you want him too be, but it has to be done in steps. He can not learn everything at once. All he knows is how he was raised. You can work to help him change. I want you to start by talking about the day you first met. You both need to remember the reason why you got together. One thing that helps is recreating your very first date together.this helps by him remembering back to when everything was new. As time passes people get comfortable in relationships. It is important to keep that spark. You both need to focus on each other and talk about each others wants and needs.
Experience: I have been an Advice columnist for 14 years. My column is published weekly in local newpapers.
I do see your reason about the leaving it all behind- But if I try and bring up a subject about us- well he feels I AM NAGGING HIM YET AGAIN but he just won't let me close and I don't feel like becoming intimate- and I KNOW THAT IS WHAT HE WAITS FOR ME TO START which annoys me too. I tell him on weekends wake me at 7 or 730 since he wakes at 530 no matter what and we could have time while the girls are sleeping-but he doesn't I have neurological problems which can cause me to not sleep a full night but I still have made an effort- I just want to know should I go for my own help to just vent and explore my feelings a part of me wants to end this whole thing still I feel like we are just living around the kids. I can hardly even get myself excited to even think about getting intimate- and I know things would be better if I could trust again- so should I counsel just so I can get to that point? Or find out if I really do want to end this.
I'm going to give a man's (and a marriage therapist's) point of view.
I suspect that he's a can-do sort of person, that he has his pride in being an all-around good provider who can take care of all of the family business. My evidence for that is that he won't let you contribute to improving your house with the money that you have saved thru judicious handling of your disabling illness. sounds like the illness might be something like MS, but less threatening.
But your illness is something he can't fix and can't even make better, so in a way your body has defeated the all-around-good provider-man that he needs to be in order to feel good about himself. You can't help that, and he can't help that. But he can't stand to feel helpless, and you've learned how to live with your own undeserved limitations on what you can do. My wife and daughter are both more or less disabled and in chronic pain, so our 3some family has a lot of strain from being unable to control important aspects of our lives.
Your husband lavished all those compliments on your for the roles that he wants you to play, because he can honestly feel grateful for your conscientiousness in those parts of your lives together. But he doesn't seem to desire the whole woman in your, perhaps because he's uncomfortable with your illness, tho that might be an unconscious feeling that he'd have a very hard time expressing--very many different feelings and physical, mental and emotional experiences are tied up with that issue in 10 years, so it would take quite a bit of untangling to give him a chance to free himself from that limitation on his own openness to you and to his own feelings on the issue of your illness and its impact on the relationship. He may be bending over backwards in his conscious words and actions about your illness (or at least he might think he's bending over backwards), but unconsciously he'd be likely to be carrying some of the opposite sides of those "good caretaker" attitudes, such as envy that you don't work as hard as he does, frustration that you can't be the wild-and-free queen (or something else equally ideal) he imagined you'd be when he met you.
You said that he seemed to ignore the subject of your illness when you were dating before marriage, did I get that right? If that's true, then he Didn't Want to Know About It, since we always idealize our partners during our courtship. That is usually a GOOD thing, because you have those romantic memories to rely on to renew your good feelings. But when it's a human dimension as important as a chronic illness, it must be addressed. Otherwise you could both have many feelings and attitudes that you don't and even Can't express to each other. [I've seen this in my wife and my daughter: Just HOW limited is my wife when it comes to leading the life that we thought we were going to keep leading until we were so old that we'd be ready to accept our aging decline?]
So IF there's some valuable truth in what I've written so far, I'd suggest this: You go to a therapist yourself first, but one who has experience and expertise with people, and perhaps even in her own close family. You can honestly explore with her how your illness affects you and your relationship with your husband.
Then, if I'm correctly assuming that your husband will ONLY open up to a therapist enough to get his own version of a "clean bill of health," then ask the therapist to help you talk with him about how your health issues are affecting your relationship. You've written some pretty important aspects here that you'd benefit from having a facilitating helper for discussing. So he or she'd invite him in to provide his input NOT on his problems with your illness or other marriage issues, because he NEEDS his version of "clean bill of health" to prove to the internalized parents within him that he's DONE GREAT as their son. No, he's just coming in to help out with your treatment! That's one of the nifty tricks we therapists use to get grumpy reluctant and resistant husbands to come in and "set us straight" about what's really going on, so that maybe their wives will get better and thus make the marriage better (like initiate sex more often).
Why won't he do that? You don't need to answer that to ME, but you can help yourself by airing it with a therapist you can really trust. Don't hesitate to interview several therapists over the phone until you find one that is both well related emotionally to chronic illness and to emotional aspects of marriage. There are chronically ill therapists, too, that are often very wise and compassionate about both sides of such a marital partnership. These are emotional issues, and there's no situation where emotions are more central to a relationship than in a marriage that is not just a work work work partnership.
The therapist's goal then would be to convince your husband that he'll need to give him or her more of the valuable insight he's gained in 10 years to help him or her in treating you and your problems. [He still can believe that he has NO problems himself.] But once they are alone together, the therapist can show him how important AND JUSTIFIED HIS own feelings and attitudes about these issues are. [Most "normal" men assume that they can't have or respect ANY feeling unless it is JUSTIFIED by the FACTS. And that's a horrible limitation to put on a feeling person, in fact it's a handicap as toxic for a marriage as a chronic illness. It IS a type of chronic illness. Then the therapist can begin to teach your husband how necessary and important his previously unacknowledged feelings are to HIM.
Even if one of the core handicaps of your marriage ISN'T strictly an inadequately developed relationship to the illness that must be included in your intimacy, it could serve as a good doorway for a therapist to get into your husband behind his armored heroic-provider personality. But a "cognitive behavioral" therapist is not right for this task, because "CBT" doesn't accept emotions as primary building blocks of a marriage. So I recommend a therapist trained in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, because they (we, that includes me) know how to encourage ANY language either partner uses as an expression of their feelings, even if they sound NOTHING like any feelings. So they are validating the client(s) no matter what they say, and just gradually bringing them around to more openly emotional reformulations of what they're saying--that many men will insist are only FACTS, or "everybody thinks that way" clichees.
So I'm suggesting that you actually DO pursue couples therapy, but that you start with "your problem" of how your illness affects you and your relationship with your husband, and then bring him in for one session (or more if he really opens up easily). Then the therapist asks to see HIM alone and works with him until he realizes HOW RELIEVED he's feeling after expressing to him/her what he could never express to you--for fear of HURTING you, or worse yet, destroying the marriage he's tried so hard to keep as close to perfect as possible. After that, you might both be ready for real emotional renewal of your partnership, and your illness would (probably) not need to be a central focus anymore.
Ask on. And don't think you have to choose whom to give your deposit to right away. You can ask Debra as well as me anything you think either of us could have a good answer to.
Just to correct you he did bring up the fact of my illness prior to asking me to get married- I said to him I am on meds and I am working and have a fine life who knows what tomorrow brings- look at you your on high-blood pressure med- who is to say you do't have something happen and i'm whip-ping your droll for 20 years! But it almost made me end the relationship-
Absolutely. Let's talk again tomorrow. Just ask for me. I can't predict right now when I'll be able to get online. With two women that often need from me, and a book I've struggled to get time to rustle up for sending off to a big publisher (the emotional dynamics of love, as far as I can see, it's my masterpiece of at least the first 70 years of my life), I have a hard time balancing my efforts.
Since he doesn't want his company to know, you could use some of your money to build the mansion of your marriage instead of your worldly house. EFCT (you can look up local therapists with that training on their website) is medium term couples therapy, with the opening gambit I'm envisioning, perhaps 12 to 15 sessions total, at intervals of 1 to 2 weeks, but weekly in the beginning to build up the therapeutic energy for transforming your experiences and expressions of emotions so that they build a secure attachment state instead of a numbness-unto death. I would advise giving that much energy to rectifying your marriage, for the children's sake, and also for his and your sake.
His prior experience with a fiancee with mental illness adds more internal bases for his own attitude toward your illness and your marriage. How long after that ending did he begin courting you? He might have actually been reenacting what happened with her when he courted you, trying to get it right and WIN thru to the happily-ever-after this time. So an individual therapy for him would need to include disentangling his attitudes back then, including his wounded pride and love vis-a-vis her, in order to free him up to embrace you without unseen residues of something you had nothing to do with. Again it would take a well experienced therapist to be able to lure him in far enough, probably in individual sessions "on the side" to get that story reopened so he could revise its perhaps unforeseen effects on the story of your own relationship in the beginning--which probably continues to affect his version of your own marriage still today.
Good night. It's midnight here, and I haven't eaten my dinner.
Well thank you for trusting me! It'll take me quite a bit of time to absorb and organize all you've said, and I'm grateful to be a listener that you can vent to. Until yesterday I was about to move to E. Tennessee with my wife and daughter, but now it looks more like N of Atlanta is a better choice. And I got to realize while writing to you that my last 15 years of difficult living with major illnesses in my loved ones has nurtured something in me that can relate to others with similar challenges. I intend to continue this love of mine thru digital and telephonic channels, but will not advertise thru this self-contained website. My wife and her relatives are NJ natives, from Morristown and now parked by Rutgers. She's mostly left therapy for jewelry online at Dolphin Designs Artwear.
I've copublished a medical research review article on a generic drug that increases endorphin production and thereby arrests autoimmune diseases, but I have no reason to expect that your condition is affected by immunological factors. If your doctors say it might be, then a trial of los dose naltrexone might be helpful--for Diagnostic purposes at least. My article on the subject is available on the www: Low dose naltrexone for disease prevention & quality of life. The discoverer of LDN's value, Dr. Zagon at Penn State, focuses on a slightly different endorphin pathway than my article, but with much more research evidence, esp for cancers rather than autoimmune diseases [Science report online and at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110902133047.htm]
Have you ever engaged in significant self-exploratory therapy for your issues with disease and career? or cultivated dream-wisdom for finding your own path of heart (Jungian depth approach)? I ask this, because your evident respect and love for your husband (even tho currently buried in so many marital struggles) suggests that finding your own psychopspiritual "career" path might take the onus off of your marital pursuer-distancer dance to furnish the fulfillment that eludes you--and perhaps eludes him as well. Jung's vision of Individuation is meant as a midlife game-change for fulfilling our lives in relation to higher sources of direction.
So perhaps your own therapeutic life trajectory could reward you as much as an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy approach might set your husband toward expanding his personality on the way to revitalizing the emotional cycles that frustrate your feelings for each other. There are definitely both EFCT and Jungian oriented practioners in the NY NJ area.
Is there more that you can benefit from hearing from me?
Experience: Family Therapist & teacher 35+ yrs; PhD research in couples
Dr Brown,
I'm really thrilled to feel this connection with you. I do get some others feeling as good with me as you do, and it's those that open up as much as I naturally do myself. I could work with you online and onphone, but it's not fair to you to settle for an absent therapist instead of a real person. My wife's sister & husband live in New Brunswick, and they're "athiests" totally hostile to therapy. Our daughter takes muscle relaxants, sometimes Fenergan (nausea), and consistently morphine. I'm not sure what MUA is, but my wife needs a spinal nerve ablation to possibly get relief from the sciatic attacks she's had since birthing our daughter 24 years ago.
I looked up Jungian analysts & therapists within 25 miles of Old Bridge and found 2 in Princeton and 1 in Lawrenceville, all female. Ilona Melker in Princeton has a nice brief blurb about what Jungian analysis is as a way of personal growth, and I found them all in the jungian therapist directory for NJ/NY. All the rest are across the river. I found them in www.nyaap.org/analyst-directory .
Jungian dream-inspired and art-inspired therapy is actually the opposite of cognitive therapy (tho good therapists like my wife and me normally master several of the less psychologically demanding types of therapy like cognitive/behavioral. It was Adler that decided dreams were a distraction from daily issues, (which must have frustrated Freud), while for Jung they are not only the "royal road to the unconscious" (Freud) but also to the sactuary where your own hidden sources of meaning are growing and a higher personality that encompasses your conscious ego and the basic experiences common to the whole human race, and from these sources come the "pointers" toward your path of individual self-actualization. Freud thought dreams revealed our childhood personality structure, but Jung found that their more valuable messages help us unfold the flower of our undiscovered selves and develop toward a future actualization that is uniquely our own. What religion does with suffering Jungian Individuation therapy does also: develop the meaningful life that gathers our pain & emotional issues into a greater wholeness--except that religions stick to their own narrower sets of symbols and meaningful stories, while Jungian symbols arise in our own dreams. Jungian self-development is very friendly to religions, unlike Freud's dismissal of it. In further comparison, Existentialism & its philosophical therapy assumes that there is no intrinsic meaning in our materialistically determined world, so we each have to invent our own and then live as if it were true. But Jungian therapy finds the unique and culturally/religiously normal symbols & characters arising from within & beyond us thru our dreams and spontaneous art. So we aren't presumed to be inventing our own meaningful life-stories (as in atheism & existentialism) but to be discovering what has been waiting for us to look inward carefully enough to find, cultivate and learn from.
I hope I have clarified rather than confused what I mean about the inspirational guidance function of dreams. Most therapists can be found online with some description of what they do, and that's how I scoped out the 3 near you. But only Ilona Melker had significant info available. Most of the therapists that advertise thru Psychology Today are younger and not too interested in saying anything that might not appeal to everybody. I have not attended to that public presentation at all, because I've had my hands full with fulltime psychology professorship from 1987 till recently.
PS Venting is stage one of unwrapping the tired & life-bruised outer self, before your dreams and other spontaneous artistic creativity begin to reveal the deeper & wiser person typically waiting for the second half of life to develop. This JA site is not designed even for extended venting, which is necessary for real growth to begin. Here we offer answers that may satisfy an urgent need and hold you together for a while, and give you some sense that you can manage your intimacy a little better with a little expert advice. Yet the longer answers aren't answers at all, but questions, dreams, and other meaningful insights that renew our lives as a succession of transformations around an increasingly coherent and interesting center--what your father was calling for when he said "baby you are never going to find someone till you find yourself!!"
DR Brown,
Dr Norman Brown I contactacted you oh about July anout my being diabiled andyou suggested a Jung thearepist I have benn seeing Illanona Princton NJ for about1 month half now and have done double sessions. I decided to wokr on my own life first and figue out my frustrations etc.. she has been very enlighting. She is encrouging my artistic side to florish and to get me hapy and has made me look at my family back round + all relashionships I had with all the men in my life- ITHNK YOU
Already Tried: At 1st I was a bit put off by her look of her office it was set up for Jung theareapy Fantcy roal playing etc- but we at still just gettg through my history and 40 some odd years of life stories. but she helped me to see i am a good mother and she has helped me to see my husbands design or dna and the way he was brought up and to stop expexting him to change- though i wish for you and you councel even though it would be long ditance thank you XXXXX@XXXXXX.XXX thank you again
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Dr Norman
i have tried the website on the naltrexone-and it doesn't find you- but I have also by the luck of
g-d to find a New nurologist a Dr. Miam in Ciffiton NJ when his staff heard about my "spells" well it was a fri and I had an appt on wensday!
it has taken a while but he finally got me hooked up with a 4 day take home EEG real time with camera everything.
He got married so I still don't have the results- But he is the first Dr to actually take my "spells" seriously in 20 years
they are starting to get me scared- you see I have this vestibular problem- which makes me have "eye brain mismaktch" Dr. rosenthal from JFK hospital optonuogist said years ago- when I told him about how at that time they were happening only when airplans came in for decent- I would get numb and not beable to speak and my left side would be more affected than my right and I would have to be wheelchaired out to luggugehe said wow could you show me? but that was all I got-
now well it happens when being driven in the car- or at fireworks loudparties etc... well this Dr. Mian said that if he did not get the info that he wanted he would put me into NYU and leave me there till it does.
But let me tell you what has me so anxious- on this past Thursday I had a 2 hr appt to Ilona and she is a good 45 min if I do not hit traffic- and evev though I had taken both my "anti" seizure druge toperimate 50mg and 1mg of clonazapan I felt nausea happening within a few miles of drivng- it was a rainy day and the wipers were getting me sick- I pulled over and thought that fruit and yourgt wasn't enough in my stomach so I go a fresh pieace of coffe cake and a small coffee and also slipped a 8 mg sublingual Zofran under my tounge. I made it to the apptiment and didn't speak about it but the whole time driving there i was cursing that she is so far away. It wasn't the first time I had been feeling queezy when driving to her. But this was the worst.
It seemed to suside and we talked and then i got in the car to go back- it started again. So, I had to get some water bottlers and widemouth thermos for the girls lunchs and I saw a Target on the road on the way so I pulled over. Shopped for about 40 mins- which because of the high celiings and muszaak playing it just excaerbates my situation- So I grabed a kasi bar and water thinking that i again need more in my stomach- and drove home with 20 mins to spare to pick up the kids from school.
But this is what scared me- I was trying to help the girls with their homework and I felt suddlenly so sleeply I wound up on top of the kitchen table completly passed out cold asleep- the kids could not wake me- my 7 year old smater than her years just thought that since I went to the Dr that day I was tired and brought her sister to there desk in the basment and tried to help her with her work- I was lucky my mom stopped in around 4;30 or so and yelled at me and I stumbled up to bed (I took another 1/2 of colnazapan which kicked in while I slept. I slept till 8 PM my body ached all over and I went back to bed around 12or so and my body still acheds a bit.
But this wasn't the first time this was happening tome 2 years ago it was happening almost 3 times a month or more and my reg Dr wrote it off as Fibro and thyriod etc....But, now that I think about it I can chuck all these past ones to noise levels etc...
I called the New Dr but he was on his honeymon.
Should I have my daughter call her Aunt, Mom mom etc, just in case this happens again? MY friend and neighbor a few blocks away whose daughters are in classes together offered to be on the "call" list. How do I teach my girl to call with out getting panicked- they weren't scared because mommy is always (sad as it is) sleeping in bed. But in the past I had a few times just like this- and my husband left me just like I Love LUcey on the kitchen table passed out cold for 1 1/2 hours- duh not too bright huh?
I went on the clevland cliencs web site and there is a study (for DRs I guess cause I couldn't get any info) about Semi circular canal Bone dihiencense + Dr.Lloyd Minor(1998)he's from johns hopkins and discovered it- and Clevland clinic has added vestibular CBD and epilasy!!!! MY dr is goning to call me as sooon as he is in on Monday so his staff says because I called them.
but i just think I am a great case study for NASA!! LOL for Motion sicknss!!! they still havn't found a cure!! not that it matters now that we Idon't have any manded space program. (Sorry I digress)
My questiion is should I just calmy teach my daughter how to dial her aunt etc- their phone numbers are on the frig if Mommy falls asleep like that again?
I don't want them caling 911 that would be crazy and horrifying for them.
ANd as for my husband & I we are leaving for a trip to Maimi OCt 3-10 he won it with his company only 4 days but we extended it because it is our 10th weding annv- I am really trying- Ilonna- has made me see why I choose him an it has greatly helped me.
Again Digress
Should I just teach them when i come back in a very laid back? otherwise I can see her crying herself to slepp worrying.
Mom's instint right?
I still want to use you if i keep getting sick- driving to her - I am in the phone book in Old Bridge.
Busy with your book and moving think about it.
Thank you Again,
Maureen Sternad
you see you know how how to hit the nail on the head- and that is what I need!
I have reread your advise over the months and that is what really has helped me through-
Ilona well, i blah blah blah and on my 2nd time with her she said obviously he only does things when it suits him- on his tearms- why are you staying with him? you seemed to have taken many steps to communicate with him-
I replied- I do feel I did love him and must still somewhere and I have the 2 girls and he is a great father and provider for them-
She replied well, then we will have to look further into the male relationships you had in you life-
SHE THEN AFTER 2 MORE SESSIONS CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE REASON I CHOSE HIM WAS BECAUSE HE WANS'T A SLIM LIKE MOST OF THE MEN I HAD IN MY LIFE- And that I had this dicodamey of types of men that affected me and influenced me in my early life- my father the gruff burly self-made man that didn't believe in further education- then my grandfather (moms side ) tall quite Irish dependable steady, highly intelligent went to college as long as he could but his parents died and he had to take care of his sisters- But had straight a's- married my Irish grandmother both from scranton Pa who graduated college at about 1923 they met she at 14 him 17 he was allowed to court her when she was 16- they married in 1925 and had a pretty idllic life. of course mom's side of the family were at a clan of about 130 or so- 26 GRAND CHILDREN from the original 5 kids. We have family reunions every other year- we are up to over 80 something great grand children- totally opposite worlds- and she said these powerful worlds and strong women have clashed within me- ?
So that is how I figured out why i married him- But I said that long before i ever went to see her- It still isn't helping me to talk and get him to communicate on a deeper level- he has no desire to-
He is that 1950's sears cloths, keds wearing guy that won't look past what he was brain washed into his thinking- I assumed that he went to college- he is more able to be open minded- and thinker- not as creatively as me but- HOW? she tells me- well you were a sales woman an you are smart you can figure out the ways to pursued him into your way of looking at things- i.e.. life insurance- he doesn't believe in it- and I do - so strongly object- because if he died tomorrow- I would only have 1+1/2 times his pay- from his company-170,000 dollars and aprox 44-50,000 annual a year to live on- he sees nothing wrong with that- I said- we have a 6&7 year old what if's happen- how would I get them through high school let alone college- He rolls his eyes-
I tell him look I still have the quarter mil policy and at least it would bring you through the hard young years so you could hire someone to care for them etc.. He does what he always does and says ok ,ok, we'll talk about it just not now- I have been trying since they were born- i even played up to his really sensible side and how it is the on totally tax free money! and you go high for the early years and when they get old you lower it- no go- How did my prowess as a sale person help in that? i wasn't yelling- aggressive- but he wasn't willing to go there.
Do I go back to Ilona and tell her it bombed? I just perhaps don't need years of searching and need to fix how I WAS JUST 7 YEARS AGO- THAT IS WHEN I GOT MUCH SICKER AND STARTED TO BECOME ALL SELF-CENTERED. I BECAME WEAK- AND LESS PRODUCTIVE IN MY LIFE FRUSTRATED so , I then reverted back to the - unfurled teenager-20 some-odd year old that lived home and had no self esteem again like she had growing up- I came a long way in the years of my professional life- and I just took a huge hop back-
do I have to do years of the Blah blahs to fix the here and now- I need to not be a - itch to my husband and a good mother to my kids and somehow deal with the regressions that hit me on sometimes a weekly basis. Is talking all about my past going to help my here and now NOW?
I feel that just the insight I got from you life about the Dr- not addressing me- my families needs- (oh he never called) just another false hope- he is just probably scratching is head- and enjoying the fact that he was able to use his "brand new machine which he just purchased" on me as a ginee Pig-( oh he also gets to bill me for aboout 5 grand easy) cause the 1st time i wore it for 4 days and they set it up wrong and got 17 mins- It set me back months in my house work and order of things etc. cause i went back within 2 days and had it done again! BUT the equipment rep came- and did it- But I still have no results- and he never even got on the phone with me to discuss my meds for the up coming trip and airplane ride traveling etc... and I called as sweet as could be 3 times giving him plenty of chances-
How do I become my own advocate without being seen as a crazy lady or a _itch? I want to just ream him out!! I let him know since my 1st appointment in the beginning of Aug that I was going to have to get on a plan in OCT! and be in LOUD noises - travel in tour bues- etc... he just tossed it off to his staff- take what you always taken- the Xanax- (which he explicitly told me he did not want me to take with the clonazapan- at an earlier appt) and that he prefers the Brand Klonopin better-
I leave at 4am and have to be drugged up for a week just to try and enjoy a trip with "HUBBY" how am I supposed to Relax and let loose with him? When i feel so Pissed?
my sister and mom said of just relax have fun- this is a cooperate 500" Party" everything is seduauled!
Well again these are my imediate worries- but i have to awake in 3 hours- no need to get backto me till the 12th oct- i won't be taking the lap top.
Thank you for your keen in sight your wisdom and just a few sentenses really helped a load.
So much more but no time isn't thath what itis all about i this crazy world?
I will write as soon as I arrive home
Thank you again
maureen Sternad
HI Dr Brown
I arrived home- to day it was like a 2nd honneymoon truly- I reached out and tried it wasn't exciting for me but it crumbled his walls- and well instead of him being on one side of he bed and me on the other by the middle of the trip he actually tried to spoon! which he hsn't done since our honnymooon! he reached out in bed to hold my hand and rubbed my bcak and i just mubbled boy I really get lonely all the way on my side of the bed thanks- and it worked.
I tryed not to bring up any major issues which are hanging over us like a giant albtross- HE relaxed and we had a good time- he bought me a beatuiful pice of 8 necklace- mine (which I bought formyself was stolen from the movers when we moved her 8 years ago) which oh course was irreplaceable- but I picked out a nice s00 year old uder water find- it wasn't hand struck but was from the first year the spanish screw press started prcessing the mint- a georgr the III the shipwrek caused spain to have to sell Lousiana to Napopitian in 1800 and thomas jefferson bought it in 1803 for 3 cents an acre which doubled the size of the US the sinking of the gallion with these buillion which was to stablize and rid Lousiana of "paper" currancy was the ruaination of Spain- and some lucky fiher men in 1983 I think I don't have the certificate of athentiancy in frount of me- well they were fishing and there nets got stuck on the bottom of the ocean follor and came upp with 80 million dollars worth of siliver buillion!!! let's just say they fish for pleasure off the back of their yachts now lol.
I am going to see Illona and explain hoe sick I get and ee what i can do- I am also ging to see if this new nuro man is able to come up with some answers-
My trip was un eventfu with any "seizures" But his friend and my husbands company had events everynight and well my body ached all over from the noise- it wasn't just too much sun or beach ect.. the noise dose effect me somehow- and in key west his friend oh course brought us to Bars with singers quite good ones- (made mejelous kida of) but my husband was aware to wisk me out of there but it only takes afew mins- we were there at least 1 - 1//12 hrs they were outdoors so at least the sound wasn't captervating me totally. I plan on disscussing it with my new nuro.
So, yes on change of attitude does effet the other- and acceptance of why I choose him has really helped- cause i was questioning why did I ever marry this totally opposite man- which has no desire for continual inside growth inside and in arts,sciences, etc...no hobby and that hurdle has greatly helped me and Illona did help me with that . But she doesn't seem to truly uderstand my illness- and the daily struggles with it- she sees me as so compitant and intelligent- and it is true- I can hold it up for a while then I get waht perhaps you might know as pilllw face. Which happened today when we got home- I hit the pilllow- (also beause of the 1mg zanax added to .5 clonazapam along with the 50 mg of topirimate 50mg of ultram and 800mg of skelaxin so I passed out around 5 and awoke a 9 and it is 1:30 and even with my next bout of pills which were due along with a lunesta i am still awake- yet another problem-and yes I had it on vacation too.
So, do I go to the Phyc down the street that is in my plan- and then my insurence will cover it and I won't get sick- or I doubt Ilonna will work something out - and I guess i cna't skype you - though i would be willing to learn my mac can do it. I await your answer. do I just hop around and start using my insurence? till I find some one that i think works? and that is close enough so I am not sick/ I need help to be a better mom and wife with the anxity of illness - you understand better than most
thanks
when you get to me i await
moe