Eyes Wide Open...Again

I have never kept it a big secret that I suffer from Depression and Anxiety. I think that honesty is the best policy and if others can learn something from my battles with the demons that haunt me than I am helping someone.

The past year I have been on one hell of a ride when it comes to my mental state and all the medicines that have been tried to get me back to "normal" or the "old me". I can't tell you how many different "cocktails" were tried and all failed miserably. My mental state was spinning out of control and I was being pressed further and further down a deep hole of depression. I was pitiful. I couldn't take care of myself so you can imagine how it was trying to take care of my family...they were taking care of me.

There were months that I went days without a bath and stayed in my PJ's for weeks at a time. I had no appetite and barely ate. I had my safe place on the couch and that is where I stayed glued to for MONTHS. If it weren't for watching Brody during the days and taking him to preschool I would have spent hours underneath the covers in my bed.

Some of you that are my true friends may have noticed that my handmade cards stopped coming, I quit blogging, my craft room is collecting cobwebs and my camera hasn't been used in ages. I didn't even get any good pictures this year during the holidays --- heck, I hardly decorated for the holidays this year.

After a year of basically not living and the medicines not working my family said "enough was enough". The mental health care system in the tiny town I live in isn't great so it was time to make some BIG changes and that meant me coming back home to North Carolina and seek professional help from a better health care system. At first I wasn't too keen on the idea about leaving Georgia for an extended period of time but I also knew life was passing me by and I was missing it. I was missing Brody & Victoria's milestones, I was missing making family memories, I was missing my relationship with my husband, I was missing my relationship with Church and most importantly I was missing ME.

Several changes have already been made medicine wise that has helped a ton and I am sure there will be bumps down the road....nothing is ever easy but it has to be better than the past year. I am just glad that I am enjoying life again. I enjoy seeing the smile on my sons face when I actually have the energy to spend hours playing with him like I should be. I enjoy knowing my husbands relief that this nightmare should be over. I enjoy seeing my parents relief knowing they have their little girl back.

If everything goes as planned I should be able to head back down to the Deep South in several weeks! Sometimes we must make sacrifices to better ourselves even if it takes us away from our loved ones. If anything, this will bring my family closer together once I am back. They have been begging for the "old Jamie" for a year now.

So, there it is folks, I am back and seeing things with renewed eyes (and with a renewed spirit). Thank God.