Ultra Marathon Man

Wow I can't believe how fast this summer is whizzing right by. Everyday is playing with my kids and hanging out. I love hanging out with my kids. Unfortunately everything else seems to get pushed to the side as I am enjoying being with them, this blog being one of them. Many times I have things in my head that I want to write and then by the time the kids are not around and I have a little privacy, I am too tired. But I have been meaning to write on this Ultra Marathon Man topic and so I am going to give it a go.

Who knew that this was going to end up a good thing. When my husband stumbled upon this information about a man who is a running FREAK, I was so worried. At first he couldn't get enough of researching what this man does. He claims that he eats while he runs, orders pizza , pays for it as the delivery car is slowly following him and rolls it up like a burrito and then eats his pizza log as he runs. So my husband has dropped the, "I starve myself to death" thing that he was doing before. You know the research that severe caloric reduction is supposed to make you live longer, and now he has jumped on board with Mr. Marathon Man. So he is not ordering pizza on the go, but he is eating powerbars now once a day and eating a huge breakfast and a huge dinner. His running has intensified as well. He has tripled the amount of running he is doing.

The good news is that all of this running and now having adequate nutrition to support the running has really given him like a natural stress relieve. At first I thought he was doing his normal anger suppression and I was waiting for the vol canoe to erupt, but then I kept watching. I know him so well. I can look at his face and tell you if he is suppressing anger or if something just really isn't getting to him. But the great thing is that I am watching him and I am watching all the "triggers" go off and I am seeing him just handling it. This running plus added food had given him the same effect as like taking and antidepressant. I had read about all these natural things you can do, I tried telling him. I tried putting more omegas in his diet and all of this crap, but it wasn't until he saw that marathon man that he felt inspired to push himself.

This has allowed some better communication as well. I mean you can't really talk to a person who looks like they are about ready to fly off the handle at whatever you are going to say. I have made some changes in myself as well. I have been reading a few really good books and one of them is by Dr. Wayne Dyer and one thing he talks about is "being the peace that you desire". He talks about how if you are living in fear and expecting stress, you are going to get stress, but if you never let someone take away your inner peace that it will also come back to you. I had this AMAZING dream about a panther like creature chasing me and in my dream, even though I was really terrified of the beast, I turned around and grabbed it by the jowls and roared in it's face and screamed, "I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU. DO YOU HEAR ME? I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU!" The whole time I was actually terrified but I wouldn't let it rule me with fear anymore. The really strange thing is that when I held onto the jowls of this beast it felt just like my dog Louis's mouth area. I later realized that the panther like beast was a combination of my husband (black hair) and my dog Louis. The dog and my husbands interactions were the things that were causing me a great amount of fear and stress. I told my husband about this dream and he totally got it.

I am not disillusional, I know that things will still be up and down. I do however have some hope for the future. It has been so nice to enjoy my husband without the cloud of illness. I have enjoyed actually being around him. We had a great day on Sunday taking our middle child out by herself to the store with us while the others stayed home with a sitter. I can't explain to you how lovely the simple things can be. Just being around him when he is acting like his true self. The person who I fell in love with and the person I am still in love with. I laid beside him cuddled in bed and just enjoyed being next to him and the smell of him. I so totally love my husband, but I so HATE his illness. I am hoping that this exercise/eating regiment will be maintained and that the effects will continue.

Options

I am reading a number of good books right now and I am trying to get my head straight basically. It totally doesn't feel straight, but I am trying. Friends have asked me if things have gotten any better. Welll, they have gotten less extreme and sometimes feel better. But things definately still need fixed. Another doctors appointment has been made, for this Thursday...we will see if he actually attends it. I can't really tell which way it is going to go. I am trying to be positive but realistic. I feel a little nuts to be quite honest today. I have been having strange dreams that seem to be trying to tell me something, but I can't put my finger on it. I had a dream last night about the #21 and then later in the night I heard a voice say, 521, I laid there have awake half asleep and then I heard it a couple more times and so I sat up, looked at the clock and it said, 5:23. Had I looked the first time, there is no doubt in my mind that it would have said 5:21. I have no idea what this means however and I can't put my finger on it. It has left me feeling a bit foggy all day today.

I had a great outing with a friend of mine with whom I have been honest about my current situation with. It was really nice to see her again. I always feel so exposed though after letting someone know the reality of the situation. It is nice to have support but others never totally get what you are going through and can be so full of judgments that it just leaves you feeling naked.

I have been evaluating all of my options though. I have looked into jobs and the possbility of leaving to make a new life and I have also looked into the fact that maybe I haven't done all that can be done in the current situation. I don't live in a fantasy that leaving is going to solve all of my problems. Leaving would relieve some problems and bring some of it's own. I have seen how this has worked for others. Children living in separate homes with parents and having to deal with parents new relationships can be just has hard as children dealing with a poor relationship with mom and dad. I am trying to weigh my options and make the most informed decision. I want to make sure that all possible things have been done to fix the current situation (anything that I can do) before just moving onto the next set of problems.

This is what I am currently dealing with. I am doing fairly well with it though. Nothing is extreme in the home...something are blah and somethings are kinda good. I am trying to be positive and to dolve deeper into spirituality to find the real me and determine my real purpose. One thing I KNOW is that SOMETHING has got to change. I have to stop being so lazy in my mind; stop trying to avoid the issues and face them head on and deal with them. That is what I am trying my best to do. My natural desire is to just ignore things...but I am doing my best to try to not do that and to expose everything to myself and to evaluate and act.

Life as Usual I guess

Things have been kind of calm the last few days. Well on the surface at least. My 14 year old niece made a pleasant unexpected drip here from China. I love her so much! My oldest daughter gets along with her so well and they act more like sisters than cousins. All of my kids love her actually and things just seem happier when she is here. It is my husbands brothers child and so she understands things in the house hold very well.

My husband did not go to his doctors appointment. I was disappointed but not too shocked considering that he told me he wanted the appointment on a Thursday or a Saturday, but the doctor we currently have only does Mondays, so I guess I have to call the insurance company and find a new doctor because that is just not enough options. He is trying his best to control his mood swings and yelling right now. Which to me says that there will be an explosion in the near future if I don't get this doc thing straightened out. His suppression only seems to last for so long. I called him on the fact that he said he would NEVER yell again and he swore that he had the self control to do it and he said that I wasn't strong enough to never drink a coke again. Whatever...that might be true as well but at least I can admit that. He lasted one day before yelling again. But I called him on it a couple of days ago and so now he is trying to hold it together.

Right now I am enjoying the good things in life. I am spending lazy summer days with the girls and the dogs. We had quite the adventure the other day. We had the little dog Homer running away in the shopping area and running into the high security EPA and my daughter and I chasing him right past the guards. They were having a fire drill at the time and so all employees were out there. They helped catch Homer and then they wanted to take pictures of my daughter and the Homer for their newsletter. What a trip! Then walking back to the park with our breakfast we had just bought, the kids started whining that they wanted to just stop under this big tree and eat and so I gave in. Then this big nasty crazy man started yelling at us that this was private property and that we had to leave, I mean like in a "I just escaped from the mental ward" kind of way. I guess we were by an apartment complex. So I apologized and started packing up the kids, but crazy man couldn't leave well enough alone and obviously he didn't realize that I had some pent up anger that I would love to realize as well and so I unleashed. My three year old who strangely enough always points with her middle finger started pointing at him and yelling, "Your a bad bad man, shut up bad man!" The crazy man started coming closer and I felt a wee bit scared but I did have the big dog with me too and so I felt safe enough. I told him that I was trying to leave but I had to pack up and that he needed to get a life and leave a pregnant lady with four kids alone! He didn't know what to say and so he just flipped me off which sent me into another verbal onslaught. The really funny thing is that I wasn't really angry, I was irritated but I found the whole thing funny and such a release. I know that sounds horrible but I did. The kids and I laughed our heads off walking back to the park talking about the crazy man. Then we stopped at the park and caught frogs and I got to talk to this pregnant lady who had a breech baby who is scheduled for a C-section and I talked her into trying some natural methods first. It was an intense but good morning.

Major Correction- ha ha

Well I have not yet figured out how to go back and edit my posts after I have posted them. But let me say that my husband is NOT going to "do" the doctor, but rather he is going to "go" to the doctors. HA HA Maybe doing the doctor might do him some good too.

Dr. Appointment is Made

I am so happy that husband has agreed to do to the doctor. He has acknowledged that he is going for his yearly, but we both know why he is really going. I have set it up to have the doctor call me so that I can discuss things with her confidentially before the appointment. Please everyone send prayers and good energy our way that things can get properly diagnosed! The appointment is on Monday!

Strange Dreams

I had strange dreams last night. I can't remember them completely but I remember the feel of the dreams. The dreams felt very spiritual. There was a male in the dream that I kept reaching out to, just to be held. I can't say the male wasn't my husband, but it wasn't definitely my husband either. It was more like a symbol of male energy and the desire to be held. My mother in law was in the dream too and I know that sounds strange. Again, I can't say the exact actions of the dream with her. It was more the feeling of her. She was so sweet in my dream. She laughed with me, she comforted me, she let me know that she knew what I was feeling. In real life, I had a complicated relationship with my mother in law. I did love her, but I had a lot of anger towards her and our cultural differences. I know she loved me too, but she was a closed kind of woman who you would never really be able to fully understand. She had a horrible marriage to my husbands father who cheated on her and abused her, yet she stayed. My husband always says how he always wished his mother would have left their father. Yet her dying wish to my husband was to, "take care of your dad". My husband will NOT take care of his dad as he has a very strong hate towards him and views his mothers death as his dads fault. My mother in law speaks to me often, as I am sensitive to spirits. I feel her understanding what I am going through. The dream last night had a sense of comfort, but also of action and urgency. I got my husband to agree last night to let me set up a doctors appointment for him. Although he did add at the end that he thinks it is more important that I should set up a dentist appointment first because he thinks his teeth is a bigger problem. HA HA I didn't agree with this and told him the dentist would come next, but it was a good try on his part. So today that is my goal, to set up the appointment and to get him to actually attend it.

Pretending Mode

I woke up this morning with yet another dull ache in my head and a strong ache in my heart. I knew I had to get up and make him breakfast, I knew it was now time to at least pretend that I wasn't mad any more. I knew that if I didn't it would just make things worse. I had the thought pattern that I would just pretend to feel like I did a week ago before the whole onslaught of fighting started. At that time I was feeling so totally in love with my husband and he responded by being extra loving back. That was until I did imperfect things that sent him into his rage. He doesn't even like himself when he is like this. He knows he is being a complete jackass but he can't seem to control it. So anyway this morning I just stated thinking that I just wanted to pretend. I wanted to pretend that I was back to feeling like everything was good and that he was a wonderful husband and all of that. Maybe if I pretended than I could get the benefits of him being nicer without having to put set myself up for being hurt when the illusion vanishes with another rage. If I am only pretending, then it would really hurt so bad when the reality of the situation comes into light. But if I actually let myself feel again....well that just hurts too bad. I was thinking all of this and then I read my horoscope:
Monday, Jun 16th, 2008 -- It's an exciting day for you, but it may be hard to keep up with your own changing moods now that the Moon is back in your sign. Although the history lesson is over, you are still more interested in looking back than ahead. Be ready to let go of what you have acquired in your life so far. Then, create a personal ritual to help you declare a conscious boundary between the tension of the past and the magic of the present moment.

Hmmm...that sounds like a really good message and I need to think about what to do with it.