"Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better." King Whitney Jr.
Since I began this blog - 2010 - change has been the only constant in my life. The last change I made in this blog was in 2011 after I almost died from complications from hernia surgery. I had a very surreal experience in the hospital. Fever had been wracking my body for six days straight. I had an abscess in my belly. I was on IV antibiotics. I did nothing but sleep and toss and turn. On the sixth night I had a dream I was flying with the angels. They wanted me to follow them. I did not want to die. I knew I was dying, but I did not want to die. I made the conscious decision to live. I said...
"I want to live."
The dream ended. The fever was over the next day. I went home from the hospital the next day. I weighed 350 pounds. I knew because of my obesity I had almost died. It was so close.
I knew I had to make some changes in my life. I wanted to live.
My background:
Childhood: I was the oldest child of three - born in Corning, New York - but lived in many cities throughout the United States; El Paso, Texas - Baldwinsville, New York, Corning, New York, Syracuse, New York and Plaistow, New Hampshire.
Graduated from Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow, New Hampshire
Adulthood:
Married in 1975 - Moved to Palm Beach, Florida
Had two children, daughters - one in 1978 and the other in 1980.
Divorced in 1983.
Married again in 1983 - Lived in Lake Worth, Florida then moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan
Had one child, a son in 1984.
Divorced 7 years later
Married again one year later after having another child out of wedlock.
A son was born in 1992.
A daughter was born in 1994. Moved to Dayton, Ohio.
Divorced in 1994.
Married again in 1995. Still married.
Crazy isn't it? Break it all down like that and it looks clearly dysfunctional. It was. I was. I invite you to read about my journey and perhaps enhance your own by following me on my continual evolution - my metamorphosis. Believing I am not that different than many of you out there; I want to share my experiences to let you know you are not alone in your struggles - your own personal journey.
Issues:
Mental Illness: I struggled with depression, post traumatic stress disorder and night eating syndrome. I was on antidepressants for over 8 years. I am now free of most symptoms of these disorders and on no medications whatsoever. I am no longer a night eater.
Domestic Violence: I come from a family rife with generational domestic violence problems on both my mother and father's side of the family.
Alcoholism: I believe alcoholism has been a problem in my family as we domestic violence in a generational degree.
Divorce: As I've already mentioned - I have been married four times and divorced three times. My parents were also divorced when I was 18 years old.
Custody Issues: I believe I was involved in a case of parental alienation with my third child and his father during our divorce. There was a custody fight. There were also issues of parental alienation between my first husband and my first two children when I was forced to have the girls go back to live with their dad due to my issues with divorce and domestic violence.
Obesity: I was once 350 pounds. I had a life altering accident which caused me to be in a wheel chair for almost 2 years. I was non-weight bearing on my leg for that entire length of time and did nothing but sit in a chair and watch television and work on a network of websites.
the emotional feelings network of sites:
When I was diagnosed with depression and post traumatic stress disorder I didn't even know there was such a thing as mental illness. I knew people had problems with feeling depressed, but I did not know what it meant. I knew that people in my family had problems with mental illness; I didn't know what that meant.
It was the dawning days of the Internet. A friend gave me a primitive computer that had belonged to her daughter. I started learning how to use it. I began to research mental illness. After learning some unbelievable truths about what people believed about mental illness and comparing it to what doctors were discovering to be the truth about mental illness and the brain - I decided that I needed to make some websites for others who were discovering the same thing I was.
I didn't know about eating disorders either. I knew I had a problem. There were two eating disorders that were known about by the general population, but no one knew about night eating syndrome. I decided to research that as well. The more I learned the more I realized that there were thousands of people suffering with what I was experiencing and feeling just as helpless as I did.
It all began with anxiety understanding. This was the first site I designed. I spent every waking moment on this website. I researched and researched and posted my findings. This site contained information on the different types of mental illness.
I began to realize that it was more than mental illness that was keeping me from developing normally as a human being. Emotions and feelings that I had been stuffing for years were beginning to become apparent to me - I needed to understand them as well and how to process emotions and feelings correctly. I needed everyone to understand this so I began - emotional feelings.
Within the website - emotional feelings - were pages that contained emotions and feelings. A page for "happiness" - "sadness" - "fear" - "envy" - "ambivalence" and it grew and grew - try to think of how many emotions and feelings you can think of. I just added pages and pages until I ran out of room. By "room" I mean - free space - on the free websites I was using. emotional feelings grew into emotional feelings - emotional feelings too- emotional feelings 3 - emotional feelings 4 and emotional feelings 5.
The sites were all linked together through keywords. The keywords being the topic of each page...."happiness" "sadness" "depression" and so on - which would take you to the page if you clicked on the word. All these sites were tied together with anxiety understanding.
This went on and on. It just snowballed until there were 40 websites. the layer down under, the layer down under that, and night eating became alive when I discovered a layer beneath my problems with mental illness and an inability to process emotions and feelings - I discover belief systems, intuition, and other important factors of well being - so I continued with the sites - tying them all together through the link words.
Each site had an email. I began to get hundreds of emails. I was spending in excess of 10 to 12 hours a day working on these websites. I began to blog when blogs became popular. I was reaching out to as many people possible. I broke my leg in the midst of it all. I was sporting a non union fracture. It wouldn't heal. Two years in a wheel chair. It was horrendous.
I couldn't work. I lost all sense of self. Self was a page as well. I never realized the importance of sense of self. I began to gain weight even though I had overcome the night eating problem shortly before breaking my leg.
This page was one of my blogs. It all began when I was reaching out to people when google became such a huge entity. But something else was happening. I was not getting better. I was understanding it all, but I was so busy helping everyone else that was experiencing the same thing - I also had groups in Yahoo groups - that I lost myself. I lost my focus.
My life was falling apart. I blogged here for awhile, but left it one day when it all became too much to handle. I came back for a short time - but again - I had too much on my plate to spend time blogging.
This is what I want to share now... the progress... the process and the continual journey. I want you to share it with me as I continue to learn, continue to grow and become the person I so feel the potential for.
Kathleen
Childhood: I was the oldest child of three - born in Corning, New York - but lived in many cities throughout the United States; El Paso, Texas - Baldwinsville, New York, Corning, New York, Syracuse, New York and Plaistow, New Hampshire.
Graduated from Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow, New Hampshire
Adulthood:
Married in 1975 - Moved to Palm Beach, Florida
Had two children, daughters - one in 1978 and the other in 1980.
Divorced in 1983.
Married again in 1983 - Lived in Lake Worth, Florida then moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan
Had one child, a son in 1984.
Divorced 7 years later
Married again one year later after having another child out of wedlock.
A son was born in 1992.
A daughter was born in 1994. Moved to Dayton, Ohio.
Divorced in 1994.
Married again in 1995. Still married.
Crazy isn't it? Break it all down like that and it looks clearly dysfunctional. It was. I was. I invite you to read about my journey and perhaps enhance your own by following me on my continual evolution - my metamorphosis. Believing I am not that different than many of you out there; I want to share my experiences to let you know you are not alone in your struggles - your own personal journey.
Issues:
Mental Illness: I struggled with depression, post traumatic stress disorder and night eating syndrome. I was on antidepressants for over 8 years. I am now free of most symptoms of these disorders and on no medications whatsoever. I am no longer a night eater.
Domestic Violence: I come from a family rife with generational domestic violence problems on both my mother and father's side of the family.
Alcoholism: I believe alcoholism has been a problem in my family as we domestic violence in a generational degree.
Divorce: As I've already mentioned - I have been married four times and divorced three times. My parents were also divorced when I was 18 years old.
Custody Issues: I believe I was involved in a case of parental alienation with my third child and his father during our divorce. There was a custody fight. There were also issues of parental alienation between my first husband and my first two children when I was forced to have the girls go back to live with their dad due to my issues with divorce and domestic violence.
Obesity: I was once 350 pounds. I had a life altering accident which caused me to be in a wheel chair for almost 2 years. I was non-weight bearing on my leg for that entire length of time and did nothing but sit in a chair and watch television and work on a network of websites.
the emotional feelings network of sites:
When I was diagnosed with depression and post traumatic stress disorder I didn't even know there was such a thing as mental illness. I knew people had problems with feeling depressed, but I did not know what it meant. I knew that people in my family had problems with mental illness; I didn't know what that meant.
It was the dawning days of the Internet. A friend gave me a primitive computer that had belonged to her daughter. I started learning how to use it. I began to research mental illness. After learning some unbelievable truths about what people believed about mental illness and comparing it to what doctors were discovering to be the truth about mental illness and the brain - I decided that I needed to make some websites for others who were discovering the same thing I was.
I didn't know about eating disorders either. I knew I had a problem. There were two eating disorders that were known about by the general population, but no one knew about night eating syndrome. I decided to research that as well. The more I learned the more I realized that there were thousands of people suffering with what I was experiencing and feeling just as helpless as I did.
It all began with anxiety understanding. This was the first site I designed. I spent every waking moment on this website. I researched and researched and posted my findings. This site contained information on the different types of mental illness.
I began to realize that it was more than mental illness that was keeping me from developing normally as a human being. Emotions and feelings that I had been stuffing for years were beginning to become apparent to me - I needed to understand them as well and how to process emotions and feelings correctly. I needed everyone to understand this so I began - emotional feelings.
Within the website - emotional feelings - were pages that contained emotions and feelings. A page for "happiness" - "sadness" - "fear" - "envy" - "ambivalence" and it grew and grew - try to think of how many emotions and feelings you can think of. I just added pages and pages until I ran out of room. By "room" I mean - free space - on the free websites I was using. emotional feelings grew into emotional feelings - emotional feelings too- emotional feelings 3 - emotional feelings 4 and emotional feelings 5.
The sites were all linked together through keywords. The keywords being the topic of each page...."happiness" "sadness" "depression" and so on - which would take you to the page if you clicked on the word. All these sites were tied together with anxiety understanding.
This went on and on. It just snowballed until there were 40 websites. the layer down under, the layer down under that, and night eating became alive when I discovered a layer beneath my problems with mental illness and an inability to process emotions and feelings - I discover belief systems, intuition, and other important factors of well being - so I continued with the sites - tying them all together through the link words.
Each site had an email. I began to get hundreds of emails. I was spending in excess of 10 to 12 hours a day working on these websites. I began to blog when blogs became popular. I was reaching out to as many people possible. I broke my leg in the midst of it all. I was sporting a non union fracture. It wouldn't heal. Two years in a wheel chair. It was horrendous.
I couldn't work. I lost all sense of self. Self was a page as well. I never realized the importance of sense of self. I began to gain weight even though I had overcome the night eating problem shortly before breaking my leg.
This page was one of my blogs. It all began when I was reaching out to people when google became such a huge entity. But something else was happening. I was not getting better. I was understanding it all, but I was so busy helping everyone else that was experiencing the same thing - I also had groups in Yahoo groups - that I lost myself. I lost my focus.
My life was falling apart. I blogged here for awhile, but left it one day when it all became too much to handle. I came back for a short time - but again - I had too much on my plate to spend time blogging.
This is what I want to share now... the progress... the process and the continual journey. I want you to share it with me as I continue to learn, continue to grow and become the person I so feel the potential for.
Kathleen
