Stress Center Peer Support

Hi - My husband sent me to this site and I ordered the program and I'm just wondering if it will work.

My problems started when I was misdiagnosed with narcolepsy and given an FDA just-approved drug to deal with it. The drug worked at first, and by the end of the trail almost killed me. I would sleep ALL the time, I went into a deep depression and it took an excellent GP to help me start on the road back. I had started drinking to try to replace the drug so I could just sleep and then realized that I had to just quit the drug and drinking cold turkey. I was left with an impossibility to just fall asleep naturally and now I have shaky hands and a life so full of worries it's become insane. I've never been one to even take an aspirin or drink, so this was totally different behavior for me.

I'm the mom of 4, 2 whom are married and 2 still at home (17 and 15). My older 2 are from my first marriage. My oldest daughter is married with a darling daughter and I almost missed her birth because of that awful drug.

Now I'm going to try this program and pray my life can turn around. I work in a family business my dad started when I was 1 (I'll give away my age - I'm 47). He died when I was 27 of a massive heart attack.

The problems I'm having are
• Work stress from being responsible for running a $55M business with my brother. He does sales and I basically have to deal with everything else. We get along well, so that's a plus.
• My oldest daughter has relapsed into an eating disorder she had from high school and I'm doing all I can to support her.
• I feel there just aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done. I've worked 70-80 hours a week for a long time and finally have started to trim that down.
• I come from a family of six with 2 siblings who are constantly disappointed they weren't born as "only" children and wreak havoc on the family on a regular basis via e-mail, nasty comments, you name it. My parents taught me not to rock the boat, so I do my best to just stay out of it unless I see my mother being hurt. Then I'll step in.
• I tend to be a control freak. I've always excelled at my work because I know things have to be "right" and I'll kill myself getting that done. Obviously, not a great delegator here!

On the positive side, my senior is a high honors student with an excellent GPA and will be going to a top notch college. She's also an excellent athlete, as is my youngest, and we so enjoy that. My younest is the sweetest girl with an awesome outlook on life. They're both amazing.

I have a good marriage to a man who can be very tactless at times (funny tactless, but tactless nonetheless) but I know loves me and I love him.

I have an awesome grandaughter who is 2-1/2 and love her to death.

The only bad in all this is the depression and anxiety/worry I feel all the time. It colors everything. Is it just me? Will this program help me get past this?

I do see my GP regularly, as well as an awesome psychiatrist who handles all my medications and sees me on a regular basis.

It just all seems too much right now. Hope I haven't bored you with this novel. I'm just tired of being tired, you know?

Thanks for any help.

Hi cammom, this program is wonderful and I believe it can help you, but one thing that is stressed in the program is to not stop any treatment you are already taking, unless you are already working with a doctor to do so.
I have dealt a lot with stress and am still dealing with it. Some things suggested in the program that I find helpful are, start your day with gratitude, list as many things you can think of; taking control of your thoughts, choose to not dwell on worry, replace negative thought with positive ones (this is not referring to pretending bad things have never happened, but when you have for example self defeating thoughts such as, today is going to be horrible and replacing that with "how do I know today is going to be horrible when I haven't lived it yet? It will only be a good day if I let it.") Also exercising and eating right has helped so much.
I hope this has been helpful. I am sorry I have nothing to offer about medication, or being a parent, as I have never been there. Praying for you, Ashley

Good morning cammom and Welcome . I can completely relate to your post about not rocking the boat with siblings - that's my job, too. You sound like a really good person who has a wonderful life that happens to be immersed with anxiety right now. I can tell you from experience - - this program works . It has changed my life in so many ways.

Last year I started to deal with an extreme case of insomnia. Lack of sleep can really blow anxiety out of proportion. I went into counseling and it helped, but my counselor suggested I do this program, too. It truly has been a blessing.

I also went to my doctor about not sleeping, anxiety, etc. He told me that I was in perimenopause (I am 46 next week). He told me that perimenopause brings on anxiety and insomnia and this was normal and said the program I was using was great. He also suggested I drink 1/2 cup of pomengranite juice every morning and sprinkle flaxseed in my soup, on salads, etc. to stop the physical stuff. This works.

I hope this helps. Welcome to the program and if I can help, let me know. You can send me a Private Message. This site is very helpful and the people are awesome.

Lisa