Child-led learning means more than how we educate our children. I feel my own journey of growth and development has been led by my children who are now 24, 19 and 12. I look at those numbers and it baffles me that I have two adult children!
I envisioned a website years ago as I was first writing on parenting and homeschooling. The tile involved my son’s love of road signs,
“Mommy, Daddy, STOP: Parenting our children, our parents and ourselves”
I have reached the stage in my life where I have elderly parents and at the same time have two dependent children, ages 12 and 19. Both children have anxiety disorders. In addition, I work in adult and geriatric rehabilitation as an Occupational Therapist and my husband has heart disease. What does all that mean? It is recipe for quick caregiver burnout.
As an unschooling parent, I see learning and parenting as one in the same. In the early years of our homeschool journey, I defined time spent on typical school subjects as “Academic Time”. Even before I identified as an Unschooler, I saw learning as part of our life and had no desire to recreate school at home and did not call time spent facilitating my children’s education as “school”. No judgments here, everyone does what works for them. I share and describe my experience both for my own benefit as well as to offer thoughts and ideas for others on their journey as parents.
Today I would like to speak to the caregiving aspect of parenting. And when I speak about caregiving, it is all encompassing for me as I mentioned above.
My immediate family has mental health challenges. I have two children who have suffered with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder along with generalized anxiety and I have Bipolar 2 disorder which involves swings from hypomania to significant depression. As an adult with mental illness, I need to be my own self caregiver. All of us need to be in charge of our health and especially our mental health. The time spent on your own mental health is magnified with depression and other disorders. Juggling my own issues along with finding help for my children has created compounding challenges in my life. I have always had the desire to get help for my children yet when depression grabs hold of me, finding the energy to seek our care for my children has slowed the process of getting the help for them. I aim to forgive myself for mistakes and remind myself that I am doing the best that I can in each moment. Yet, during those times when I wanted to get them help but failed to follow through on phone calls and researching options, my inability to follow through only added to my depression.
“Put your own oxygen mask on before you help the person next to you.”
Based on what I have written above, you might think that I put all others first and have spent little time on myself. Yet, I have taken much time for self care over the years, yet depression still grabs hold of me. When I have been most depressed, I still get up and even go to work in the nursing home and make sure my children get fed and I shower. Somewhere there is this idea that significant depression looks like not showering or staying in bed all day. For some, this is surely the case. Does this mean my depression has not been severe? I write that and realize there is no reason to compare my depression to that of others. For me, it was the media portrayal of depression and this idea of doing nothing that kept me from recognizing the severity of my own depression. I think I first realized it after I came crashing down after a long hypomanic period. A good friend helped me to see it as well and had a talk with me suggesting I get help. That was 7 years ago.
Over the years even before that moment, I have taken time for myself including much time spent working with an EFT practitioner and being part of a group for self empowerment, healing and “taming my ego”, the part of us that keeps us from moving forward in our life, our inner critic. I have journaled and had weekly nights out of the house for time to myself. I have read numerous self help books. I learned Reike and completed level 1 and level 2 trainings along with a group of wonderful homeschooling moms. We got together and had “Reike Play Days” where our kids hung out and we practiced our Reike skills, helping each other.
Despite all of this, I have struggled with depression. I have taken many herbals, supplements and homeopathic remedies along with changing my diet. All these things have certainly helped me. Maybe the reason I did not sink to the level of not getting out of bed for days, is because of all the things I have done to help myself.
I worked with a nutritional specialist, her actual title evades me right now. Yet, it wasn’t enough for me and so I went to a psychiatrist with the realization that maybe I needed to take medication to help move me forward. The first medication I took led me to hypomania bordering on mania and I soon realized I had many of the side effects of the medication including a racing heart beat. I went off that medication at the recommendation of the psychiatrist and was also taking another medicine which I found in a more natural form. I almost forgot about that medicine and I cannot recall the name.
I was good for a few months….
Depression creeps up on me which makes it harder for me to see. My energy level slowly drops, causing me to stop things like journaling and exercising and my desire to do anything slowly lessons. It takes a few months before I find myself at the low point wondering how I did not realize this was happening or thinking that my low point was past me, only to sink further.
I found a new psychiatrist and tried a new antidepressant, an SSRI. I suggested to the doctor that I try prozac because it was working for my daughter’s OCD and so maybe that would be a better genetic fit for me. Again, it helped for a while and then I rose to hypermedia, bordering on mania, only to come crashing down again. I had discussions with my brother over the years because he too had similar experiences. I remember him telling me he didn’t like how the antidepressants affected him and was choosing to ride out his ups and downs. I liked this idea, yet it wasn’t working for me. My family was suffering because of my depression and I was struggling to get my kids the help they needed because of my struggles.
My brother started taking mood stabilizer and he shared this with me. I was reluctant for a while at the idea of that. I like my up periods, my hypermedia helped me accomplish so much. Hyper-mania is not full blown mania. You are super productive and have a lot of energy. I accomplished so many things in my times of hyper-mania. I did not want to eliminate my ups and downs but I certainly wanted to minimize my low periods.
I didn’t really like the psychiatrist I was seeing and so I found a new one. With the help of this psychiatrist, I decided to start on a mood stabilizer and she agreed that because it worked for my brother, it might be a good fit for me. It is also one that has minimal side effects compared to other mood stabilizers. Several other medications can cause weight gain which was something I did not want as I already struggled some with my weight. Like my emotional ups and downs, my weight would fluctuate with me. This was another reason that I enjoyed my hypomanic times, I lost weight and so felt better physically! Who wouldn’t like that?
It took many months of adjusting the dose to find the right fit for me and I remained on a low dose of prozac as well. At one point, I felt like I might be going into hypomania again and so I stopped the prozac. My psychiatrist was on maternity leave at this time and so I was messaging one of her colleagues. It turned out that wasn’t the best idea.
I have now been on 150 mg of lamotrigine (Lamictal) and 10 mg of fluoxetine (Prozac) for almost two years.
I share my medications as a part of sharing my journey. I am in no way endorsing any medications nor making any recommendations for medication. Please speak with your health care professionals.
I have been on a journey of natural health and healing for my mind and body. I was cleaning my diet and reducing additives and chemicals. For this reason, I was very reluctant to begin any medication. I know medications can have side effects and long term consequences. I turned to medication for my daughter’s OCD only after trying many different alternative treatments.
Sometimes, western medicine is necessary.
I learned this message first hand when my husband suffered a nearly fatal heart attack.
I sit here today, looking back on my journey and honoring the process. I still have swings of mood and energy which for me last several months, yet I feel that I am far more functional even in my low periods. My current psychiatrist, my third one I tried, draws on her white board when I go in to see her making waves and talks about reducing the amplitude of the waves. She also stated that most people on a mood stabilizer find them selves just below the midline point. We talked about how just above midline is wonderful and we all would like to stay there yet the reality is the higher you ascend, the lower you fall.
Looking over the past two years, I can see that I have been able to have periods above the midline, what some might call hypomania or for me, feeling like the real me. And as of this point, December 2021, I feel better and more functional than I have in years. I first saw this in March of 2020 when I went to the beach by myself, a second time experience for me. I was energized by that trip and started using Noom and lost weight and overall was doing well until about mid to late summer.
For me, my ups and downs do not correspond with the time of year but typically are 3-4 month periods of time. I was frustrated at my low period and yet felt I was doing much better than any prior low periods. I am currently feeling and doing great having more energy and following through on things. I worry whenever I am in this more functional place that I will slip into hypomania and have trouble differentiating functional well from hypomania.
Is there a difference?
I am aware now of this issue. I am tuned in to my emotions and my mental health on a much deeper level now more than I have ever been. I recognize that I can not plow forward sleeping only 6 hours a night and continue to function at that level. I also feel more level in that I don’t find myself in that pattern. I have a few days of super energy and productivity and then have a day where I need to lay low and rest.
I am trying to describe my experience in a way that you, the reader, can see this clearly. I am sure I am over explaining and realize that only I can truly understand my own experience. We can never expect others to fully understand our own experience because it is uniquely ours.
May you find your own path on your journey. As always, if my experience helps even one other person, publishing my writing serves my purpose.
Child-led Learning 