Just a Few Thoughts

I have not posted in a while. That's because I have been increasing my Bio-Kult and it feels like my world is falling apart. Well, sometimes it feels like my world is falling apart and sometimes all is well, but I spend the all is well times picking up the pieces from the my world is falling apart times.

You know...I used to have PMS and be really moody for 1-2 weeks out of every month and then I would spend the other two weeks pulling myself back together and fixing all of the problems I created during my moody times. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that anymore.

I fell apart the other day at a memorial service for a dear friend who had passed away that morning. I guess that seems normal when I write it down like that, but I let it slip that I am not as involved in things as much as I had been and I was very emotional and explained that it was because of our current circumstances. Of course I would like to be more involved, but we just really can't be as involved as we were. That's OK. It's not forever. Things are changing all of the time, sometimes better and sometimes worse. It's always changing.

I've been thinking...Is it better to be home and happy and feeling good most of the time OR is it better to get out there in the real world and tough it out, but always feeling bad and unhappy? Although I struggle with the desire to get out there and do more and be a little more mainstream, I know from experience that we are all happier if we don't push it too much.

So I have also been thinking...Have we made ourselves more sensitive to the environment by taking so many things away so that when we come into contact with it out in public, we really react to it? I think this is probably true, and yet...before we took it all away we were sick and unhappy a lot of the time. This is the reason we stick to it. We do what we do because for the first time in our lives, we feel really good and we only feel bad when we are exposed to the things that we do not tolerate, which happen to be out there "in the real world" in abundance.

Sometimes I just want to quit!!! What would I do instead?

If I quit suddenly, or even gradually, I would get so depressed that I would be completely non-functional. I would ache all over. I would not be able to sleep at night. I would feel tired and foggy all of the time. I would be overwhelmed by all of the chaos in the house.

If I quit suddenly, my oldest would be oppositional and would go back to doing mean things to his siblings. He would forget how to see things from other people's point of view. He would constantly be hurting himself and others with his klutziness because he used to be so unaware of his surroundings. He would be constantly annoyed at everyone and everything because he would be rigid and need for things to be a certain way in order to feel OK in his world. He would be in physical pain and always rushing to the bathroom. His clothes and shoes would bother him. All of his Asperger's characteristics would return, including his anxiety. He will stop sleeping well. He will complain constantly. We have been there. I don't want to go back to that. Just adding ghee and butter brought a lot of these issues back. The only time my son has ever been totally clear minded, and happy, and caring towards others has been during the three times on GAPS when we also dairy-free. I look at him now and I marvel at the young man that he is becoming. How could I ever think of taking that away from him. At some point, he will be in control of what he eats, and yet even now he is in control and he chooses to stick to GAPS. I can't take that away from him.

Then, of course, there are the girls and the two little boys. Our little three year old regressed and he really looked as if he were going to continue to regress. I was concerned that every time he jerked and fell over or grabbed at his eyes or woke up in the night screaming he was slipping away a little more. I thought they might be seizures. I still think that they probably were. We were losing him. He was sick and miserable and he was in so much physical and mental pain. The GAPS diet brought him back to us, praise God who gave us the knowledge we needed to know when we needed to know it! I had prayed for help for my older children and I and God answered my prayer. I was so grateful that when our two children reacted to the vaccines I was already in the process of implementing the diet for the rest of us. We got our little boy back and our little girl, too.

They are all such a delight to me. I am so thankful for each and every one of them. They are amazing and wonderful little people.

In conclusion, I think it is better to be home and happy and feeling good most of the time and I think that we are more sensitive to the environment because we have removed the toxins from our daily living, but I also realize that we only experience all of the bad stuff we used to deal with daily when we are exposed to toxins a little here and there.

We DO get out. We do go to church every Sunday, even though it is sometimes extremely difficult to get there if anyone is reacting to something from the weekend and even though we know that our little guy is going to react to people's perfumes. We can't shield him from everything, but I would not want him to be miserable everyday. Then, there is the church girl's choir, art class, youth group, homeschool classes taught by other homeschool moms (like the writing class my son is about to start next week), play dates, library once a week, the preschool class at the library, field trips (like the very cool Real Pirates exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural History), LEGO club once a month, the LEGO robotics competition, the park, shopping trips, the science class that our oldest will be starting soon, weekly trips to visit the horses and horse lessons here and there whenever enough money is saved to pay for them, and the Science Fair through our homeschool co-op. We DO get out.

I DO have to remind myself that we may not be able to do as much as we have done in the past, but we are not isolated. I only feel that way when I am reacting because all I can see is the negative side of everything, which is why I do not want to go back to that place. With the exception of food reactions, which happen from time to time, I feel better and happier than I have ever felt in my whole life. Who in their right mind would want to give that up? Not me. I like being able to be the kind of person that God has called us to be. I like being kind and compassionate and gentle and patient. I have to do what I have to do, because it works.

My husband is so amazing. He is so easy-going about all of this. He often says, "It is what it is." or "If it has to get done, it has to be done." I get overwhelmed and I panic. He just sets to work and gets it done. I want to be more like that.

Enough of this. I have things to do!