Dealing with stress....

[JuliaL]

I'm having a tough day. This morning I got a disturbing email from my son, who is struggling with depression. I worry so much about him. I've been doing very well with eating low carb to try to lose a few pounds, or at least keep from gaining over the holidays, but the first thing I thought about when I read his email was 'to heck with it, might as well eat'. Why? I didn't eat off plan, but it was such a struggle not to!

I also skipped my workout - even dumber!

How do you deal with life stress and not turn to food?

[mjais]

Julia:

I'm sorry to hear about the struggles your son is going through and the stressful effect it must be having on you.
Getting through the stressful times without turning to food is not easy. I have 3 techniques that I use:

Exercise - I increase it/maintain it to get those endorphins to improve my
mood/outlook.

Write in My Journal - This helps me to sort through my feelings.
Things seem a bit more objective once I've written
them out and faced them.

Gut it Out - I keep reminding myself that I'll feel even worse if I
end up using food as a comfort and overeating.


I hope things get better soon. Do the best you can.

[Dharma]

I'm sorry about your DS. I struggle with depression myself. I don't take a prescription, just 5-HTP and Sam-E, and cod liver oil, and they seem to help.

I think it's great that you didn't indulge. I had a bad TOM this last weekend and ate carbs all day Saturday!! So, I didn't deal with it very well. I stopped drinking wine except very occasionally, but now I'm having trouble staying away from carbs. I guess wine IS carbs, so I've just substituted.

I can usually talk myself out of food when I'm stressed, but when my hormones are out of whack it's almost impossible. I agree that exercise helps. Many, many times though, I just have to gut it out myself.

When I'm feeling good about myself, it's usually easier. I turned 50 last week and I'm NOT feeling good about it. But since TOM is over it's getting better.

I wish I had some GREAT strategies to share, but different things work at different times, ya know?

[LaurieRobo]

Julia - I don't have much to offer other than

This is something I still struggle with too... My first diversion is to try to exercise - lately I've found myself going for a run just because I can't stand to be with my to boys 15 & 13 bickering!!!

[2big4mysize]

sorry about your situation.

I use exercise as my stress relief and when I can't workout carbs attack my thoughts.

Whatever you use as your destresser you need to apply it consitantly so the neural pathways to it are made strong and your brain will prescribe it when you are stressed and don't realize it.

[Kissa]

[BellaHMB]

Exercise, journaling, talking to a friend.

Hope you are feeling better. I know it's hard with our kids.
My son is a recovering drug addict with almost 3 yrs clean
and my dh has a 35 yr old son who is a policeman. I just
learned today that my son is not welcome at his step-brother's house
for Xmas eve. In the ss mind "once a criminal always a criminal".
Very stressful for me and fortunately my dh supported me and my
son and said well we wouldnt be coming for xmas eve then. Very sad
though...lots of talking to gf's about this one!

Bella

[JuliaL]

Thanks everyone for sharing all your thoughts, tips and hugs. You don't know how much it means to me.

I got my son to a psychologist for an evaluation last week. He has schizo-affective personality disorder, and possibly schizophrenia, but we are going to have to do further testing to rule that out. Fortunately the prognosis is good. The psychologist says he doesn't always give this kind of prognosis for this particular diagnosis, but he said my son has good cognitive ability and seems to have developed some coping skills that will help him to lead a fairly normal life if he gets the right treatment. We are working on a plan for treatment, and I will be helping him apply for disability right after the holidays (when we have more info from the psychiatrist). So knowing that we have a plan in place to help him, I feel a little better.

I went to see an endocrinologist last week, and she is doing a battery of tests on me, including free cortisol levels. I'd be willing to be they're high right now (ya think?). She's also testing me for celiac and cushings disease.

I have been keeping up with my exercise, and it helps so much, but my weight continues to gradually climb in spite of eating very low carb, watching calories and working out six days a week. Since eating low carb for a week didn't cause me to lose any weight at all, I've gone back to my BFFM style of eating with oats and an apple a day. It's really the way I like to eat, and it's healthy, so I figure what the heck? If I enjoy what I'm eating right now it may keep me from binging on bad stuff due to stress, so what harm can a bowl of oatmeal really do?

Thanks again everyone for your kind comments. The support on this board is so amazing!

PS - Bella, I'm so glad to hear your DS has been clean for 3 years. That's quite an accomplishment. I'm sorry to hear your SS has that attitude, but good for DH for standing by you! After all, your son has proven he's changed. Everyone makes mistakes, and it takes a lot of guts to recover from an addiction like that.

[BellaHMB]

Julia,
May I ask how old your son is? And what is his current living environment?

Bella

[2big4mysize]

glad you are getting help for him. knowing what is wrong helps so much even for the person having a mental illness.
When do you get your test results back? you might want to discuss eating changes with your endo as sudden changes in eatting patternsd can also mess up things they test for.

Hang in there.

[JuliaL]

Originally Posted by BellaHMB

Julia,
May I ask how old your son is? And what is his current living environment?

Bella

Bella - he's 28 years old. He is currently living in a house with a very good friend of his, who is a really nice guy and a good influence on him. I'm so grateful that he's in a safe environment where he feels welcome.

2big4mysize - I'm going back to the endo on Jan. 2. I did tell her that I had been eating low carb for a little over a week prior to the appointment.