Category Archives: thoughts

A Moment to Reflect

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We leave for Wales in just nine days and things have begun to get busy around here.

I do not know if we will have wifi while we are away for our Vow Renewal.

So I have been preparing posts and working on a surprise for my readers.

Which I will announce soon.

I love to plan to things.

I was planning my own 30th birthday party last year.

Due to unforeseen circumstances the party fell through

and I was just happy to make it back to England in time

to blow out my candle with my husband.

As I started planning our 10th Anniversary

which quickly became a Vow Renewal celebration

I went on Pinterest to plan out in full force.

Not sure if you have noticed

but I have twelve boards

designated to my ‘I Do Again‘ theme.

Even many of my pins from my 30th Birthday ideas

bled into my vision for a perfect Vow Renewal.

But now that my anniversary is just fifteen days away

I have been avoiding pinterest.

Do not get me wrong I love that site.

But there are just all these things I would have loved to

find

get

buy

make

that when all is said in done is just not practical at this time

I basically am looking around at what is in our house

to make do with for the ceremony.

Yes I still love planning.

Yes I would still love to host amazing stylized parties.

I’m much inspired by Tori Spelling.

She influenced how I did my son’s comic book party.

I would love to host a few parties a year

for friends that love to come to dinner parties

that had all these perfect details.

And play the perfect host.

But

It has made me refocus.

in regards to our vow renewal.

I am happy to just have my family here.

I am under the assumption my husband’s father is still coming.

But his mother has still decided to not come.

I know we cannot force her to be here.

It is still our time of celebration.

It just makes me realize how much I love my family.

And the way they love and accept Ryan unconditionally.

My mum and my sister are flying here to be with us.

My dad will be watching down from heaven.

Our friends from Uni are coming with their kids.

That is what is has become all about…the people.

The memories we will make.

The photographs that will capture the good times.

We are pretty excited to be counting down the days.

My sons wake me up to tell me how many days

until their Nonna gets here.

They bug me to do a google hangout with her

it seems like every other day.

Soon.

So if I seem a bit busy or slow to answer

on the social media front

it is because we are busy in preparation.

I just needed a day to reflect on everything in my head.

Thank you for listening to me today.

Stay tuned for the special surprise.

Also August Sponsorships have opened up!

———————-

Marriage, Inlaws and Cross Cultural Issues

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It is official! My sister has finally booked her plane ticket which means my whole family will be for my vow renewal in about five weeks. Granted ‘whole family’ means my mum and my sister. I come from a very small family where both my grandmothers died before I was born and grew up with not a single cousin. However if my dad was still alive you bet he would be here in a heart beat to support us. I could not feel more blessed or more excited to see my kin.

Unfortunately I found out a couple of days ago that my husband will only have his father here to celebrate our ten years of marriage. Despite years of rocky relationships with his side of the family we still have held out that change could happen. That they would accept us a family. The problems all boil down to not meeting expectations and misunderstandings in our cross cultural relationship. However you do not need a Third Culture Kid upbringing outside the US for this happen. This could be the same situation with couples from families in different parts of the US with how vast and different the culture is through out the country.

If you have been reading this blog for a bit you will know that I talk often about how life is not easy. It is a valuable life lesson I work with my kids to understand. We both come from families that did not talk and though there was lots of love lacked the intimacy. It is something we have realised through our marriage and through what we want to change to be different for our kids. Marriage is not easy and ours took may pitfalls into a near divorce. The silver lining is that life is also beautiful. Through it all my husband and I are still married, are finally living in Europe, and are more happy now than ever. To be celebrating ten years of marriage and to renew our vows in front of our family and friends is a big deal to us.

We, my husband and I, wanted this celebration to finally bring together the two families. We can see how most of all the problems have arisen while on my in law’s turf. My husband and I thought that having his family around my family and our friends and in our home country would help them assimilate to how our family works. As a third culture kid and an American raised abroad there are many aspects of our life that they have not understood nor accepted. From moving around a lot I know the easiest way to understand a new culture is to fully immerse yourself in it and get to know the people. That was our hope from this summer. I was finally excited to not have to ‘act’ a certain way or pretend to be someone we were not just when his parents were around because they live by different expectations.

It makes me sad for my husband. Especially because I know how close he and my dad became and how proud he would be to support us. I am also sad for our my kids. This is not the first time they have missed out on time with grandparents because of self imposed drama. Last summer after a confrontation with my mother in law she left the state for several weeks, only wanting to return after I was back in England. I wish I could say I am the root cause for it all, but it just happens over and over again. It is unfortunate. However not all families talk about the problems. They happen, no one addresses it and then they smile and act like nothing happens until it carries on into the next blow up. It is not healthy and though I cannot force my in laws to like me or to be here and support us I can share with you lessons I have learned from it all.

Just because it is different, it does not make it wrong. This is a sweet and simple statement from Disney’s Merlin animated film that I have used over and over with my in laws. It is pretty much my go to answer when we run into differences in understanding about something. If you just think about how big the world is, how many countries and cultures are within it, and how many different ways people live life day to day. Not every one believes the same thing and it is okay. Would you go into someone’s house in a country across the world from you and preach to them about why their way of doing something is incorrect? Perhaps looking at close relationships the same way can help to understand those with different views.

People Grow and Evolve. Yes it is true you cannot change a person, only they can decide to make the change for themselves. People however do experience personal growth. You cannot say that someone is a certain way or is a certain person because of something they said or did a decade ago. We are also learning lessons continually in our lives. However we are all also in different stages of our learning. Just because you have learned the lesson on how to deal with personal conflict with others, does not mean someone else has learned it yet. I have learned that instead of letting the hurtful words of other affect you, to be patient as they work through those important life lessons. This was something brought up by my friend Patricia this week.

Don’t play the blame game. This is a daily lesson I am helping my sons learn. When confronted with why they are not ready for school, they are both quick to throw each other under the bus. As adults I have noticed how the weight of exhaustion or stress can easily aid in placing the blame elsewhere. I have learned the easiest way to avoid placing blame is to listen to the other person. You might realize that they are really trying to reach out to you and all that it takes is deep breath and to be the bigger person.

Don’t talk bad about others. Most often from my experience people say the most cruel things about others because they are either deflecting from their own persona anxieties, stress, and hardships or because the unknown of the situation has them scared. If people are saying bad things about you, sometimes it is best to just block them out. Soon enough people will realize that they are spending more time bad talking about you than working out their own issues in their life. If someone is constantly that unhappy there is a root issue that needs to be addressed. I read a really good book years ago called ‘How to Be an Adult‘ which talked about how unresolved issues as a child can greatly affect our relationships as an adult.

Life is short. Don’t waste your life on earth. I wish I could have had just one day left with my dad to tell him how much I loved him and to say goodbye properly. I wish I could have him back in my life so that he could be here this summer for our vow renewal. There is nothing but death that would stop my parents from being here with us this summer. The worse thing in life is to live with regrets and time is something you can never get back.

You have to confront life to get past obstacles in life. Otherwise you are just running away from the problem. Confrontations are not fun, simple, nor easy. But like ripping off a bandage, they have to happen if you want to heal wounds. If you do not talk about things it does not make them go away. It only makes them fester and grow a toxicity inside you ready to blow. When that happens it usually just makes the wound larger, it does not solve the problem. You cannot run away from things or expect other people to speak up for you on your behalf just because you do not like it. If we as humans liked confrontations I think the word would be called something with a much softer tone to it. The point is as an adult we have to learn how to confront others and how to work through problems. We are all different and we may not always get a long but we can work through issues as adults.

Be a positive person or get professional help if you are not. This lesson is what has made me indifferent to my entire in laws family. You cannot change a person and if they are constantly upset, negative, angry, or putting toxic energy towards you than it may be a red flag that they are harboring much deeper issues. If you cannot find the positive in people or in situations, perhaps it is time to seek out help.

Be Assertive. I talk about things in my family. I use things that happen in life and in current events to teach my children life lessons and to open up conversation. I do not believe in covering up the truth with sugar coated stories. I really think the worst thing you can do is to not talk about something. If I am having a bad day I would rather my husband know about it, than hope that he has magically gotten a sixth sense between when he left for work and when he got home. You have to be assertive and act.

We have the power of choice. You can choose how you act or react to situations. I chose to Let Go when it came to things out of my control. I also choose to be honest to my blog. I love to take photographs and it is nice to be complimented on them, but I feel in turn I like to be open with my thoughts. I think the worst thing is to be alone, to feel alone, or to have no one to talk too. If you feel that way, feel free to talk with me as I have been there before. It is through talking and through letting go that we can live life as adults and enjoy each precious day we are blessed with in our life.

Q: Have you ever experienced trials with families when it comes to different expectations or cultural differences? How have you gotten through it?

The Strength in Letting Go

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Day 30, Thursday: React to this term, ‘Letting Go’

QUOTE BY

D e e p a k C h o p r a

“In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past,

but you will find yourself.“

My fifteen year old self watched on the big screen as Rose let go of Jack’s hand. I was unable to fathom why she did not find a way to share the piece of wreckage that looked big enough for him to rest beside her. ‘Never let go‘ he told her. His last words were more of a metaphor then telling her to cling on to a now dead Jack from the frigid ocean water. I walked out of the cinema in Germany with my friend talking about how we would have never let Leonardo DiCaprio go. We would have found a way. I was taught to hold on frequently through life. As a little girl holding my parents’ hand, in the absence of my father during the war, and through moves to new countries and cities. You hold on.

Especially as a Third Culture Kid, a girl who spent a significant part of her childhood living in and out of different countries, I was holding on to all of my past. To all my past ‘homes’, all my friends, and all my memories. This ingrained in me the type of friend I would become as an adult, fighting for friendships that others would easily walk away from. I was forced to say goodbye to friends because of moving and so I would hold on quicker and tighter to friendships knowing what it meant to have that them at all. There was one friend who was kinda rough around the edges but I always stood by his side. I like to think that everyone has the best intentions and there is a heart attached to every soul. I would always seek him out and bring him back to our group of friends when he had not been seen from in a while. He was the closest I have come to having a brother and I honestly cared about him as much as I enjoyed his company. The last time I sought him out he revealed to me that in his mind I was the cause of his failed relationship with a mutual friend. To me it came way out of left field though it explained much in hindsight. It was at that moment after seven years of an off and on friendship, that I found the clarity to let go.

When my husband and I were going through rough times I was counselled to get out for a while. Not to leave forever, but to get away before things between us got worse. That leaving for a awhile would help shock things back on the path towards recovery for our marriage and our future together. So when I saw an opportunity arise for a trial separation we took it. I had been hanging on through the loss of my dad and realised that it was not making me stronger. It took more strength and courage to let go than try to survive. Letting go restored my soul as I allowed others to be responsible for themselves. Through that freedom of stress I found myself. I would not have thought there was strength in letting go. Not when people around me were telling me I was in the wrong for leaving. In the end my husband and I found our way back to each other and put our family back together. I find truth in the counsel I was given for it fixed what was broken in the first place.

As children we relearn simple lessons over and over until we finally comprehend the wisdom behind it to implement the right action into our life. As adults I believe it is no different. Though the hardships and stresses may differ, in retrospect I see the lesson in the end to be similar. I have had to let go in many facets of my life as a child and now as an adult. Even when we lose things or people in life we still have to let go of the lingering pain.

After fighting for a decade with my in laws and hoping that they would eventually ‘see me for me’ and love me unconditionally I was pushed to the breaking point of the relationship. Despite my own dislike for confrontations I brought out the problems in conversation, called it out and laid it on the table. I wanted to get it out, get over it and move on from the same fights that would arise. Growing up in Italy I saw how a family would have an loud boisterous fight at the table, get it all out, and then move on. Yet some people can never let go because they keep so much emotional baggage locked up, with fear of ever talking about it. Their thoughts, words, actions, and judgements I cannot control. I finally realised last Autumn I could not force anyone to like me and time nor distance would not necessarily make any difference. I found the strength through the storm to let go. In the end I found indifference. Which if I cannot have love, is better than harbouring the opposite.

The simple truth is if we had control over something we would not let it hurt us or strain our life. So by letting go of things and people of which we do not have control, we are essentially letting go of the toxic and negative aspects in our life. That is what we have control over. It is where we find our inner strength and through it our true selves.

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong,

but sometimes it is letting go.” – Herman Hesse

#BlogEveryDayInMay
*Self Portrait by Bonnie Rose of Bonnie Rose Photography © 2013 All Rights Reserved | www.bonnie-rose.co.uk

Wise Words from my Friend

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Day 25, Saturday: Something someone told you about yourself that you’ll never forget (good or bad)

This is a candid of myself in front of the same Union Jack flag back when we were stationed in Monterey, California in 2005. At this time my husband and I had been married for only two years and had one son under a year old. Still a young married woman and a new mum. My husband had just joined the military and was in his technical training stage. Basically back when this photo was taken we were both so young and in new stages of our lives. Things that would make me sad, get me anxious, or stress me out back then all seem so trivial now. My biggest gripe back then was figuring out to schedule family time with my husbands crazy school and study schedule with the military and dealing with what to do with all things my MIL sent me that I did not need. It was a different time in my life and I’m not sure what I would tell myself if I could go back in time.

Two years later we were stationed in Hawaii and welcoming our second son. Then all the hard times would hit us like an unexplained storm ready to leave us in the wreckage. Being so far away from any ‘home’ and people for support I owe my darkest hours to a friend many miles away. She was my mentor and role model growing up and had always been so strong in my eyes. Now seeing what she has had to go through I really feel blessed to have had her wise words through email during my hardest times. While I keep those words and emails private, she has said something to me during the time frame of this portrait below that I have kept written out to remind me when I am having a bad day. I think especially as mothers we can feel that we are expected to be superwomen. To be perfect in every way, to let no one down, and make no mistakes. However she has constantly reminded me how much we can do for our families and for our children by just loving them with all our hearts. It does not matter what the rest of the world says or does, if you have love, share love and give love you become the glue to hold it all together.

“I am so proud of you Bonnie. I know life is difficult and there are severe problems at times, but you are so courageous and strong to hold it all together and hold everyone together. I am learning from my own kids around me, that it doesn’t matter how much we mess up or how bad, just that we love them, love those around us. We are the glue that holds it all together and God gives us that blessing.”

– my friend

Thank you to my beautiful, sweet, and loving friend. You are so strong and you have been the strength for me when I thought I had nothing left. You helped with words of wisdom and scripture to help guide me through the darkest times. In all honesty I would not be here today with my family if I did not have you in my life. Thank you for caring so much about me, especially when it seemed no one else did. I love you!

One Hundred and Five

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Day 20, Monday: Get real. Share Something you’re struggling with right now.

This is me last summer and fall while eating paleo, doing strength training, and taking coconut oil.

One hundred and five. That is neither the current temperature nor my weight. It signifies how many days I have successfully blogged in a row without fail. Although you’ll see blog posts on here as far back as 2005, blogging as I have in the recent months is a new thing for me. It is no longer about just showing photo updates of my kids to my family. I went from 5 readers in January to over a 170 in May. Through finding my purpose in blogging I have found my voice. To have blogged every day since Monday the fourth of February is a big deal for me. I have successful done something every day for three full months.

However that is not always the case in my life. Perhaps it’s my continual transitional life that has programmed myself to constantly start things without always seeing the end.

Which leads me to the subject of the prompt. I have been struggling recently with commitment to exercise and eating cleanly. I’m very great at starting an exercise regime and do great and planning to stick to paleo. I can do a couple of weeks and then I usually miss a day which somehow leads to a long enough ‘break’ that Im back to finding the commitment again to start all over.

I have had good streaks in the past. I was doing great last summer/fall while temporarily stuck at my in-laws for a few months. Perhaps because exercise and food were the only two things I could control in my life at that point while being treated and controlled like a sixteen year old by people who like to control and step in when I parent. I was sticking to paleo and was concentrating on weight training and interval training to lose fat and tone up. I have quite a boyish figure and I somehow was transforming my body to have a waistline and the appearance of curvy hips. My husband, who was back at home in England, saw photos of my progress and cheered me on.

However I have now gotten into a rut of not exercising. While my diet is void of fast food, pre-packaged food filled with preservatives, sodas, and junk food it is not strictly paleo. I do eat fats, but the good kind. Meaning nothing that says ‘low’ or ‘non’ in front of it. However thats not only what I have been eating as of late. Abs are made in the kitchen an I have covered mine quite well recently a lot of white flour, white rice, white potatoes and white sugar. I used to not even have sugar in my house but bought it for baking and then let it slowly creep into my meals because the lazy side of me thought it was easier than getting a spoonful of honey. The other white ingredients have been reintroduced and used more out of necessity while things have been a bit tighter around her financially. My typical paleo breakfast of eggs, bacon, avocado, blood pudding, and tomato got replaced with porridge that I started eating with my kids.

I’m not overweight. I am glad I have a much healthier body image than when I was growing up. However I am now carrying extra weight in fat in my mid section. Since I have had two kids via csection that means I have harder work ahead of me with rebuilding my abs. After being a slave to the scale with horrific eating habits in the past It’s not my weight in numbers that upsets me. I know a number on the scale cannot tell me how much fat I lost and how much muscle I have gained, since muscle weighs more than fat. All extra ‘fat’ weight goes straight to my tummy and the way my clothes are fitting right now upsets me. Especially because I know from experience that even if I had not worked out at all, but had done strict paleo, I would be looking at a flat stomach right now. I have done the vegetarian and vegan things many times before and have done the extreme limiting of ‘calories’. What I can tell from results is both get me ‘skinny fat’ and eating a paleo diet of meat and veggies with good fats like bacon and avocado and eating way more colories that way has gotten me skinny toned. While my younger self stressed over the scale of being a perfect 100 and fitting in my size zero jeans, I just want to to toned with muscle with as little body fat as possible. I do not care what number the scale says, what size clothes I fit in, or how many calories I am consuming. But results do not come without action.

That is what I am currently struggling with and what I hope to over come.

With my vow renewal only two and a half months away in August I know I need to start working harder if I want to see change.

I have blogged every day for 105 days, certainly I could stick to getting my body in shape before 02.08.13, yeah?

Q: Any advice or motivation you can give me that had worked for you?

When My Daddy Returned from the Gulf War

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Blog Every Day In May, Day 18. Tell a story from your childhood. Dig deep and try to be descriptive about what you remember and how you felt.

I’m not sure if there are any photos of me in my school uniform from my days of primary school in Norfolk.
This photo however was taken near the same age with my father in one of those fun period dress up places.

Most of my favourite memories are from years growing up in Europe and many of them include my dad now that he is really gone. One of the best memories I have is when I was finishing up a day from school. It was the afternoon and I had just completed a game of field hockey with the other girls and we were now changing to go home for the day. A classmate ran into the room and exclaimed to me that my father was outside. I remember shaking off the news with out a care because I knew my dad was not there. He was a world away. He was in a desert. He was not in England and certainly not at my school. Grabbing my belongings I left the school building to be proven very wrong as my eyes met my fathers. I remember the way he looked. He looked so tall (from my short stature of being a young girl) and so tanned. I do not remember my father every looking so dark. He was smiling and I dont remember if I dropped my bag or ran with it under my arm. But I ran all the way to be greeted by his arms in a hug. To be honest my eyes are filled with tears as I write this because it was such a happy memory. Times when I wish I had my father now I wish I could just close my eyes and open them again to see that same smiling face. To be able to give him one more hug. To hear him say ‘I love you’.

This is an excerpt from my post Living In England During the Gulf War.

Overcoming Klonopin

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“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.” (Albus Dumbledore)

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Day 16, Thursday: Something difficult about your “lot in life” and how you’re working to overcome it.

This prompt made me think for a while on what to share due to the fact that right now I feel very content in life.However it has not always been this easy, nor have I felt this happy. Although this is not something I am currently having to work to over come, it is the first time I have ever talked about it online. Mental health still seems like a taboo conversation by many and I hope by sharing we can break the stigmas and help people so they do not have to go through it alone.

The first two deaths in my family were sad but not life impacting. My mum’s brother died while I was in high school and my dad’s father died while I was in University. I felt more sad for my parents and their loss because I had only been around each individual a few times when we visited the US. I experienced loss as a Third Culture Kid (TCK) with no sense of ‘home’ and having to continually say ‘goodbye’. However death had not affected me as much as it would a few years later after I have had two kids. On August 14th, 2008 I realized my marriage was falling apart fast and hours later I got the call that my dad had been run over on his bicycle. My life shattered into a million pieces.

It was not just the sudden loss of my dad that we were all dealing with in Arizona. We were dealing with the police department, the reporters, the hospital over my father’s missing rings (still missing), the funeral arrangements in both Tucson and for his funeral at the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs, the memorial service at his school, the memorial service at church, the ghost bike, and the correspondance pouring in from all over the world. Though I was not really speaking to my husband at the time, he was a rock for my family taking care of so many details. However I felt I was going through this loss all on my own while my sister and mother both had people to help them through the process.

When it was time to leave after the funeral I decided to stay at my mum’s for a while. While I should have fully had my husband to support me through the loss of my dad, I equally should have had my mum to support me in my broken marriage. But how could I dare to even bring it up when she just lost her husband. I would be lying now if I said I was not still somewhat angry at the girl who decided to be high when she hit my dad in that truck. I’m equally still upset at the the Tucson Police Department for doing a shoddy job on the scene and in the police reports, as well as never charging the driver for the death of my father. Tell me again how someone ‘struck from behind’ on a bicycle yields to someone in a truck? It is much more subdued now but you can understand the anger, pain, sadness and confusion that would come from that initially. Before I left to go back home to Hawaii, my mum urged me to see a doctor about medication as depression ran in our family. Thats what I did.

I had seen therapists before and I realized after the first couple of visits that my psychiatrist more incline to subscribe me medication and less to hear me talk. I had wanted to take the same thing my mum was on and for whatever reason my doctor decided against it. Since I was also dealing with anxiety at this time of my life he put me on Klonopin (clonazepam). I think it helped in the beginning for when I really felt anxious being in public or when it just hurt to much about the loss of my dad. I remember once being out with a mummy and kids play group on base and my best friend looked over at me and could tell I was having a panic attack. I remember how comforting it was to know someone understood and taking my klonopin helped so much.

There were issues with the dosage while I was taking it as they tried to find the right amount over the course of my treatment. After getting my dosage raised once and still taking it in the morning, it would knock me out so quickly. I would not even know I was getting tired until I was fast asleep. It was more than that it was the way it took away the passion and the heart of my personality. I may have not been myself with dealing with everything going on in my life, but I was definitely not me on Klonopin either. My emotions felt very flat and if I was needing to take another pill I could be really irritable and upset. I remember just wanting to be alone a lot of the time. Being around my in-laws at all brings on a lot of stress and I just sat in a closet once during the Christmas holiday to find some quiet and past out amongst the coats and the darkness until my husband found me. There did not seem to be an end to this tunnel because it was masking the problems. It was not fixing the loss of my dad or the cracks in my marriage.

During the summer my kids went to spend a few months with my in-laws on the mainland. I had just taken a new job at a salon across town and had decided it might be best to find a new place to live while we attempted a trial separation. We had tried marriage counseling though we mostly talked about my issues of loss, my need to move ‘home’ to Europe, and whatever trivial talk my husband and the counselor brought up about life. Nothing seemed to be moving forward when it came to us. It was in my new job that my boss found out about the Klonopin. He could not medically advise me to stop taking it, but he told me he didn’t think I needed it anymore. As a life coach and mentor, he helped me to start working out again. I began doing crossfit and yoga every week with my coworkers. I started making sure my diet was better, meaning making sure I ate enough calories and not relying on fastfood since I was now renting a room with college students. I started to slowly change back into myself.

That makes its sound like it was almost easy to stop relying on the medication and that life was now blissful. It is too much to add to this blog post but at that time life was just as hard. My marriage was now going through the beginning stages of a divorce. My in-laws were orchestrating a deal with a lawyer so my husband could push for full custody of the kids, giving me a clean break so I could leave for Europe. Obviously anyone who knows me knows how much my kids are my life and that no deal would ever come between us. At that time I was floating through new acquaintances with no real support system of friends. I realized how much of a gossip pool the military circle can be hearing untrue things about me circulating about me from people I had never met. Everyone has an opinion when others are dealing with hardships. I will say my mum, though at the time our relationship was not doing to great, never said a bad thing about my husband. It is something I am going to remember when my children get married especially in comparison to everything my in-laws have said or done up till last summer.

So life was not easy. But I was now dealing with it without medication and not covering up the sadness, the pain, the anxiety of feeling like everyone was focused on me. I ended up moving back in with my husband when the kids got back from their summer vacation. It took three years but my husband and I are doing better than we have ever been.

I still no longer take any medications. I honestly dislike to have take anything for a headache until I complain too long about it and cave. I am more incline to go the homeopathic route for myself and my family. My dad has been gone for almost five years but I have been able to work through the stages of grief. The last two years living as expats in England has really helped my marriage flourish and strengthen. When you live in the military world where divorce is so common, I find that a major accomplishment especially through everything we have been through. There was a time in my life where I felt so angry with God because he had ripped everything from my life and left me alone in the broken pieces. I have come out of the ashes again to be able to look at all the beauty in life.

***I will end this by saying that if you do take medications and they work for you, awesome. They only made things worse in my life. In a better situation I would have had a better support system to work through the problems. Honesty and communication could have helped so much. I saw a friend have to come off of a different drug and the side effects are scary. I honestly feel that clean eating, exercise and homeopathic resources should be the first way to combat an issue before taking any sort of drugs. My previous sessions with therapists have been by far more beneficial.***