FULL DISCLOSURE

KIMinKamikawa.com is BACK!! I reactivated my website and blog this weekend! I was missing the opportunity to share this experience and I was also missing the creative outlet! So - if you have been missing it - YAY! Check it out - or - if you haven’t yet - please do! Maybe it’s a bit confusing? I have several sections and I add my entries to the section that is most appropriate! Mostly "Let the Adventure Begin" and "Deep Thoughts"… when we travel I will add entries to "Off We Go!" I am no longer going to use the "Oishii, Oishii, Oishii!" Not because we haven’t eaten some amazing food - I am just not one to write about food details…

Full Disclosure? I have suffered from Generalized Anxiety since I was in elementary school - at least that is when I remember starting to feel anxious. I was great at coping with it until my mid thirties.Hmmm? Actually - in the 1970's, a doctor in Manitoba convinced my parents when I was only seven, to let him take out my appendix. He was certain that my tummy aches would go away because the surgery would "trick" me into thinking I was better as it was "all in my head". You can't make this stuff up!! And, if you ask my university roommate, she will tell you that I checked under the bed and in the closet every night before we went to bed so…. Hmmmm…

When I hit 35ish my anxiety became irrational - I would cry myself to sleep at night worried that I wouldn’t be around for my boys - what if I died before they graduated from high school? How would they cope? I spent hours (at night) trying to figure out what the “best time” to die would be so they would be okay - yeeesh!! I also worried that someone was going to come into our house and kidnap them - I was not okay.

I have always been a forward thinker… next month we have this planned and that planned and the following month we have a trip - YAY! I could always see something positive coming down the road. But then I couldn’t. So - I went to therapy for a year and I started medication for anxiety. I wrote a letter to” my anxiety” (my first homework assignment) and I had to give it a name. What impact was it having on my life? I decided to call it my LIMIT-ATOR as it was interfering with my happiness and it was paralyzing.

A year in to this regime, I felt much better. I read somewhere that women often have a “crisis” of sorts in their mid thirties… I wonder if that is true? I told my doctor that I was "good to go" and that I was ready to stop taking my anxiety meds. She let me know that because I took the medication for anxiety and it wasn’t for depression or to reset my hormone levels, I decided to stay on it.

And I did… for over 20 years. When I finished teaching - retired - I thought it was time. I had never had to increase my dose so maybe it wasn’t even really doing anything? It seemed easy to wean myself off it. You know - in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language and I just left everything and everyone that I knew and loved. Not a good idea! After a few weeks of not being on the medication - I started to feel unwell physically. Looking back - I know it was because of the meds. Then - I started to cry - over everything - my feelings were hurt all the time and I couldn’t cope with any adversity. It dawned on me after over a month of this - that I was feeling EXACTLY like I did before I started treating my anxiety over twenty years ago.

So - I decided to go back on it - no big deal. Except in Japan it is. It is not something that doctors like you to have to take. My doctor, by the way, is amazing! I am so grateful for her (and her excellent English skills). But it is not a common practice to treat anxiety with medication and even after she prescribed my exact same medication she commented that maybe I would be able to stop taking it in a few months. No way - not happening - not making that mistake again. I am grateful that there is something that makes me feel like me again and I feel badly for anyone who goes through anxiety without anything to help them.

So - why did I cancel my blog? Because I was not myself. And now I am! I hope some of you will continue to read along on this crazy adventure that Mark and I are on!

Much love,

Kim