The life of a Dutch Scrapper

When you have a child suffering from depression.

This might be the hardest post I ever had written and I have doubted to post it or not, but it has been on my mind sinds last week and I can’t shake it loose.

Last week Cory Swapp died. He was the son of Heidi and Eric Swapp. I have followed, as many of you Scrapbookers, Heidi's life for many years through her wonderful Scrapbook creations. We got to see a glimps of her as a mother and see their kids grow up. Hearing the news that her son Cory had died broke my heart for her as no mother should have to go through losing her child. Then I heard that he took his own life, and it hit even more home with me and it has been on my mind ever sinds. 

Anthony, my oldest son, is born on the 14th of April 1999, just like Heidi’s son Cory. And just like Cory Anthony suffers from depression. I never shared this openly with you because for me it was something that I was afraid of sharing. Because what if I shared my worst fear, would I jinx it? Also it is not something you can talk about with others as many people do not have a child with depression and they have no idea how to respond, so I kept it to myself, just like many moms do I guess. It also feels like you are failing as a parent to not be able to have a “happy” child. I now know I can’t help him think differently, he is “wired” a different way.

It started when he was 2,5 years old. It was the first time he said: “I want to die”. When he was 7/8 it was not:"I want to die" anymore but: "I am going to commit suicide". Horrible and frightning things to hear and it breaks your heart. You feel helpless and try anything to get that thought out of his mind. 

With Anthony a lot of this has to do with his Autism. I now know that when he is depressed he is overly stimmulated or has too much stress in his life, which can come from different things. As many of you long time readers know Anthony has not had a happy childhood as he has been having difficulties with schools from early on. He has been teased, hit by a teacher and switched multiple schools and therefor it was hard to make longterm friends. Also the kids in his school never lived nearby to get together after school, so he feels alone a lot of the time and that hasn't changed much. And when he has a friend he finds it hard to maintane them due to lack of social ability due to his Autism. My heart often breaks in a million pieces when he expresses his loneliness. He still talks about killing himself when he is 18, cause what is the use of a shitty life? I always tell him that he would hurt me so much if he would do this, but I know really well in my gut that if he is at a point in his life where everything is really too much to handle it might happen. This has always been my biggest fear from early on. I have talked with his Psychiater about it and he said it is common with kids with Autism to be negative and more to the depressed side. Anthony's medication didn't help either, in fact it made the negativity and depression worse. Since we stopped his medication and turned to essential oils to support him we have seen a change in him for the better. He is less negative and less depressed, more open en more positive.

I myself have been depressed on and off from the age of 19, but only once did I thought about ending my life but never to the intent of actually doing it, because thinking about my parents and how they would feel made me stop thinking about it all together. Then I had a post-partem depression after Anthony was born but I found out years later that this had been it after a friend of mine had a post-partnem depression. I recognized myselve in her and put two and two together. In the years to follow I have had periods where I felt depressed, but never knew it was a depression until a few years ago a psycologist told me that I was depressed and asked me if I ever felt this way before......uh yeah! Right now I am doing OK but I know I have it always lurking around the corner. 

For me it has helped to talk or write down my feelings or thoughts. To get rid of things that causes stress and to have some alone time now and then to get energized again. My oils have supported me as well to stay emotion balanced. I am a very positive person, I always know there is light at the end of the tunnel, I so wish my son would have this as well.

It is hard to have a child who sometimes can't see no other way then "out" and it takes a lot of parent to deal with this and stay calm and talk them through it. I am afraid sometimes to leave, go on a business trip because I am his “person”. I am his person when he is angry (not so fun), but also his person when he is sad, depressed to talk to. I am happy he still is expressing it, but still everytime I leave for a few days I am leaving happier when he is doing OK then when he is not. You are afraid to not be there, to not be able to talk to him or stop him when it does get to that point....if I think about it too much it can give me anxiety attacks. 

So yes my heart feels so heavy for the Swapp family as they are now living my worst fear. I want to ask you to hold them up in your prayers today as they say their final goodbye’s to their son Cory. And can I also ask you to hold up my son Anthony, that he will always see the light when everything seems dark. Thank you!

If you want to show your support to the Swapp family here is something you can do:

http://beckyhiggins.com/share-your-love-for-the-swapp-family/

or this:


I know that words of support after loosing someone means a lot, you feel lifted by the outpooring of love, even if they are strangers to you. So let's help lift their spirit and maybe also send a word of love to his siblings, they are hurting just as much.

Corinnexxx

Being a not so perfect mom of two teenagers.

I'll admit it, I am far from being a perfect mom. I even find it hard to be a mom to two boys. Always have as I do not like all that boys stuff. The screaming, fighting, roughness, playing with cars, etc is so not me. I want to do artistic stuff, play with dols, dress up, etc. But I got two boys so I had to deal with the boy stuff and I have. I am a supportive soccer mom for years now. I am an advocate for my boys, especially have been for Anthony and his school problems. From nature I was not someone to stick up for myselve, didn’t like arguments, let alone, fighting or such for what I believe in. But my kids made me the lioness I am today, simply because I had too, to stick up for their needs.

Today my boys are 16 and 12.....where did the time go.....I can get teary eyed looking at old video’s or photo’s. They both hit puberty.....I thought the 2-4 years old pre-puberty was bad, but I have a hard time dealing with real puberty. Kids now a days are different as the kids back in the days when I was young (God, now I feel super old). We didn’t had social media and that is what I think is part of the problem. My kids tend to have a third hand which is their phone or controller. I know I should be very stricked about the usage of their x-box, phone, ipad etc but I am not. I feel like I am fighting a lot with my kids, to be even heard. They do not listen to me, or when I say that they need to go to bed and shut off whatever they are doing, I always get the same answer: “One moment, I need to finish this”...never a : “Yes mom”. and then I have to repeat it 5 minutes, 10 minutes later to the point I get mad and start yelling....I do not want to be that mom, you know?! It somtimes makes me very sad.

It simply takes a lot of energy and fighting and I have enough of that in our every day life. So I feel like I am failing in this department. I want to be that mom that spends all her time and energy on her kids, but I am not. I want to be that mom that doesn’t yell at her kids, but I am not. I want to be that mom that takes time to do fun stuff with her kids on a regular basis, but I am not. I want to be that mom kids listen to, but I am for sure not that mom..... and I blame myself for it because I am not consistent enough, so they do not take me seriously. I want to take the time to focus on all of this, but I am not that mom that does that, which makes me feel even worse.

Am I really a bad mom? No, I do not think so. Could I be a better mom? Yes I do think so. I find it hard to balance every day life, work and family life, so one day I am that perfect mom and the next she is out of the window. How do other moms deal with this, I can’t be the only one....please tell me I am not the only one!

Corinnexxx

I am back!

To blogging that is! I have missed it so much! I had to make a couple of changes in my life to be able to get to blogging again, which is still one of my great passions. 

I recently made a whole new blog, in Dutch called www.corinnedelis.nl this is where I will do most of my blogging. But I will also start sharing more and more on here as well. Oh, so many things have changed in the last year, I do not even know where to begin. Well let's begin with the big news I shared today on my facebook and other blog:

I quit being a professional photographer!

My passion for photography has shifted to my passion for the essential oils from Young Living. Seriously who would have thought this one year ago? Certainly not me! But it happened, and as you know me, I always listen to my heart and my heart is telling me to introduce as many people as I can to these amazing and life changing oils. Because that is what they have done for my family and those close to me. The responds that I am getting is what's makes my heart sing. 

So this is it for today, I will be back soon to tell you what else changed this year and what my plans are for the future.

Corinnexxx

Things are slowly getting better

I haven't been blogging in for ages and I have had multiple people emailing me what's up and I promised a long overdue update, so here we go:

Lots of things have changed and many things are still the same. When I was done with all the therapy and outside help everything was clear to me what needed to change in order to get less stress. But in real life fixing things that have been going on for years is not so easily and quick as I hoped for. But knowing what is causing it is 100 times better then not knowing because now I can make plans to take small steps in getting things the way I want to have them. After DH's busy season started again and mine as well I finally made the decision to get a housekeeper and seriously I wish I have done that much sooner. It gives me so much rest as now I have more time to focus on the things I want to focus on, so one stress thing is down! I also am taking a bit more time to relax and just sit and read or watch a movie. One of the main reasons for doing this was that I went to a acupuncturist who told me I have no energy to work with, which is bad. I was going through on willpower instead on my own energy. Since then I took a lot more time to relax more and I have to say I am feeling a bit more less tired, especially in the evenings.

Next week I am seeing a designer who hopefully is going to make my new logo and website and such as this is something that is on my to do list for two years now and I simply never ever have time to do it myself so I have to let things done by someone else, something I find difficult as I am a perfectionist and want to be in control, but I have faith that she can pull it off the way I want it to be. Hopefully by the end of this year I have everything in order to make a fresh new start in 2014, because i have so many great plans :).

The kids are doing ok. Anthony hit puberty and wants to sleep in till 2.00!!! and has more mood swings which causes us to clash from time to time. Jadenn has had a grow spurt and is spending the summer holiday playing with his friend Mike. We went to Italy in June which was much needed and I seriously did nothing but relaxing, reading, eating and sleeping. 

The thing that still isn't going well is my weight. I try not to think about it too much but I really do not like the way I look right now, I feel like someone swallowed the real me, because this is not me. I have decided to buy running shoes tomorrow and start running, I just need to move more and sitting on my computer chair all day isn't helping much. I asked DH to run with me, so we shall see how it goes.

So this is where I am at right now. Working to get things better on a slow pace, excepting that it is on a slow pace and trusting in a new future for me and my family where there is more peace, joy and relaxations.....wish me luck on achieving this!

Corinnexxx

Life is a rollercoaster and I just went down....hard.

Sorry for not writing sooner, but like I said in my title for this post, I was going down....hard. Things were not going well with me for some time now and I thought it was because of my ADHD that I was having a burn-out. So I looked for help and contacted PSYQ. I thought I needed help with my ADHD and also had my medication looked at by a psychiatrist. After my intake, the psychologist told me I was battling a depression and asked me if I had felt like this before. Uhm "Yes, actually multiple times". She asked me if I was ever treated for any of those depressions. Uhm, "No". I also learned that I never take problems/situations and feelings that come with it serious, I always tend to make them sound less heavy. This way I was able to cope with everything and if that didn't help I ate the feelings away. So for years now I kept all my true feelings inside, unable to communicate, always thinking I needed to be the strong one and the one who would fix it all by herself. The depressions were a reaction of this behavior, because how long can you go on doing this without breaking? A few more things also came up and part of my recovery plan is to have talks once a week with a psychologist, see a psychiatrist for my medication(which I already did once and my Ritalin is much higher now and is working so much better for me at this point, but he still likes to bump it up a bit more in a few weeks from now) and I am having a personal organiser/coach help me with my business and household so in the end I will not always have the feeling I always have to be busy, maybe even have a day off once a week! 

So yeah, things are not going that well, but I can finally see that this is the right way to go for me and my family. I have hope that this will finally get me in balance.

I never cried this much and I never shared so much of my feelings with my friends like I have been doing the past few weeks and it feels actually good. It feels like I am going somewhere. The personal organiser helped me already with my office space and also gave me a kickstart to tackle the rest of the house(I am proud to say Anthony finally has a new room, Jadenn's room is in order and our bedroom as well). The rest will be done by the end of this year I think and it feels so much better already in our house :)

So yeah this is where I am in the rollercoaster of life, but the best thing is that once you have gone down, you need to get up :)

Corinnexxx

Cancer I hate you!

I have to get this of my chest as it feels like a heavy blanket on my shoulder bringing me down the last couple of weeks. A few weeks ago the 10 year old son of my friend was diagnosed with Leukimia. I can't share his name or anything else personal about them due to a personal situation in their life. My friend has had a very hard life with way to many hardship a person needs to endure in one lifetime and now this....It broke my heart when I heard it. They have started chemo right away and at first it was going ok, but right now they can't continue the chemo because he is too sick. He is losing weight at such a rapid pace that he now is like someone with severe anorexia. He is losing way too many proteins(normal level is around 30, his is 9) which is leaking away inside his body. Everything he eats comes out in seconds, he can't hold anything down. He is on a machine to watch his heart, as he is so weak. The doctors have no idea what it is he has or what to do about it so they can get him to become better so they can start with the chemo again, but they are searching high and low and are a very good support system to my friend and her family. Next to having cancer this little boy is also Autistic. He sees the world through the eyes of a 4-year old and he doesn't play with toys he just loves stuffed animals that are soft so he can cuddle with them. My friend tells me that the highlight of the day is when the mail arrives, he loves it. I am not sure right now in which direction this is going, but as right now it is not going well at all. We hope they find the answer of his sickness very soon so he has a higher change of getting better. Like I said I can't share any information about them online but if you want to help make a little boy feel a little bit better by sending him a postcard(he would love to receive post from abroad as well of that I am sure!)or whatever you want you can send it to me and I make sure it will be delivered to them.

You can email me at [email protected] for my address, thank you!

And that was not all. One of my moms best friends is ending her life by the end of this month. She has had cancer for years now and it is now come in a phase that she can't do anything at all, just lay in bed and feeling pain and she decided it was time. My mom is visiting her tomorrow to say her final goodbyes, which I now is so hard on my mom.

And ofcourse how can I forget my friend Marcia who is still undergoing chemotheraphy as we speak. She is done with Chemo in November and I pray that the cancer is all gone by then so she and her family can start healing again.

Please keep these families in your prayers.

Corinnexxx

Scraptastic October 2012!!!

Have I told you already that I will be teaching my self-portrait workshop at Scraptastic in Belgium on October 7th? No? Well I am doing my self-portrait workshop at Scraptastic in Belgium on October 7th!!! It is going to be so much fun to teach this workshop again. Next to learn you how to make good self-portraits I am also going to teach you some editing skills and give-away a mini-photoshoot during each class!!!

Next to me there are going to be so many AWESOME teachers from all around the world, the best of the best if you ask me. How about: Donna Downey, Birgit Koopsen, Lori Bucaria, Iris Babao Uy, Sharon Laakkonen, Teresa Collins, Anna Dabrowska, Ingvild Bolme and Tanya Watts!! If you haven't signed up yet you need to hurry, HURRY!! :). I always LOVED organizing my own scrapbooking weekends or attending ones as it was for me never about the workshops(although they were an awesome bonus for me), but it was time to connect with friends and time for my self doing creative stuff, always loved that about scrapbooking weekends. I can't wait to see some of my friends again, it has been too long!

There will also be lots of stands were you can shop the latest products, hell I think I might be buying some new stuff, I miss being creative!!!


Hope to see you there!!!!!

Corinnexxx 

ADHD again....

First of all thank you all so much for your sweet comments and emails, it really touched my heart!
This post is about a revelation I had a few weeks ago. I started reading on my i-Pad as I read really, really fast and have no more shelves to place all my books on. So after finishing another E-book I searched under the topic ADHD and stumbled on this book from Melissa Orlov:

It is also available in Dutch HERE.

She also has a website with lots of information and a forum which is called www.adhdmarriage.com

This book opened my eyes in a lot of ways. Not only about the relationship between me and my husband and the effect that ADHD has on our marriage, but also that me trying to change myself in order to create balance(remember I have been trying this for years now!) is totally the wrong way to go. It always ends up in failure.....no kidding!

She tells about a lot of things like she is writing about my life and I bet this goes for a lot of people who are married with a ADHD spouse and or have kids with ADHD. I truly recommend you to read this book if you are in the same position as I am it could change your married life. Not many may know this but a whole lot of marriages where ADHD is a part of everyday life are ending up in divorce. Communications problems, nagging, blaming, feeling like a failure, misunderstood, etc, etc is what can become between two spouses. I never talk about my marriage here to respect my DH but I can tell you that our marriage has been effected greatly by ADHD. I can see this now after reading this book. It makes me love my DH even more for sticking around for so long and not only dealing with my ADHD but also the ADHD/PDD-NOS of the kids(Jadenn just ADHD).

So in order to get some balance I am trying to take my meds every single day and I am going to see a ADHD coach that can teach me the skills that I need to cope with my ADHD.

If you are going to read the book let me know what you think about it!

Corinnexxx 

What can I say?

I got a message on this blog not to long ago asking me for an update as it been months since I posted something here. And it has been months, months of going down in the same downwards spiral that I have been in way too many times. I am ashamed to the bone to type here that I am fat again, that I almost gained it all again, just like I am ashamed to meet up with friends or go into the stores where people know me. I am still figuring out why I have the need to build this wall of fat around me. I think I figured a lot out already but how do I solve what has been broken for so long now? I did decide that I will not doing any diet anymore, it has never been about the food and starving myselve again and my body that is something I will never do again, no matter how good the results are. So I do not know what my next step is going to be, all I know is that I am not ready for it right now but that I also feel stuck again :(. People telling me to get help, although meant well hurt me because if it was that easy I would not be where I am right now and nobody else have to tell me I am fat again, trust me I am well aware no need to rub it in. So yes still trying hard to get a grip on life, hopefully one day I will all figure it out. The one good thing is that I got my hair and curls back :). Corinnexxx

Help! Catering gezocht!!!

Wie oh wie helpt mij uit de brand? Ik zit echt even met mijn handen in het haar. Zoals jullie weten heb ik in januari een trouwerij weggegeven aan een stel dat het echt verdiende. De winnaars waren Marcia en Dirk, lees hun verhaal hier . Alles had ik geregeld met verschillende bedrijven die belangeloos hieraan wilden meewerken. Nu op het laatste moment heeft de cateraar gemeld dat ze zich terugtrekt en niet aan dit huwelijk wil meewerken. Zoals je zult begrijpen kwam dit out of the blue en met een dusdanige reden dat ik behoorlijk boos was.

Nu heb ik al verschillende cateraars benaderd maar tot nu toe geen succes dus ik dacht ik doe hier een oproep en hoop dat jullie iemand weten die mij uit de brand kan helpen. Marcia en Dirk verdienen hetgeen wat hun is aangeboden dus daar ga ik dan ook voor of ik het uiteindelijk uit eigen zak moet betalen of niet.

Hetgeen wat ik dus nodig heb:
Catering(warm/koud buffet) voor 30 personen op zondag 29 april in Groet(N-H).

In ruil krijg je foto's die ik maak gedurende die dag die je mag gebruiken voor je website of reclame doeleinden.

Tevens komt er een reportage over dit huwelijk in Wit Wedding Magazine met foto's van de dag(geen idee welke foto's ze uiteindelijk gebruiken daar ga ik niet over) en zullen alle meewerkende bedrijven worden vermeld.

Wie oh wie helpt mij uit de brand?
Heb je als cateraar/bedrijf interesse om hieraan belangeloos mee te werken mail me dan op [email protected]

Corinnexxx