Skitty scared the crap out of me today

[AmyMyBlueFront]

DON'T be afraid,or embarrassed,or paranoid about posting ANYTHING on this fantastic forum!
We aren't only here for our fids,but for each other,thats what makes this community so awesome.
I have had a few "non birdie related" issues and posting about them,to me,has been very therapeutic .

A few years back,I had a nightmare,that still creeps into my mind from time to time.
Amy was on my hand,or arm,and for some odd reason,she took a piece of meat from me. I was in my bedroom,and I back handed her ( I have NEVER hit that girl..EVER!) and she flew off my hand,her head was sideways,and bent down..like she had a broken neck!
She flew in circles for a moment,and said "Why Daddy??WHY?????" and fell to the floor...dead :15::15:
I bolted up in bed...sweating profusely and shaking uncontrollably.
I rushed to her house with my flash light ( it was like 2am) and shined it in her house. There she was,on her nite-nite perch. When she saw me she went "huh??..huh???" The poor girl didn't know what was going on with me.
I opened her front door and stuck my hand in ( I haven't done that in years,coz she is very protective of her house) and took her out,holding her close with tears running down my face :15::15:
It gives me the chills and goose bumps just thinking about it still!


Jim

 

[Skittys_Daddy]

I have had nightmares before involving Skitty, I'm not sure what leads us to have these subconscious and disturbing dreams. Maybe its cause we are so attached to our fids that we fear the worst and it invades our subconscious and realizes those fears, who knows. But I wish it would stop.

I hate having to rely on a heavy duty anti-psychotic to control the thoughts. I don't like the way it makes me feel. I become senseless and feel nothing. So often times I just suffer through it and am really trying to find other ways of coping.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

I have had nightmares before involving Skitty, I'm not sure what leads us to have these subconscious and disturbing dreams. Maybe its cause we are so attached to our fids that we fear the worst and it invades our subconscious and realizes those fears, who knows. But I wish it would stop.

I hate having to rely on a heavy duty anti-psychotic to control the thoughts. I don't like the way it makes me feel. I become senseless and feel nothing. So often times I just suffer through it and am really trying to find other ways of coping.

I understand completely and I wish I had an answer,to help you cope. If I did,I wouldn't be a trucker I guess

Just try and remember..this forum is a fantastic place,with very compassionate people,for their fids as well as for other members fids,AND their parronts :60:
"WE" can,and DO,help each other out,whenever possible. This place is not only a forum,or community..it IS however,FAMILY!

Jim

 

[YoYo]

That does sound scary. Thank god he's okay.

 

[EllenD]

I can relate wholeheartedly with what you're going through, I don't have OCD but rather ADHD. I'm 37 now and I always knew something was wrong with me, but my mom was in complete denial about it (probably embarrassed about it in my opinion), she is still in denial about it even after I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist! My grades were good, I was good at sports, a good musician, good writer, so no teachers ever helped (my mom was the elementary art teacher in the same school district ). I compensated for the disorder for literally decades until I was diagnosed with cervical cancer, then I just decided to take control of my own health. Long overdue.

My problem is that I have trouble paying attention to detail, any details at all, and as a result I make stupid mistakes, forget things (I have the long-term memory of an elephant but absolutely zero short-term memory), and on the flip side I get so worked up when things do go wrong or something happens that I have trouble calming down. I won't sleep for days, I don't eat, all I do is worry about it and eventually I'll become nauseous and I'll throw up. I had a complete hysterectomy when I was 32 and they took both ovaries, so I immediately went into post-surgical menopause, and the lack of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone makes ADHD a lot worse. Mostly the attention part, thank God because I couldn't take getting any more worked up about things. I'm medicated (helped me so much, which makes no sense since I take stimulants and they calm me down and allow me to sleep, go figure) and I go every week to counseling and to group therapy twice a month. I don't know what's worse, the early menopause (hormone replacement therapy only helps so much), the ADHD, or the disease of addiction, which is much harder to deal with when it's influenced by the ADHD. Somehow I'm doing well, I've been on the upswing for almost 2 years now, but it's a daily struggle. Today was a good day so that's about all I can control until I wake up tomorrow.

My pets are a godsend and the only reason I got through the cancer. When I thought I was going to lose my house because I couldn't work for an extended period of time, I thought I was going to lose my dogs, my birds, and have no one. I was in bad shape while going through that, and a lot of people didn't understand why I was so concerned about my pets when I needed to be concerned about myself. That made me angry every time it came up. Pets are used as emotional support animals for a reason.

I had two of the episodes just like you had, one with my dog just after I got sick and the other with my green cheek conure about 6 months ago. With my pug I came home from work around 8:30, I had worked from 2:00 to 8:00 that day and had a late customer. It was hard to concentrate at work at that point, all I could think about was that I was going to lose everything I had, lose my pets, lose my house, become horribly sick, suffer, then die. And I worried and worried and worried about it. So I came home, walked in the front door, and my cattle dog greeted me at the door like always, my pug was asleep on the couch like always. I walked into the kitchen and yelled for him to come get his dinner, no response. I said hello to my Quaker parrot, then my budgies, and yelled again for my pug to come eat his dinner, and no response. I got a chill that went over my entire body. He was 13 at the time so I freaked out. I ran into the living room and I actually shook him and he still didn't move! I screamed "Jaeger! Oh no, not now Jaeger!" and I just started balling my eyes out as I fell to my knees. Then he lifted his head up and yawned, then looked at me like "Why did you wake me up?" He was in such a deep sleep I was sure he was dead, I yelled 3 times for him and literally shook him! I was a wreck that night and the next day I was afraid to go home. I didn't want to open the door and find him like that again. It was a struggle for the next week or so, I couldn't sleep, when I did I dreamt that he had actually died, it was all I thought about all day at work, and when I would forget about it for a while, the minute I remembered I would get a chill and something like an electric shock down my body. And I was afraid to go home. I finally did get over it or at least I stopped being consumed by it, but it took time. I think it brought me much closer to my pug in the last year of his life, but wouldn't you know that when he died a year later at almost 15 years old, I found him dead on the couch when I came home from work one night. I shook him and shook him, but this time he was stiff and cold. I was expecting him to pass away soon, he was old, but you're never prepared. But having him die that way and finding him that way made it a little less traumatic, believe it or not. I had obsessed over it so much that when it did actually happen exactly the same way it was like I had already experienced that moment and it lessened the blow.

Everyone is different and I can't tell you what will help you, but just know that what you're feeling isn't irrational at all, you love your bird very much, he's your family, and the way that you're reacting to the thought of losing him is completely normal. It's a rational fear, not only because you love your bird so much and the thought of losing him is horrifyingly painful, but because it's something that is out of your control. What you can do is tell yourself "He's here now, he's fine, he's healthy, and he loves me". And what you can control is making the most of your life with him every day.

"Dance like nobody's watching..."

 

[Skittys_Daddy]

I REALLY appreciate your post EllenD.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar in 1992, despite being treated for it for several years prior- they 'hesitated' to label it because of my age- but the symptoms were so prevalent it was a no-brainer. I had originally been misdiagnosed with ADHD (because the illnesses share so many of the same symptoms) but that treatment had the opposite effect and as a result ruling that disease out. I did however respond to Bipolar treatment though it wasn't until about eight or nine years ago I really began to see major improvements due in part to a medicine change that has been a godsend. I had always had a med compliance issue over the years (turns out VERY common among people with BPD) and the medication I was put on requires compliance to work as well as prevent a major life-threatening reaction. So this is where having Skitty has been such a blessing. I am forced to be compliant and pro-active because I need to care for him. Truth is, I don't really give a crap about me and I never have. But Skitty on the other hand is my whole world.

I am also what you call "high functioning" bipolar, which to the ignorant in society says I'm not really sick. But truth is, while when properly medicated my symptoms are still there, just not as paralyzing as they originally were. But with enough stress, bipolar cycling is triggered, hence why its a disability rendering me unable to work. Its like you have to walk on eggshells. If your stress level crosses a certain point, you start a downward spiral, so keeping stress and obsessive thinking in check is so very important along with med compliance. Ironically, my BPD is much better managed currently than my OCD. Which one aggravates which the most is anyones guess. I do help people with their computers in my spare time but that is mostly over the phone or occasionally visiting them, but its really more of a hobby than a job.

I guess one of the reasons I panic so much is because of how central Skitty is to my day. I am home like 98% of the time. The only time I really leave the house is to go to appts (never more than a few hours) or go shopping a few times a week (again, no more than a few hours) aside from that there is the occasional walk for exercise but that doesn't happen in winter in Maine. lol.

When I am home, Skitty is out of the cage (unless I am sleeping, he is sleeping or someone comes over- which is rare and never for very long-I'm not one for company-I don't like other people in my apt, so I relate to Skittles in that. lol) Patience has also always been an issue for me, but that has changed since getting Skittles. He has not only taught me patience but also how to 'loosen up' as far as housework goes. There was a time where having clutter around the house would put me into a deep depression. That's no longer the case- it takes a lot more clutter than it used too.

Skittles follows me EVERYWHERE, I cannot be out of his line of sight. He also spends at LEAST a total of 2-3hrs a day just cuddling inside my shirt. Losing him would completely devastate me and truthfully, likely take away my will to live, so my fears of such are rational and real.

While most people who replied may not necessarily have had any additional ideas for me, the fact that so many have such identical issues or fears not only comforts me in not feeling alone but also provides me with a therapeutic venue in which to discuss that. It IS very helpful just knowing others have the struggles and make it through. It's terrible to feel you are all alone in something and I am so grateful not be in that.

 

[EllenD]

I hear that! Mental health issues are such a taboo kind of thing to talk about for a lot of people, and the truth is that unless you have experienced them yourself or someone very close to you has, you cannot possibly begin to understand them. And honestly, since they can't be seen under a microscope or on a ELISA test a lot of people don't think they even exist, even a lot of doctors. This is why it takes so long to properly diagnose mental illnesses, let alone figure out the way to properly treat them. It's so frustrating when you feel like everyone thinks you're making an illness up or that you're just lazy, or whatever it is that they think. I got a lot of slack because I hadn't been diagnosed with ADHD as a kid or even a young adult...Well no, probably not since I myself wasn't really aware of what was wrong with me. I had been compensating for it for so long that I literally burned myself out. Then I was diagnosed with cancer, and even though it was only stage one I still had to deal with it, I had a total hysterectomy, and dome people, particularly a few people at my prior place of work, even thought that the cancer wasn't a big deal. My former supervisor, who was demoted after the fact anyway because he is basically very mentally ill himself (horrible narcissistic personality disorder to the point of getting angry when I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony 3 years ago, I couldn't talk about it when people asked me, I had met Paul McCartney, Patti Smith, and a bunch of my heroes and he couldn't stand that I had done this and he didn't, such a jerk). He actually got mad when I took my normally scheduled day off so that I could have radiation treatments done. He thought everyone should work 80 hours a week to make him more money, and my cancer inconvenienced him very much, poor guy. He's a special example because he's just a jerk to everyone all the time, but I still felt like I was being punished for something that wasn't my fault and that was making me sick to begin with. I was freaking working while doing treatments and he didn't think I should take my day off...Uhg. People just don't get it sometimes, and now I don't care if they do. They don't need to get it, they just need to respect it.

I totally understand why you would get really upset about losing Skittles, that should make sense to anyone. So your fear is not irrational at all, I feel the same way about my birds too, all my pets. If I lost any of them I don't know what would fill that hole. They get me through my day, even when things are really horrible.

There are a lot of people in this world that suffer from a lot of different problems. So we're never alone, I just wish the lucky ones that don't have experience with mental illnesses or addiction (that's a whole other issue that is treated the same way) would at least respect the fact that others have real problems. Like I said, they don't have to understand the problems, they just need to acknowledge that they exist.

"Dance like nobody's watching..."

 

[Kentuckienne]

We all have a thing, just some of the things get labeled as "normal" when enough people have them. But they don't always make sense. For example, it's considered normal to be obsessed with earning more money than you could ever spend in a lifetime, or collect a hundred vintage cars, or marry three trophy wives/husbands, or shoot an elephant, or run for president, you get the idea. If Type A mastermind spent a week in a Buddhist monastery, they'd probably be climbing the walls. Rant and rave about it on Twitter and get a million followers, how funny! But put a sensitive, mindful person in corporate land for a week, and if they stress out people say what a wuss. We all have one life, and it sounds like you've figured out how to keep yours afloat. Having a name for a diagnosis only helps for getting the best medication! But if Skittles keeps you going, heck, get three more. Have somebody to take care of, keep you going, in case something does happen to Skittie some day. You love him, he loves you, it's all good.