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Familyn, 2270 Clovis Avenue, Clovis, CA (2025)

03/02/2023

How do I know that I have a problem.
I always knew there was a problem, I just thought it was everyone else but not me. If I had a problem, it was your problem. Especially if your problems were multiple and distracted me from mine.
All I knew was the trouble how to create them and run away from them before running to a set of another variety or brand. Another one in my broken budget. Issues that I could capitalize on or profit from.
That's when I realized there was a real problem when I ran out of money to give away and didn't know where to find more. It was only in those briefest moments that I ever stopped and asked myself if it was booze, drugs or substances.

03/01/2023

How sobriety changed my dating life.
Because alcohol damages the frontal lobe of the brain—the part responsible for judgment—bad decisions can often be good ones. I'm not saying that kissing anyone is always bad, but for me at the time it was a bad choice.
Alcohol itself is heavily associated with instant gratification. It follows from this that the more and more often we drink, the more we live in the present - to hell with the consequences.
I learned that the consequences are very real. I no longer wanted to date people who were completely unsuitable for me, just because I found situations interesting, exciting, or exciting.

02/28/2023

I tried the 12 step program, but what about other alternative/non-traditional treatment options?
As a member of a 12-step program, as well as one who spent time at a treatment facility for alcohol and drug use, I've too often heard it suggested or even explicitly stated that these are the only ways to truly treat substance abuse.
While I am by no means knocking treatment facilities or 12-step programs (I'm actually an advocate of and a believer in both), I find it irresponsible for people to claim there’s only one narrow path to sobriety.
It is my opinion that these people are speaking from their personal experience and what they'd be better served to say is rehabilitation centers and 12-step programs are what worked for them. However, this doesn't mean they’re the ONLY ways to successfully treat addiction and substance abuse.

02/27/2023

The bottom: my lowest points in the addiction that led me to recovery.
This is the point where every alcoholic or drug addict hits sooner or later. One that causes them so much suffering and stress that they are finally convinced that they can no longer continue to drink and use.
One that allows them to accept that they have only two choices: stop using or let their lives continue to fall apart quickly as they hurt the people who love them the most, or worse, they die.
I wish I could tell you that it only took me one hit to rock bottom to learn my lesson and convince myself to give up drugs and alcohol once and for all.
However, this did not happen. It took several irreconcilable losses of various kinds and several years of reflection on them before I was finally able to admit to myself and to another that I was powerless over alcohol and drugs.

02/23/2023

My experience of early recovery and sobriety.
My first time getting clean and sober involved bouncing off a rock bottom almost entirely of my own making. Some of the circumstances were out of my control and doing, mixed in with being blamed for the one thing I ironically didn't do to a person I loved with all my heart back then and was trying to mend things with relationship-wise.
I woke up to a text from her saying she never wanted to see or talk to me again, as she blamed me for spreading a recent rumor about her I hadn't. I knew it didn't matter. After all the lies and denial I brought home to her during 4 years of my addiction, she’d never believe me.

02/22/2023

A day in my life with ADHD.
For years, I’ve felt a secret sense of embarrassment in many areas of my life, and this embarrassment surfaces whenever I reveal to someone that I have never been able to consistently stick to a routine.
I’m not aiming to evade the topic of this post. Rather, I want to express how varied my days are and how my recent ADHD diagnosis at the age of 41 is helping me understand my patterns -- or lack thereof -- in a more self-compassionate light.
Some of you living with ADHD may find the following scenarios familiar.
One day I may wake up from my restorative sleep, ready to take on the world. I look at my to-do list, drink coffee, and even find the motivation to go for a walk. Inevitably, I think to myself, “I’m going to kick my ass today! I have to do this every day!”

02/21/2023

How an Instagram comment led to my ADHD diagnosis.
I am one of the many women who was not diagnosed with ADHD until adulthood: I was diagnosed just 2 weeks after I turned 41 earlier this year. As you may know, a later diagnosis does not mean that I recently "caught" ADHD or that I didn't have it until my 40s. Rather, I've lived with it all my life, but didn't know about it until recently.

Many people my age only realize their ADHD diagnosis after their child is examined—they recognize their own symptoms when they listen to questions asked by their child's primary care physician. I'm child free, so that's not how I discovered my ADHD.
Reader, it was much more mundane. It was an Instagram comment that got me into questions.
In early March 2021, I posted a photo of my home office with a long caption describing how much I look like a toddler taking every toy out of the box and then playing with something else entirely.I was talking about starting 10 projects and finishing one. About how I can ruin a freshly cleaned room by piling up a bunch of work organized in a way that only I can understand. Something like that.
My friend E. commented, “Have you been tested for ADHD? "Because it sounds like a textbook case!"

02/20/2023

How therapy helps me cope with ADHD.
Many of the books I've read recently highlight how people living with ADHD can dramatically improve their relationships, workflow, and even self-esteem by working with therapists (and coaches) who specialize in ADHD.
I am a big believer in talking therapy in general: I can say without a doubt that the sessions with my therapist have helped me understand and effectively process almost every major ups and downs of my personal and professional life over the past decade. Although my ADHD diagnosis wasn't made until spring 2021, my therapist has been helping me with issues related to my poor executive functioning since day one.

02/17/2023

How does my ADHD affect my business?
The Avid Bookshop planning process felt different. The challenges I faced were invigorating, and I loved how much I was learning. When I recount my business’s origin story, I highlight the fact that I’ve always had a variety of interests and that Avid was the perfect way for me to explore all of them without having to commit to just one.
Now that I have an ADHD diagnosis, it seems obvious in hindsight that my brain chemistry has played a role in my career decisions since day one. My therapist told me early on that a significant percentage of entrepreneurs have ADHD. I’ve since read this in many books and articles about the disorder.

02/16/2023

What I wish people knew about ADHD.
As I am still studying this disorder and seeing in real time how it manifests itself in me depending on the time of day (and the time of year, and the time of the month, and the time of my last full night's sleep), there is a LOT that I want to share.
Those of you living with ADHD can probably understand why I came up with a list of things; there was not a single topic that I could even consider, let alone focus on.
I would like people to know that my tendency to interrupt is due to the fact that I am very interested in our conversation, and not because I don't care what they say.
I would like people to know that even successful people with ADHD suffer from their symptoms every single day.
I want people to know that how I end up spending my time doesn't necessarily reflect my priorities. For example, I may be late for a long-awaited meeting with friends this afternoon because I completed about 8,000 low-priority tasks before my ever-increasing stress from deadlines forced me to open this document.

02/15/2023

The doctors chalked it up to "back pain," but I knew something was wrong.
It was a strange burning pain right between the shoulder blades. I felt it for about a year, but the doctors in Rock Springs brushed it off. “Everyone has back pain,” they said, “do these exercises and you will feel better.” But when the pain in the sternum and skull appeared, I realized that I needed to look for help somewhere. When I visited an orthopedic surgeon, he did an MRI of my spine and sternum, and then immediately ordered a biopsy. They drilled a hole in my sternum and said, "Go home, we'll call."
A few days later, the surgeon called and said to wait for the oncologist's call. She called. Cancer! Be prepared to stay." Everything I worried about and imagined turned out to be true. I tried to be strong for my 5 year old and 3 year old children, but I couldn't stop crying. I lived in a nightmare.
The details of that day—the journey, the children, the blessings of friends, and the first contact with the doctors—are ingrained in my memory and become part of our family lore. . Multiple myeloma is such a crazy disease, it affects everyone in different ways that you never know what you're going to get. However, the only thing I can control is my worldview. I choose to live each day to the fullest, read this book, take this journey, hold this child, live my life.

02/14/2023

What surprised me the most about my journey with cancer.
Before I was diagnosed with cancer, I lived under the impression that all types of cancer were treated the same way, that treatment lasted a limited time and then ended. You either responded to treatment or you didn't. If you answered, you were in remission. If you hadn't answered, you would have died. I was surprised to learn that treatment outcomes are far from an either/or equation.

02/13/2023

Trust the treatment and live with the side effects.
The path to myeloma treatment is different for everyone, including myself, but I find sharing experiences helpful and comforting. This stimulates conversations with doctors about questions and concerns.
Myeloma patients usually try several regimens along the way, and I am no different. Over the course of 23 years, in addition to numerous radiation procedures, I underwent nine different types of chemotherapy.
After 5 months without progress, the oncologist recommended autologous stem cell transplantation. We used a different type of chemotherapy for this process. It killed my bone marrow. Because of what it does and how you get it, there are extreme side effects. Nausea, diarrhea, and fatigue to the point where I couldn't get out of bed were constant during the 30 days I was in the hospital. For a year after the transplant, I vomited almost every day. I was grateful for my husband's flexible work. He could return home in the blink of an eye to take care of the children when things went wrong.

02/10/2023

Complementary Therapies Help Me Manage Pain.
So many people want to weigh their minds when you're diagnosed with cancer. They all want to help by providing you with a miracle cure or treatment.
When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, I was bombarded with people wanting to tell me about miracle cures they had read about in an article or heard from a friend.
In fact, sometimes it became a bone of contention for people who thought their way was the best and got upset if I didn't try it. Their intentions were good. They wanted to help. But they didn't realize how overwhelming it was. I had to find what works best for me.

02/08/2023

Communication has been the key to my multiple myeloma treatment and my career.
When I talk to other people with multiple myeloma, almost everyone thinks about what to do with work. I think this is probably very common for all cancer patients, but since myeloma can be treated for many years, patients are willing - and must - work, even if it can be extremely difficult.
Cancer was very expensive - even with my husband's excellent insurance - so we relied on credit for several years as we traveled to Denver from Rock Springs, Wyoming for my bone marrow transplant. It was hard to stick to the budget as we were trying to survive every month, so we made some bad financial decisions during that time.

02/07/2023

What I wish people knew about my myeloma diagnosis.
One thing that is common with myeloma patients is persistent pain, a pain that comes from inside the bones, so unless it has begun to physically alter the bone somehow, no one would necessarily know we are in pain. With myeloma we often have to convince our doctors that we are in pain and something new is happening.

It can be hard to differentiate between pain coming from inside my bones and muscle pain, both of which can indicate a problem. Because of this I second guess myself. A lot. I once had a tumor pressing down on my eyeball, as well into my brain, that I didn’t say anything for about a year even though my droopy eye just kept getting droopier because I just didn’t know if it was anything to be worried about.

02/06/2023

After 24 years with multiple myeloma, I have a lot to be thankful for.
I want to be grateful. I am thankful. Gratitude restores the soul. It helps us get rid of our own selfishness. This gives us a place to count all the blessings we've been ignoring. Holidays can take us out of this box of selfishness and remind us of what is truly given to us and how grateful we should be.
Holidays can be tough, like a multiple myeloma patient. Often we don't look sick but feel terrible, or we feel good and look sick. So it's better to just ask how we feel and not make any assumptions about our condition.

02/03/2023

What I wish people knew about familial hypercholesterolemia.
"I have very high cholesterol without medication."

This discovery, which I have been making for years, is usually followed by answers like this:

“Oh, this must be difficult. You have to be *so* careful about what you eat!"
“My (brother/friend/colleague) also has high cholesterol, but…”
“If you are eating (vegan/keto/paleo/modern diet) and exercising daily, you may be off these medications. I did! And try taking (insert specific vitamin or supplement here).”

Familyn

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