It has been a tough couple of days. Still not sleeping great and the sweats are still making life miserable... even with the room getting cooler and cooler. I finally couldn't take it anymore yesterday and gave Dr. T a call. She agreed that I shouldn't stay on the birth control right now. So this morning was my first day without it. Of course, it will probaby take a few days (lord help me if it is weeks) for it to work its way out of my system.

I think today's topic is how to forgive yourself when you take a step back. I have been seeing Dr. Tompkins for just over a year and there are days, like yesterday, where keeping positive becomes just impossible. Let's face it... life just gets hard! Lack of sleep, pain levels, stress with family, friends, work... the tears just start flowing and it can be hard to get them to stop. So don't!

Let the tears flow. They are so healing. Who said you aren't allowed to feel sorry for yourself? I know there are a million people out there who have it a lot worse than we do but sometimes it is all about you!! You are hurting, you are feeling unsupported, you are exhausted... so today, feel sorry for you.

Today is the day where diets be damned!! Today is the day where eating properly isn't important!! Today is the day for pajamas, hot tea, a good book or tear jerker movie. Go ahead and call in sick to work!! Take today and cry, rant, feel sorry for yourself. But then be done!

That's all you get for right now... one day! But if you give yourself that one day that is all you are going to need for awhile! When we don't try to hide our feelings or pretend we are okay, when we give ourselves permission to just feel sorry for ourselves then we get it out of our systems. The next day you will wake up feeling enlightened.

The important thing the day after a day like this is to just forget it. Don't dwell, let it go, pretend it didn't happen. If you snipped, or lost your cool with people, let them know why. Don't ever be too big to apologize. We are only human and we do have our moments. But if you've built that support team as I suggested, you won't have to do too much of that either.

So going a little off topic, Dr. Tompkins has added another vitamin to my regime. I am taking folic acid with dinner every night now. Dr. Tompkins has been learning that keeping folic levels high encourage better sleeping patterns. So I am just taking the Life Brand (Shoppers Drug Mart) Folic Acid, 1mg. I take one at dinner for this week and increase to 2 next week. I have to admit, it is helping. I am feeling sleepier earlier, now if we could just get the night sweats under control maybe I would see that it is going to help me sleep better throughout the night.