So I went out with some friends last night for some much needed kid-free, moms only time. It was refreshing, fun, and yummy. One of the things that was brought up is someone's friend has had an issue with aspartame. I thought, does she have PKU? Nope, but has issues anyway. So that got me thinking, and when I arrived home last night, I looked up aspatame poisoning and aspartame side effects. I first clicked on this site:

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html

So I have known for a while that asparatme isn't great for you. On Sweet N Low they have the warning label about it causing cancer in lab animals. But I talked myself into having it in Diet Dr. Pepper and other sodas, thinking that you have to ingest a ton of it to have an effect. And I do ingest a ton of it. I have allowed my kids to have it. I breastfeed while ingesting it. And I have written it off as a mild concern, like an occassional alcoholic beverage or cigarette. But last night, reading the side effects, and with a poster of depression symptoms fresh in my mind from seeing it in the pedi's office when I took Honey for a vaccine shot (we are on a delayed schedule for her, much like we were with Handsome), it hit me. Hard. HARD.

One of the side effects is severe depression. Another is anxiety. Another is irritability. Another is marked thinning or loss of hair. Another is gradual weight gain. Another is frequency of voiding. Another is increased craving for sweets. Another is tinnitus. Another is personality changes. Another is severe intolerance for noise. I have had problems with all of those for a while, some more than others, like losing more hair than seemed normal after having Honey. The sound of the three kids vocalizing at the same time makes me cringe and get very snappy quickly, which I then regret that I can't control my temper over normal noise. I have been having anxiety attacks, joke that I have a bladder the size of a pea, and feel like I am losing myself in a maze of bad moods, tiredness and unproductivity. I used to be the kid who would tear everything out of her closet and drawers and rearrange them on a Saturday afternoon for fun. I used to be tall and then, then gained weight in middle school when I started drinking Diet Coke, and kept gaining weight through high school while starting my day with a Diet Coke and a package of Saltines.

I stopped drinking soda after graduating high school, and the weight went down without increasing my exercising much. I did a lot of Snapple and water. I was able to exercise consistantly, had a lot of energy, and was doing well in school for the most part. When I went off to live on campus at a state school instead of at home going to community college, I started drinking Diet Dr. Pepper out of the vending machines because it was a drive to go get Snapple. I got hooked again on the caffeine, and the only time in the last 11 years when I have been able to stay away from it was when I was pregnant with Bubba and then nursing her. Then I started back on it after she weaned at 8 months, and for the past 7+ years, have been drinking it daily. I limited it while pregnant with Handsome and Honey, but still had it.

I never really removed the weight I gained with Bubba's pregnancy 8 years ago. I just added onto it, and then did the same after Handsome was born. I have not been stuck to a weight-removal plan or exercise schedule for more than a week in the past 11 years. After having Handsome and then again after having Honey, I lost weight due to mastitis, and then gained it back slowly. I have healthy veggies and fruits sitting in my fridge and I go for candy bars and granola bars and things made with high fructose corn syrup instead. I drink diet sodas because I don't like the sugary taste of regular soda, and yet I know I have read recently, and it makes sense, that aspartame affects your appetite more than regular sodas, and people who drink diet sodas ingest more calories overall than regular soda drinkers.

So knowing all that, and being in complete denial of that info, just shoving it into the category of "there are worse things to do to yourself than that," I have continued to drink DDP and rely on the caffeine. I ramped up my intake just recently due to a project we were working on and not getting a lot of sleep, and now I hear about, then research, the aspartame side effects and toxicity. It's all falling into place for me now after reading that site. I am not a hypochondriac per se, but I have been searching for a reason for the depression, something I can do other than antidepressants, and I knew I needed to stop relying on caffeine, but it wasn't until last night that I realized it's not just the caffeine. I didn't know you could have toxicity from the additives. I know it wasn't good, but I had no clue all the things it affected.

The past four years have been marked by depression, as was the time during and right after college. I gained weight starting during the semester I was asked to leave college the first time. It isn't just a coincidence that I was getting A's and was very friendly when I first got to college and then towards the end when I was spending several dollars a day on DDP from the vending machines, I was depressed, cutting myself, and screwing up virtually all my friendships. I thought it was just depression and the only thing I could do about it was to find the right antidepressant. I thought this time, as well as when Handsome was a newborn, it was post-partum depression and I would be doing the babies a disservice to take meds while breastfeeding. And yet I have been poisoning myself slowly with aspartame and writing it off as that everyone takes in toxins and this one is better than smoking or drinking or fried foods every day. I honestly believed it was better than coffee.

I feel like crap, physically and now with Mommy guilt that I knew better and ignored it. The depression made me tired, so I drank three DDP's and it gave me the energy to do stuff and feel like the depression lessened a little so I could be productive. The caffeine wears off mid-afternoon, and I am back to feeling down, not wanting to write, not wanting to clean, not wanting to do things that need to be done so that the next day or our finances or a friendship are better and less stressful. Then the eating comes into play, because the caffeine wearing off makes me not want to cook any of the healthy stuff I buy when I have the energy to go shopping, and the aspartame makes me want sweets and an easy fix.

So it finally hit me like a ton of bricks that it isn't about the caffeine. It isn't depression fueling my DDP addiction for energy. The aspartame I have been ingesting plays a huge part in all of it. It's all connected. It's the single thing that has been with me since college, and except for the time while pregnant with Bubba and then when breastfeeding her when I wasn't drinking it, so has the depression, or anxiety, or irritability. I think back now and see that the past few years have been very stressful, even as I try to regulate it or do pro-active things to make myself better, such as writing, which is where my heart lies. There hasn't been consistancy with anything other than drinking DDP and not having consistancy in anything else. There has finally been the "click" in my head, like a clock finally chimed with all the cogs in the right place.

I am going to be weaning after these sodas in the fridge are gone. Mower and I talked about it briefly last night, and he's cool with it (it's seemed like, in the past, one of us will decide to stop caffeine and the other gets pissed that no soda was bought because the other thinks it's not the right time for them, etc). The expense is something we have been discussing for a while. Each 12-pack costs about $3-$4 depending on if we catch it on sale. Each 12-pack only lasts a couple of days, maybe a little more if we are eating out and getting our soda at restaurants. At restaurants, we pay easily $1.50+ per soda. We easily drop $20 on soda a week, because we get some with caffeine and some without, and the kids drink some without caffeine. We do limit what they have, but they do drink it, too, which again I have ignored isn't good for them, especially since they have asthma and one of the side effects is aggravated respiratory allergies such as asthma.

I will try my best to chronicle this. I have doubts about that, because of my history of wanting to do something and not following through. What's kind of funny is that I asked for some prayers for help with my anxiety attacks recently at church, to direct me how to handle them or find the root, and half a week later, there's the click, the answer hitting me over the head.

I am very interested to find out how I feel over the next few days. I'm expecting a headache, and some tiredness. I think Mower and I are going to want to give in, and I'll have to think of ways to distract us from giving in. I have to think of the money we're saving more than the health benefits. Health benefits have not been a big motivator recently, unfortunately. But I hope they are the thing that we come to realize is much more important than an addiction to a food additive that has taken over our lives and made us be unbalanced in so many ways Even if I am just overreacting to this aspartame thing, getting off caffeine will be a great benefit and I'm sure there will be many improvements after the adjustment period.

I need to contact my wonderful friend Kristin and have her adjust the site--no more addiction if I can help it!