How do you teach it if you don't know it?

   How is is possible to have so many feelings at once?  And how do I figure out how to manage them and be in control instead of letting my bad coping techniques, eating and shopping, ruin my health and our bank account?  That is the mountain I find myself facing and most days instead of starting the climb I grab a donut, hope on Jane.com and take a few steps backward.  Ugh!!
   So who am I and what is conspiring to land me at the base of this mountain.  I am a 35 year old stay home mom with a wonderful husband and two darling daughters, ages 6 and almost 9.  My older daughter was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome when she was 3 years old and in many ways that has defined a our lives for the last 6 years.  I am also a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints where I hold a spiritually rewarding but very time consuming and stressful church calling, the PTA President and my daughters school, a first time training triathlete, a friend, a daughter, a pop culture nerd, a reader and a lover of sleeping in!  I faced mental/emotional struggles in my early teem years when I faced anxiety about school, so much that I missed most of my seventh grade year.  Looking back I wonder if I share my daughters diagnosis with more emphasis on my anxiety than her rage.  Anxiety and depression have followed me since that seventh grade year, sometimes more in the shadows than other times.  Presently they both seem to be sitting right on center stage and I am realizing more and more that despite the medications I am on for them I suck at handling them.  As I have been trying to figure out how to fix that the thought keeps coming to me to get my feelings out by writing.  And since I desperately want to get this down so I can teach my girls good coping mechanisms, I have decided to start this journey.
   And before I let myself get to stuck in the whining and complaining that I fear this is becoming I want to put it out there that I do have an amazing life!  I love my husband and my kids and we have been blessed beyond measure!  All the more reason I want to nip this in the bud and enjoy the life I have!!