What day is it? I’ve been saying this out loud and to myself so regularly, that it is starting to feel like my personal mantra. Life has been hectic lately. Not bad hectic, just four kids, multiple jobs, and a wedding hectic! If I’m being honest, most of August has been a blur.
Today {Thursday, I think}, I rushed my girls to gymnastics after plowing through homework and feeding them frozen pizza in the hour block of time between school and practice. Guess what? They didn’t have practice! I live and die by my Google calendar, it’s basically the GPS of my life. If my calendar says I need to be somewhere, then that’s where I go! Unfortunately, this only works if I input the correct schedule – Thursday and Friday are NOT the same thing. Exasperated that I was pulling my hair out tense rushing through math homework just minutes earlier for no reason, I called my fiancé to inform him that he could not work extra jobs in the evenings if I start working full-time. As I was lamenting to him, my girls spotted their dad [my ex-husband] outside the ice cream shop. I pulled in so they could say hi and they quickly convinced him to buy them milkshakes. Suddenly a familiar voice came through my car speakers and said, “who are the girls talking to?” I forgot I was on the phone!
It’s like my brain is so overloaded that it jumps from whatever is right in front of me, with no memory of what was happening in the previous moment. That’s fine, right? Everything’s fine…
I had my bi-weekly counseling appointment this morning, and my psychologist confirmed that I am, in fact, doing okay. We were discussing the events of the past few weeks, running through the reasons I’ve been stressed and a bit snippy with my loved ones (sorry, future hubby), when I had a total lightbulb moment. In the midst of discussing unexpected appliance breakdowns, an unplanned visit from Aunt Flo while Shipt shopping, the logistics of four kids in school and sports, and my T-minus 16 days wedding…I realized that it’s perfectly reasonable to be stressed! If you’ve ever dealt with an anxiety disorder, you may get where I’m coming from with this.
After years of therapy and working to manage my mental health issues, I’ve seen some major progress lately. It is much easier for me to be self-critical than to notice when I’m doing something well, so it was shocking when I realized how far I’ve come. Once I was able to accept that my hard work was paying off, I developed a fear of backsliding. So, with everything that’s been going on, I’ve been afraid to give myself permission to be stressed. I may not know what day it is, but I now know for sure that my BPD, anxiety, and depression have taken a backseat to normal stress, and I’m pretty damn satisfied with that!
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