Tag: deal

My Child’s Big Transitions Hit Me Just As Hard

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I always imagined myself to be tough. I have dealt with a lot of changes in stride, no matter what the challenge was. I’ve been through depression and loss and moves and employment changes. I’ve fallen and gotten up and fallen and gotten up.

I thought I had finally gotten to a point where a lot of every day stress was behind me since I am a stay-at-home mom now. I’m not technically working so the regular employment stresses are gone. I have a loving relationship and pretty good kids. I have a great family who is always there when I need them.

I thought that a lot of the issues I’d have now would be things like potty training and breaking up fights. I thought I’d be struggling with finding myself again and readjusting to a new normal.

So all of this turned out to be true. The biggest thing that hit me though in the last few weeks is that when my kids go through a big transition, I go through it too.

My children are both entering a new phase in their lives. It’ll be a little scary for them and completely new. I thought that I’d be the rock and help them get through it. I’d planned for it so we wouldn’t be overwhelmed with a lot at once and even spread a few activities out so the kids had time to adjust.

Then the nightmares started. The constant anxiety started. I have been feeling like I’ve been standing on the edge of a breakdown for weeks. The problem was that I couldn’t put my finger on why. There isn’t anything happening that we haven’t been preparing for. There isn’t anything happening that I have not researched and asked fellow parents and other teachers about. I’ve been getting the kids prepared as well so hopefully, there will be less tears all around.

I guess I needed the support too. I didn’t know that. No one talks about how it affects you as a parent when your kids have a big change. No one talks about how debilitating it is when the anxiety hits you. It’s already so much that you’re trying to protect your kids 24 hours a day with the most basic things like stairs and table corners and tree branches and dogs. Now, the worries start on how you will protect them when they aren’t with you.

I thought I had it but I don’t think I do. I think I feel a total loss of control to the point where I’ve imagined telling my husband that I’ll homeschool my kids even though I know that that isn’t a real possibility for me because it’s not the best option for any of us. I’ve always been a control freak so this is really much harder for me than I thought it would be. But I didn’t realize it until today.

It’s crazy how much affects you when it comes to your kids. There is a lot I can handle but anything regarding these children is amplified. I want to make sure that they are safe no matter what.

I think the biggest thing I’m learning from this (besides that I will figure out how to deal with all of it) is that I’m not alone in feeling this. And that validation helps tremendously.

High Anxiety

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Anxiety. It’s one of the most normal and most difficult things to deal with. It can mess with your mind and really affect your overall well-being.

According to the dictionary, anxiety is “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.”

I don’t think I recognized how much anxiety I experienced when I was younger. And it got worse as I got older. I’d sit with all of these negative thoughts in my head without a way to move past them.

It’s not just me either. My sisters and I frequently discuss the anxiety we feel on a daily basis. We discuss what is triggering it and how to deal with it. I believe as we get older, we are more aware of the consequences of our actions and the uncertainty that surrounds making the choices we do.

I find that the best way for me to deal with it immediately is to breathe. I need to get rid of the butterflies and nervousness that is sitting in my stomach. Then, I write. I write about what I’m feeling until it’s out of me. Finding a solution sometimes isn’t the goal. The goal is to realize that no matter what I’m feeling that it will work out. Sometimes, we just have to wait out what we are feeling anxious about. If it’s something I can resolve immediately, I work on it but a lot of times, it’s just the fear of the unknown.

We ave to find a way to trust that we will be okay. There will always be a way to figure out how to feel better. It’s just a matter of not succumbing to the emotions at the moment and feeling despair. You have to just realize that the immediate feeling isn’t what you will be feeling for the rest of your life. It will pass. You just need to find a way to navigate through it.

It won’t be easy especially when you’re in the middle of an anxiety attack. Find your support. Find your breath. Find a way to get to the other side of it.

The Next Step

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Last week, I wrote about mental health and yesterday, I mentioned how it’s important to be able to cope with the feelings that you might be having.

I also wanted to dedicate an article to what the next step is.

If you don’t feel like you figured out ways to cope and actually feel better, it might be time to seek help. There is nothing wrong with needing professional help. As I mentioned before, if you are willing to see a doctor for your body, why would you feel bad about seeing a doctor for your mind? It is a part of who we are and it also needs to be taken care of.

So what’s the next step?

When I finally admitted that I needed help, I literally just got on the phone with my insurance company. A lot of insurance companies have a phone number for mental health on the back of their card. And when I say I got on the phone with the company, I mean that my friend and I got on the phone because I still needed the support. It was a hard decision to make. It made me feel like I failed at something because I wasn’t able to deal with my issues by myself.

Sometimes, you need someone to help you stand yourself up again. And it’s okay.

So I called the insurance company’s mental health line and asked them who they covered in my area. They literally started at A and gave me 5 names and numbers. I called the first number on the list and made an appointment.

It’s important that you like your therapist and feel like they can help you. I needed someone to listen and to help me navigate my murky feelings. I needed someone who could help me take steps to become me again.

I was lucky that the first name that I called was the first person I saw was the therapist I ended up seeing for the next 4 years. Even when I felt better and more like myself after a year or two, I kept on seeing her every so often just as a tune-up. I saw her as I went through a few other phases in my life and she helped me get through them.

The only reason I stopped was because I moved away and physical distance made it difficult. I haven’t found another therapist because I haven’t felt the urgency to see one yet. After having 2 kids though and not quite feeling like myself for a while, I am thinking about finding one near me.

I want to be the best version of me I can be and be able to give that to my family. So I’ll do what I can to find that person again.

Yeah, It’s Out Of My Control

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We, Indians, are perfect. No, really, we are. We are all intelligent, beautiful, and successful.

Ok, let’s talk reality. No one is perfect. Yes, we might have a lot going for us.

However, there is a lot of us have things that we don’t talk about much, things that are out of our control. Many of us have a weakness that we don’t advertise. But it’s there.

My weakness is epilepsy. Unless you’ve seen me popping my medication or have actually seen me drop into a seizure randomly, you probably don’t know that I have epilepsy.

It is super frustrating for me because while I know the triggers, I hate having to change my life to cater to my condition. I do take care of myself though because I don’t have a choice. That doesn’t mean I don’t slip every so often.

My most recent seizure happened during my sister’s wedding weekend. I was lucky that one of my sister’s friends knew what to do. I woke up, got ready, and went to my sister’s wedding rehearsal.

My other sister asked me why it didn’t bother me that it happened. I told her later that it did. But I had 2 choices at the time. I could sit and dwell on it and be upset it happened or I could move on and enjoy the weekend.

We all have something or we will have something at some point in our life. And we can curse our bad luck or we can accept that this is our reality. We can figure out how to live with it. We can ask for help if we need to.

There is no shame in anything that affects your health, whether it be physical or mental. We are human.  There is a lot we have to deal with. And absolutely everyone has something that they can’t control. Everyone has something that takes work, that we have to adjust to. Dealing with epilepsy didn’t just take a neurologist. It took a therapist as well.

Yes, it sucks. I’ve felt that over and over again. I probably will be taking medication to control the seizures for a long time. But since I don’t have an option in the matter, I can only learn to have a good attitude about it. I can be upset or I can have fun.

And I choose to have fun.

 

Crazy People

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What to do you do when you are faced with someone who doesn’t see eye to eye with you? What do you do when you end up dealing with someone that not only argues with you but doesn’t respond to logic as most people know it?

I had the great fortune to recently deal with someone like this. And it makes me mad. It makes me mad that I can discuss and discuss and eventually, argue,  and this person won’t respond the way I want them too or even the way that most of society would understand. And then, on top if it, they can say whatever they want to me and I have to let it go because it won’t be productive even if I respond.

What do you do? What can you do?

What I’ve learned is that people that are crazy are just that. Crazy. Unfortunately, we don’t always know their background or their circumstances so it’s hard to say why they are like that. I’m assuming there is a reason for it somewhere in their past or present. We don’t always get to know why. The best thing we can do is to distance ourselves from those people and hope that we can keep our sanity. We can only try to be the better person and do what’s right for us.

I’ve been in that countless cycle of arguments trying to solve something when both sides have different types of reasoning methods. It doesn’t work. Sometimes, removing yourself from the situation or if you have to be in that situation, just being civil and leaving it at that, is the best way to solve the problem.

There will always be people that we all encounter that are hard for us to deal with. We have to find a way to deal with it and find our peace with the situation.