Category: Holidays

Christmas Looks Different This Year 2022 Edition

Last year, just before Christmas, one of my very best friends told me that she was sure that I wouldn’t be alone by this Christmas.

Well, guess what…

She was absolutely,

Positively,

In all ways,

Completely,

Without a doubt,

Correct.

While I don’t have a special someone, a significant other if you will, to spend time with this holiday season, I am far from alone. I wasn’t alone last year either.

I have felt alone many times in my life, most of my life actually, even when surrounded by people. I have felt that I had nobody to depend on, nobody to talk to, nobody who understood ME, who I really was.

In an effort to not be alone, I surrounded myself with people that loved me for who they thought I was, so I became that person instead of being me. I hid parts of myself that I knew they wouldn’t approve of. I was ashamed of my flaws. I lost myself in order to feel loved and in the end I was still utterly, completely lonely.

Over the past year, I have realized, that although I felt alone, I was not alone. I did have friends that I could rely on and turn to when I needed them. Those are the same friends that I have in my life this Holiday season that mean I am not alone as I face another “single” Christmas.

I will be visiting with many friends of the holiday break. I will be spending time relaxing at home. I am most definitely not alone this Christmas, she was right.

New Year, New Chapter

Our lives tell our story. They begin at our birth, and they end when we die. They are constantly being written, sometimes by the choices we make, sometimes by the choices others make and the effects of those choices.

There are good parts, bad parts, terrifying parts, tearful parts, ecstatic parts, hopeful parts, and every type of part you can imagine in between. I don’t know how the past few years have been for you, but I’ve felt like I’ve been writing my story while riding a roller coaster that got stuck upside down. The thrill and fun of life had slipped away and I was hanging on for dear life hoping to make it to the end without falling off the ride.

I found this quote a few months ago. There is nothing about my life that I can go back and change, it’s all happened already. The consequences of choices that have been made have been and are being lived with. I can’t change any of that.

I’m learning that I don’t have to live with the festering wounds. I don’t have to ignore the trauma and the damage that it’s caused and “just get over it,” as I’ve been told in different ways so many times in my life. I can get help in healing those old wounds and in the healing process I can begin to write a new ending to my story.

The ending to my story will hopefully be one of mental and emotional healing, where I continue to work through the traumas of my past so they no longer affect my present or future. An ending where I am comfortable being me. I know it’s not always going to be easy or perfect, but I’m looking forward to writing this new ending to my story.

My hope for everyone in 2022 is that you don’t let your past define you. That you see who you truly are, who you were created to be, and find a way to be that best version of you that you can be.

Love you all and Happy New Year!

Hindsight is 2020

As 2020 comes to an end, I’ve been looking back on the year, specifically the past nine months. These have been extremely difficult for so many people to say the least. As a meme that’s been going around the internet says, “We are not all in the same boat. We are in the same storm. Some have yachts, some canoes, and some are drowning. Just be kind and help whoever you can.”

This year has brought old as well as new struggles with my mental health. There were days that the thought of getting out of bed was too much, the effort it takes to live was too much. The difference this time is that I know that I’m valuable, I have worth and that made the struggle doable, it was like a life preserver.

I learned from a lot of people throughout my young life that I wasn’t valuable, that I was just a waste of space and time. My family let me know, adults and students at my school let me know, the people at my church let know and society let me know; I was worthless.

People didn’t seem to care about my feelings, they just dismissed my fears and anxieties as being over dramatic or just shy or just too much.

My mom used to take us to this park in our town that you had to drive on a levee road to get to. I was terrified that we would go off the road into the water, be trapped in the car and drown. So terrified that I would have nightmares about drowning the night before we would go to the park, waking up in tears. She dismissed it by saying that it would never happen. I learned as an adult, we could have gotten to the park without ever driving on the levy road. This fear of drowning by going off the road into the water got so bad, that I hated going over bridges, my mom continued to tell me that my fear was irrational and that bridges wouldn’t break, and cars wouldn’t go over the edges until the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake where the San Francisco Bay Bridge broke and reinforced my fears of falling off levy roads and bridges, being trapped in the water in the car and drowning. It took months of specific therapy to get over just that fear to where now I can drive on levy roads and over bridges with only minimal fear and no panic attacks.

By her dismissing my fears, she reinforced the fact that I was not important, that my feelings were not important.  

My dad was rarely home when we were with him, when he was home, he was busy working in the garage or watching television. We weren’t allowed in the garage; we could stand in the door to ask him a question and he made it obvious that we were interrupting his rebuilding of whatever car or motorcycle he was currently working on. If he was watching TV, we had to wait for a commercial to talk to him. Everything else was more important to him than we were.

Whatever I was, I wasn’t enough for my parents.

When I started Kindergarten, two things stood out to me that first week that showed me that the adults didn’t think I was smart enough. First, I went to school knowing how to spell my name; M-I-S-H-E-L-L. An adult helper thought she needed to inform me that I spelled my name wrong. I just remember feeling helpless and lost. I knew how to spell my name, but an adult was telling me I was wrong, so she must be right. Another adult told me that I was wrong when I said that my sister was starting high school. She absolutely was starting high school, she’s nine years older than me. I learned not to let teachers or even students know how smart I was. I needed to go along to get along. To be just smart enough, but not too smart.

Church was another place that I learned the lesson that who I was wasn’t good enough and that I had to keep who I really was hidden to be accepted. My very first Sunday wasn’t like that. I went to Children’s Church and there was a very large, extremely loud, bearded man in the front of the crowded room trying to get the kids to quiet down. I burst into tears because I was separated from my sister. He stopped what he was doing, came over to me, and helped me. He calmed me down and got me and my sister seats together. He paid attention to me, he didn’t dismiss me or belittle me, he helped me.

Then I got involved in the girls’ group at the church. In that group I learned that we are all sinners. One of the first Bible verses I had to memorize was Isaiah 53:6, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Another one was Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” It was verse after verse about what a sinner I was. What a horrible person I was. How I wasn’t good enough.

Luckily, that loud, Children’s Pastor had a discipleship group, and I was in it. In that group I learned about God’s love for me from verses like John 3:16; “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him shall have eternal life.” And Ephesians 1:4, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”

So, while I may not have been good enough for my family, or my teachers and others at school, or most of the people at church, I was good enough for Pastor Tim and God.

Unfortunately, I never believed I was good enough for any person. I always believed that I had to prove my worth to others, that they wouldn’t accept me for who I was, but then I wrote a book which I titled Worthless No More, and I realized that I am a valuable human being. I don’t need to keep any part of me hidden from others for them to accept me, if they don’t accept me, that’s their problem, not mine.

It hasn’t been easy, especially considering this last election because for some reason Christianity seems to be deeply tied into Republicanism. My Christian friends are where it’s the most difficult because I don’t like Trump. I’ve never liked Trump, since before he was President. I’ve had people question my Christianity because of it. Christians have called me a socialist, libtard because I believe that we should have accessible health care. Christians have called me a sheep because I believe we should wear masks to keep others healthy.

However, looking forward to 2021, I will no longer go along to get along. I will be me. I am valuable for who I am. I am Worthless No More.

Christmas Looks Different This Year

I have a friend who had a small gathering of family to celebrate a milestone birthday, just 9 people representing 5 households. Four days later one of them tested positive for COVID-19. The rest need to get tested now and are in quarantine.

I have a family member whose neighbor had a small gathering to celebrate something, 12 people, I’m not sure how many households were represented. Ten of them tested positive for COVID-19, a few ended up in the hospital, one sadly passed away due to complications from COVID.

This Christmas I’d really like to see my family, but I think I can handle a different Christmas this year if it will help, not just my family, but many families to not have a missing family member at the next birthday or holiday gathering.

Thinking about how different Christmas will be this year, and how different this whole year has been, I wrote this poem:

Christmas Looks Different This Year by Mishell Wolff 2020

January, whispers began in the news eclipsed by death of a basketball icon.

 February into March, murmurs rippled as a cruise ship stays at sea, later docked in the bay, passengers in quarantine.

Mid-March became a full-fevered, all-out effort to stop the spread of Coronavirus, “Fifteen days to slow the spread.”

April and May, stay home, wash your hands, social distance, distance learning

Restaurants, take-out only, salons stay closed, hospitals fill, nurses stretched, protests.

End of May 100,000 U.S. COVID deaths, George Floyd, “I can’t breathe!” protests.

June, July, August, protests fill the streets, open business, save the economy, defund police, Black Lives Matter, defend America, antifa, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, too many to name, protests divide, tear gas, flash bangs, photo op in front of a historic church.

September, open schools, teachers are lazy, kids need socialization, they’ll fall behind.

October, small schools manage in person, others COVID spreads and revert back to distance learning, some stayed online, safety first.

November, please stay home, wear a mask, Zoom Thanksgiving, hospitals have no capacity for gathering-driven surge, staff is exhausted.

December, why didn’t we listen, ICUs expand, not enough, over 300,000 U.S. dead from COVID alone.

Many families, many reasons, no option to choose, an empty place this holiday season.

Christmas looks different this year; stay at home, wash your hands, physical distance, wear your mask.

Christmas looks different this year, help others, household only, so next year won’t have to be different.

Christmas looks different this year, the Spirit of Christmas doesn’t have a look, love others, do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.

Holiday Stress on Steroids

Alabama News Center 12/15/2017

Holiday stress is real. COVID stress is real. Add them together and we have holiday stress on steroids.

2020 has been a year like no other that I can remember in my lifetime, I have taught about other extremely tumultuous years, where our nation was divided and a worldwide pandemic was wreaking havoc on our schools, economy and national unity, but I’ve never lived it. I know that there are some people, lucky enough to still be alive who have lived through those times. I’ve read stories of people born during the 1918 Flu Pandemic surviving COVID. That’s incredible, but for the vast majority of us, this is a new and stressful experience.

People answering surveys about their mental health have indicated that they have experienced more thoughts of anxiety, depression and self-harm since March when the COVID became big news in the United States, and those statistics usually rise between Thanksgiving and New Year’s as holiday stress takes it’s toll. Add in this year the 288,017 American families and the 1,538,317 families around the world (according to Worldometers.com on December 6, 2020) who have lost a loved one this year to COVID, that’s not including the countless other families missing a loved one due to other causes of death such as heart disease, cancer, accidents, suicide and the various other reasons that people die each year. The holidays will be different for millions of people this year.

I’m not a psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor or therapist, I’m just a regular person who suffers with anxiety and depression who gets stressed out A LOT!!! There are days that just getting out of bed and starting the day seems overwhelming and buying gifts and “Doing Christmas” is extremely daunting.

What keeps me getting up each day is my kids. Knowing that they also have anxiety and possibly depression, I want to show them that it’s possible to talk about those and survive and function and do all the things that people do, even if it’s exhausting, even if it takes all your energy.

Here are some of the things I do that help me to manage the stress. Who knows, some of them might help you too, you’ll never know unless you try.

  1. Journal-it helps me to get the thoughts that are racing around in my brain out.
  2. Exercise-sometimes it’s stretching, sometimes it’s taking the dog for a walk, sometimes it’s cardio videos I find on YouTube, I just need to move.
  3. Find someone to talk to- This can be a friend that you trust or a counselor. I talk to a few trusted friends and a counselor.
  4. Read a book-books can take you away for awhile to a different place.
  5. Make a plan- Plan how you can conquer what you need to do, it doesn’t need to all be done at once, a little bit each day works just as well.
  6. Deep breathing exercises- There are a ton of videos on YouTube and apps that help with this.
  7. Guided relaxation- Again, there are tons of videos and apps that help with this.
  8. Focus on taking care of you- if you aren’t healthy you can’t take care of anybody else.
  9. Start a gratitude list- try to find a few things each day to be thankful for. It helps to take the focus off of all the negative, this is hard to do, sometimes it takes me a long time just to come up with 5 positive things everyday, but I can list 5 negative things in 10 seconds. But this has been a tremendous help in lessening my stress levels in the past few month.

I don’t always remember to do these things, and they may not help you. The point is we all need to try to do what we can to not allow the stress to overwhelm us, especially if we also have mental health issues to deal with on top of the stress.

This holiday season be well, have fun, and be safe!

Thankful in the Turmoil?

https://speakzeasy.wordpress.com/tag/emotional-turmoil/

I haven’t written much recently, but with what I have written, you know that I am broken, depressed, anxious, and generally not in a good place.

To help combat that I have been seeing a licensed therapist to gain insights and strategies to help navigate this cruel, cold, divided world we live in that is being ravaged by a disease that’s wreaking havoc on people’s physical and mental health.

I also just finished teaching a unit on stress and how to better manage stress in our lives. Between the two, therapy and teaching, one strategy stood out, being thankful, or showing gratitude.

I’m not talking about toxic positivity, the idea that if you think positive thoughts all the bad stuff will go away and you’ll feel all better, depression will magically disappear and your thoughts will suddenly slow down.

I’m talking about taking a few minutes each day in the midst of the turmoil and chaos that is life at the moment (because it is a moment, no matter how long it lasts, it will pass) and seeing the good things that are still there. We may have to squint our eyes and look really hard, maybe even pull out a magnifying glass or a microscope, but they’re there; those positive things that give us hope in humanity, that make life worth living, that make it that much easier to get out of bed the next day.

When my therapist first suggested the idea to write down five things each day I thought it was a dumb idea. I didn’t see how it could help, I knew it wasn’t going to make everything magically get better, but I did it anyway. For about three weeks now, I have been faithfully making a daily list of five things I’m thankful for.

I was right, the world hasn’t changed, my life is still in turmoil, I still feel broken, but it has made it a little easier to get out of bed each day. It has given me a challenge to look forward to as I try to find a few good things everyday, and I love a challenge.

Here are some of the things I’m thankful for (in no particular order)

  1. My kids because they made me a mom and showed me what it is to love someone so much that you can’t imagine life without them and how bad it hurts to see them hurting, and how amazing feels to see them happy and successful and being who they want to be.
  2. My job because it allows me to be immersed in my favorite subject and to be with my friends on a daily basis (pre-COVID; now it’s more on a weekly basis) and my co-workers are some of my best friends.
  3. My friends because they are there when I need people to talk to, to have fun with, etc.
  4. Food, because I love food, especially homemade food that I get to feed to my family at dinnertime all together talking about our day.
  5. My family, the ones that are by blood and the married in ones, because we are there for each other no matter what and help each other out.
  6. My students because I know that distance learning isn’t easy for most of them, but they show up on their computers every day and listen to me, then they go off and do the assignments I give them. They tell me things about their lives and struggles with school in emails, they ask for help, they’re doing their absolute best in this weird new world we live in and it gives me hope for the future that we have such a resilient group of young people who will go out into the world in a few years.
  7. Jesus because without him in my life, I wouldn’t have any peace.

This idea of giving thanks in the turmoil is actually biblical. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 it says to “give thanks in all circumstances: for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Sometimes I think people mistake this to mean that Christians have to be thankful for our circumstances, but that’s not what the verse is saying at all, it says IN all circumstances.

That means, looking for the little things that make the living in those circumstances just a little bit easier. Seeing the things that make getting out of bed worth it every day.

Some days I do have to pull out a magnifying glass to find what I’m thankful for, but I still find at least five things every day to be thankful for, it hasn’t changed the chaos in the world, the division in the nation or the turmoil I feel in my life, but it has made getting out of bed each day easier.

Mother’s Day and Mental Health

Mother’s Day for me isn’t about my mom. It’s about my kids and becoming a mom myself. It’s about remembering all the women in my life who were like a mom to me, who helped me when I needed it and who reminded me who I was and could be, not who I wasn’t. It’s about remembering that I’m a valuable, lovable, human being, not a worthless child who never measured up and would never be good enough.

Mother’s Day became a day for me to celebrate when I became a mom. Before that it was almost always hard. I was forced to honor a woman who gave birth to me, but gave me no value. If I chose not to honor her, I was reminded about how worthless I was and what a terrible daughter I was. Not just by her, but also by her voice that lived inside my mind.

My mom and the church I was raised in, taught me to “honor your father and mother, this is the first commandment with a promise.” Ephesians 6:2. The promise was that if I honored them, things would go well for me and I would live a long life. So if I didn’t honor her, I would have a tough life and die young. Oh yeah, and most likely end up in hell.

It took me having my own kids and getting help from a counselor for my mental health to realize that I didn’t have to keep a toxic person in my life, just because she was my mom (or dad). She passed away when my daughter was 6 months old, but her voice stayed in my mind for much longer, still telling me all the negative things she always said.

After my son was born, I realized that I needed to take care of my mental health so that I could raise my own kids in a healthy environment. I’ve read a meme that parents should want to raise their children so that they don’t need counseling when they grow up. I think that everyone should seek counseling at any time. I tell my kids that we should all have a counselor on speed dial.

Mental health is just as important as physical health. We should get a physical done once a year to make sure that our bodies are in peak condition, well I believe that we should also regularly check in with a counselor to make sure our mental health is also in peak condition. We don’t need to wait until we are in the throes of a mental health crisis to look for help.

Our society has a stigma against people who seek mental health help. They label people as weak or crazy if they seek out a counselor or have a mental illness. I say people who seek help for their mental health are strong, they understand they can’t do it alone any more than they can treat their own broken arm.

Also, a mentally healthy mom is the best gift a mom can give a child. Take the time you need to take care of your mental health. Take the extra time in the shower or bath. Reach out to a counselor if you need someone to talk to. A mom who takes some time to take care of herself IS NOT selfish, they are making sure they can give their best self to their family and children.

One resource now for those of us sheltering in place is betterhelp.com. They offer online services for counseling, although from my understanding many counselors are offering online sessions now. If you use betterhelp.com/sleepwithme you can save 10% off the first month. (sleepwithmepodcast.com is a website/podcast I use to fall asleep. It’s bedtime stories for grown ups. It’s great!)

Here are two of the reasons that I always work on my mental health:

Yay, We Made It!

We did it. We’ve reached the end of another year and another decade! That’s pretty darn impressive if you ask me. Not only did we survive the last 365 days, we’ve survived the last 10 years!

For some people that may not seem like such a big deal, but for people who deal with mental illness that can be a huge accomplishment. I’m talking gigantic. Humongous. Enormous. Let’s just say, it’s definitely something to talk about.

For so many people, just getting out of bed each day is a struggle. When you add on to that work, and eating and possibly taking care of other people, like spouses or children who depend on you, each task can seem monumental and exhausting.

Because of this, the fact that we are all here, at the end of 2019 is amazing! I’m so glad we’ve all made it this far on this ride called life.

As we look back at the past year, or decade (or week) and we see all that we’ve been through, both good and bad, let’s be thankful that we are here. We. Are. Here. We have survived until this point and we have learned how strong we are through the trials of life. Our strength will continue to carry us through the days, weeks, months and years to come.

Each moment we have, both good and bad, will pass; nothing lasts forever. The good moments leave us with happy memories that we can grasp and look back on to remember the good times when things aren’t going so good. they remind us that things can be happy. The bad times teach us about our strength, they give us insight to ourselves and others and they show us life lessons. We can use what tough times teach us the next time that the going gets tough. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

As I look forward I hope that 2020 is a great year for everybody, as perfect as the vision it promises (ha ha, okay bad joke.)

I have stopped making resolutions because they usually only last me about a day. I do make life changes though, sometimes in January, sometimes at other times of the year. So far, the life changes I’ve made have helped me in managing my mental illnesses much more successfully and I plan to continue that in the New Year.

I hope that if you make resolutions or make life changes that you stick to them and they make your life better and more fulfilled. I hope that you are able to manage your mental, emotional and physical health throughout the New Year.

Thank you all for reading my blog. If you haven’t done it already, please subscribe to get the blog delivered to your email whenever I write a new post (usually on Saturdays, but this is a “Special New Year’s Eve Edition”).

Holidays Can Be Hard

Most people just assume this is the happiest time of the year. I mean there’s even a song that tells us it is, so it must be true. But for many people, the holidays are the hardest time of the year for many reasons.

For some it reminds them that someone is missing; that there is an empty place at the table, a hole in the family.

For others, the stress and demands of the season is over whelming, leaving them a burnt out grouch.

Some people are sent back to those times in childhood when they weren’t even good enough for Santa to bring them what they wanted while he brought that other kid in class the latest and greatest gadget or toy. Like maybe a Cabbage Patch Kid.

For little ones, the different schedule, the stress of their parents all takes a toll and changes their behavior, possibly causing them to act out.

So many reasons the holidays can be hard and not so happy.

If you are one of the thousands of people who struggles with the holidays know that you aren’t alone. Know that you’re feelings are valid, it’s okay to not be okay, even at Christmas. It’s okay to say no to that party and stay home with your family. It’s okay to cry while you remember the past Christmases with loved ones who are no longer here. It’s okay to hold onto the little ones a bit longer and tighter at bedtime and let them know that they’ll be okay too.

If you have a friend who struggles with the holidays just be there. They just need to know they’re not alone. If they want to talk, just listen; don’t offer advice or tell them to get over it or remind them that it’s the happiest time of the year. Just be there for them.

If you’re out in public and someone doesn’t wish you a Merry Christmas, don’t be offended, they may not be having the easiest time. Just smile and walk on.

The holidays can be hard.