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Ten Things I’m Thankful For

I know I’m a few days late, but I want to take the time to list what I’m thankful for this year. I find that this time of year is often difficult for me, Anxiety, often tries to move back in and tell me that I’m not good enough, that I’m not doing enough, that I’m not happy enough, or not thankful enough.

So I’m not going to listen to Anxiety today. I’m going to focus on all that I am thankful for this year.

1.I’m thankful for my family. My husband and kids of course, but also my siblings, grandma’s, cousins, aunts, uncles, and in-laws who have chosen me and made me a part of their family.

2. I’m thankful for my friends. I don’t have a ton of super close friends, but I have a few friends that I know I can call for anything and I’m so thankful for them.

3. I’m thankful for my home. I grew up moving from house to house, never feeling like anywhere was home. When we moved into this house, it felt like home the first night and unless I can afford to move to Washington DC or the beach somewhere, this is my forever home.

4. I’m thankful for my job. I love teaching, even though some, make that most, days are exhausting. It’s nice to enjoy going to work each day.

5. I’m thankful for my students, especially the ones who get that I’m not there just to teach them the subject, but to teach them about life.

6. I’m thankful for my super powers. I don’t always enjoy anxiety when I’m suffering a terrible episode, but it has helped me to be organized and become a super planner and those are my super powers.

7. I’m thankful for all that I’ve learned about myself in my life. I’ve learned that I’m stronger than I ever thought possible. That I’m capable of doing good things. That I’m worthy of love.

8. I’m thankful that I’ve been able to write and publish a book and have an opportunity to impact people’s life that way.

9. I’m thankful for all the people who have had a positive influence in my life and shown me that there are good people in the world who do treat people with live, care and respect.

10. I’m thankful for my life. I haven’t always had the best life and I don’t always focus on what is good in my life, but I’m alive, I have an awesome family and friends who love me now. I’m glad to be alive.

I’m thankful for my life!

I’m glad I’m here!

I’m glad you’re here too!

(un)Connected

Is it possible that by being so connected electronically that we are actually unconnected from real people sitting right next to us?

Is it possible to be in a group of people and still be completely alone?

Is it possible that we are hurting our mental health by being unconnected IRL (in real life)?

When we are constantly checking our phones, waiting for the next notification, checking the score, or our “friends” status updates, are we really present with the people around us?

How do you feel when you’re having a real-life, in-person conversation with somebody and all they do is look at their phone every few minutes, or worse yet, every few seconds?

It makes me feel, unimportant, unloved, unvalued, unconnected.

It makes me feel like the other person would rather not be there with me.

It makes me feel that if they had the opportunity to leave, they would.

It makes me feel worthless.

I begin to ask myself, “why bother? What’s the point?”

I tell myself that next time I’ll just stay home, I won’t bother, since the other person doesn’t care anyway.

If we as adults feel like this when we are ignored because people around us choose to be so connected to their phones, how do you think young, impressionable children feel when they are ignored by parents who are distracted by their phones?

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we all have to have our physiological needs of air, water, rest, and food met. That’s pretty easy to have done, even if we are all attached to our phones.

Next on Maslow’s list of needs that must be met in order to become a healthy, self-actualized human being who is capable of becoming the most that you can become, is safety. He have to know that we have personal security, health, shelter and stability. These are a little harder to provide, they usually require a job and living in the “right” area, but still possible when constantly connected to our phones. Sometimes our job might even require that constant electronic connection.

Moving up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is to be loved and belong. This is where is gets tricky. If we feel unconnected to people because of our constant electronic connection, we can’t fully meet this level. I have a difficult time being around people who can’t put their phones away for the time that we are together without feeling unloved and unconnected with them.

According to Maslow, the next step is self-esteem. This is where we learn to like ourselves, gain confidence, begin to respect others and gain the respect of others.

Finally, Maslow says, if all the other needs are met, we can reach self-actualization, where we can reach our full potential and become the best versions of ourselves.

I’m afraid that with all of our electronic connectedness, we are becoming unconnected from each other. When we are unconnected from each other, we don’t feel loved or a sense of belonging. Without feeling love or a sense of belonging we won’t be able to develop a healthy self-esteem and sense of self-respect or be able to respect others, and we definitely won’t be able to become the best version of ourselves.

After thinking and researching about all of this over the past few days, I know that I need to work on being more present when I’m with my husband, kids, and friends. I’m tired of feeling alone when I’m surrounded by people.

I might even ask people, when they are with me, to put their phones away, because if they want to be there with me, they need to be there with me. If they would rather spend time on their phone then they can go be on their phone somewhere else.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading!

My Shero is Gone

The Oxford Dictionary defines shero as “a woman admired or idealized for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities; a heroine.”

I define a shero much more simply…my Grandma.

She passed away just a few days after my last post, making the darkness seem so much thicker. A few weeks ago I was able to spend five days with my sister and last weekend we had my Grandma’s celebration of life with the family. Remembering her has helped.

My Grandma is in most of my childhood memories, from family Thanksgiving celebrations to Fourth of July barbeques. Summer days pretending I could play her organ to knowing she’d taking me clothes shopping for my birthday just before school started so I’d have new school clothes instead of old clothes or hand me downs.

She was at my wedding and welcomed both my kids into the world.

She wasn’t just my shero for what she did for me though, but for who she was.

She was a high school athlete in the 1940s.

She was a young wife and mother, then later a single mom when she and my grandpa divorced.

She was capable of loving again when she married my other Grandpa.

She was active. She walked and took care of herself. She traveled.

Into her eighties, she hopped into her truck or van every September and drove to Iowa, Arkansas and Southern California before coming home at the end of the month. On the driving days she often just slept in her vehicle!

She was a hard worker. She worked as long as I knew her, even through most of her retirement.

She was strong. From the stories I’ve heard from her and other family members, her life wasn’t always easy, but she got through it all and became a strong, independent woman because of it.

She was also wise.

It’s the future now and I wish I would have spent more time with her when I had it.

She was an amazing woman and I hope I can be just a little bit like her.

A Switch Has Flipped

I’ve been feeling extremely good for a long time. I’ve had a few anxious moments, but no bouts of anxiety lasting for weeks,or worse, months. It’s been nice, like a little vacation for my brain.

A few weeks ago, however, I had an anxiety attack at school during my prep period. My students left the classroom and a feeling of impending doom came over me.My heart began to race, my breaths were quick and shallow. It seemed to hit me out of nowhere. I wasn’t particularly stressed or worried about anything. Luckily, I knew exactly what it was and practiced some techniques to get it under control and the whole episode lasted maybe two minutes from start to finish. I gathered up the stuff I needed and got to work, feeling back to normal.

The whole incident slipped my mind until a few days later, when I needed to make dinner for my family. I like to cook,i enjoy creating something from the ingredients I have. It’s usually relaxing to me and something I look forward to. That day, I didn’t want to cook. It wasn’t that there wasn’t much time so we were going to make sandwiches, even those can be a fun creation. I. DIDN’T. WANT. TO. MAKE. DINNER.

A few days after that was the weekend. I hadn’t written a blog in a while and I told myself that I needed to write one, but I didn’t want to write. Me, Mishell Wolff, who has enjoyed writing since I was seven years old. I DIDN’T WANT TO WRITE!

This past week, I was driving my daughter to soccer practice, dreading the drive, dreading being there, dreading seeing people. For reference, I have an amazingly fun car to drive and most of the drive to her practice is through the country where I get to legally drive fairly fast. It’s fun. Usually. And I usually don’t mind seeing and talking to the coach and the other parents, most of us are friends at this point. I also enjoy watching her practice or sitting in the shade or in my car reading or playing on my phone. But last week, I didn’t want to do any of it. I almost cried as I drove her there.

I feel like somebody came in and flipped my light switch off. I feel like I’m sitting in the dark. I feel like the brain vacation is over, but instead of anxiety coming for a visit this time, it’s depression; anxiety’s darker twin.

Some of the signs of depression are a feeling of sadness and despair and a loss of interest in activities that you once enjoyed. I’ve definitely been experiencing those for the past few weeks.

Lucky for me , I guess, is that I know the signs of depression and I can tell when they are sneaking into my brain. I know the light switch will eventually get flipped back on.

But I hat how I’m feeling now!

I didn’t even want to write today. In fact I wrote this blog early this morning and something went wrong with my WordPress app and it deleted everything I wrote, so this is the second time today that I have sat down to write this. I know though, that if I want to get the switch flipped back on, I have to do the things I like to do, even if for now I don’t enjoy doing them.

I know I can’t give in to the darkness and sadness I feel.

I know I’m not alone.

If you or someone you know is experiencing depression, anxiety or any other mental health issue they can text the crisis line at 741741.

Or call the suicide prevention line at 1-800-273-8255

Love Yourself

Who is guilty of negative self-talk? You know what I mean, phrases we say to ourselves that we would never say to another human being and definitely never to our favorite pet.

Phrases like:

“You’re such an idiot, I can’t believe you did or said that!”

“You’re such a fatty, you need to stop eating! No more dessert for you!”

“You’re so worthless, nobody could ever love you!”

“You are such a waste of space.”

I’m here waving my hands in the air. I’m guilty of this type of negative self-talk and so much more. Things I hope would never be said about another person, I say to and about myself. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Too many of us are too critical no ourselves and our lives show it. We are in terrible mental and physical health because we think we aren’t worth taking care of.

We are! We are worth it! We need to give ourselves.

I hear people say “I hate my body. I need to lose weight. I should diet, maybe I’ll start exercising.”

Do you hear what the motivation is? Hate. Hatred of their body. Does hate ever sustain anything. It can for awhile, but not forever.

We need to take care of ourselves because we love ourselves, not because we hate ourselves.

On July 5th last year, I decided I was worth it. I needed to love myself.

I began to eat healthier, not because I hated myself or my body, but because I love myself and want to be around for awhile. I know we can’t prevent all diseases, but we can make food choices that are better for us.

I also began to exercise. Again, not because I hate my body and wanted to punish it and the fat it was storing, but because I want my body to last for awhile longer. If I make it to a ripe old age, I want to be able to move. I want to keep my muscles and bones strong enough to support my body, I don’t want to be impeded by my choices. I want to be able to run after my hypothetical grandkids.

There have been positive consequences to choosing to love myself. My anxiety and depression are easier to manage without medication, I have lost weight and I’m a lot stronger both physically and mentally.

Please, love yourself and take care of you. There are people who want you in their life for years to come.

People With Mental Illness Should Be Hospitalized?!?!? #endthestigma

About a year ago, my doctor and I decided that I would try to manage my anxiety and depression without medication. This decision didn’t come lightly or because I’m anti-medication. It came because after years of trying different medications, with great success in the beginning, each one ended the same way; with me in bed, not having the energy or the motivation to do anything for anyone, even my children. After the last dismal failure of a medicine, I decided that I had enough of the roller coaster of emotions that they had been putting me on and I was going to try life without the meds.

I was scared.

I knew it would be difficult. I knew I would have to make changes. I knew I could do it though. I knew I had a strong support system.

One change I made right from the start was limiting social media. However, the past few weeks, I have fallen back into the habit of scrolling Facebook to see what my friends are up to. I quickly realized that was a mistake.

I saw this on there:

I’m mentally ill. My husband has a mental illness, my son has a mental illness. I have friends with mental illnesses.

I wasn’t aware that we all needed to be hospitalized. I’ll admit that there are some people with mental illness who might be a danger to themselves or others and may need to be hospitalized for a time, but in general, I don’t think that’s where we need to be.

People with mental illnesses can be teachers, doctors, police officers, nurses, students, hair stylist, singers, actors, plumbers, electricians, fire fighters, paramedics, lawyers, judges, we can have whatever job we want and train for. We can even be politicians.

According to the National Council for Behavioral Health, almost 50 percent of American adults will experience a mental illness in their lifetime.

That would be a lot of people taking up space in the hospital!

Now really, I know that mentally I’ll people do not need to be hospitalized. I truly hope the people who posted this image also know that.

What I also want them to know is that by posting images like this, they are adding to the stigma of mental illness.

They are making it more difficult for someone who may be struggling to feel strong enough to ask for help without fear of being judged.

They are causing people who struggle to stay hidden in the darkness for dear of being hospitalized or shunned or made fun of.

Please just stop.

Here’s a sign I see in lots of schools. Let’s apply it to everyone, not just kids.

And let’s apply it to social media too. Just because nobody can see you post it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt people.

Tears filled my eyes when I saw the image about mentally ill people being hospitalized.

My heart ached for all the others who would see it and possibly feel the same as me.

Broken.

Not good enough.

Hurt.

Angry.

Determined to…

Traveling With Anxiety

Our luggage for the 4 of us to be in Paris and London for 10 days.

On June 4th, my family was able to take a an incredible trip to Paris and London. I have wanted to go to Paris since I was 15 and learning French in Madame Funge’s class at Tokay High School. My daughter has wanted to go for thenpast four years, since she found out the Women’s World Cup Soccer Tournament was being held there this summer. My son wanted to see a play in London, and my husband is willing to travel pretty much wherever we want to go.

The thing is, we each have some form of anxiety or other mental health issue that makes travel so much more difficult for us.

I’m sharing this experience from my point of view, how travel with my family affects me and how I handle it as a person who has anxiety. I’m not a doctor or therapist and I can’t tell you how to do your life. I only want you to know that if you have anxiety, you’re not alone. If you have anxiety and want to travel, you can.

As much as I was looking forward to this trip, I was terrified of this trip. I have a child who needs to have structure, doesn’t do well with changes and is very picky about food. I have another child recovering from a concussion, I didn’t know how she’d handle an 11 hour plane ride or all the plans we had. Then there’s me and my brain, able to leap to the worst possible scenario in a single bound. All the “what if” questions that constantly swirl through my mind. Beginning with “what if we miss our flight?” to, “what if there’s a terrorist attack at the stadium?”

I’m telling you, I didn’t sleep more than 5 hours a night, on a good night, for weeks leading up to this trip or during the trip because of the thoughts.

So, what did I do to help myself?

First, I planned. Then planned some more. Finally, I did even more planning.

My family laughs at my itineraries, I make them for every trip we go on, except to the beach. It helps me stay calm while on the trip. All the decisions of where to go and what to see are done before we leave. I think they all secretly enjoy knowing what we’re doing too, because each evening they ask me what we’re doing the next day. I think they like knowing there’s a plan.

Planning also helps me make sure we have downtime. Especially for the concussed kid. She needed time to rest each day, whether that meant an early evening or an afternoon break. I can make sure we do that and don’t just let the day get away from us while we’re out sight seeing.

My family knows that traveling terrifies me and triggers my anxiety, but they also know, that I will never allow anxiety to stop me from traveling. There are so many places I want to explore.

It’s important for them to know that anxiety doesn’t rule my life. Sometimes it beats me up a little bit and knocks me around, but it doesn’t keep me down.

As nerve-wracking as this trip was, it was even more amazing, incredible, awesome. I got to see places I’ve only seen in pictures and movies, like the Eiffel Tower, the Seine, Notre Dame and the Pantheon. I got to see places I’d never even heard of before I started planning this trip like the Paris Catacombs or Novelty Animation in London. I got to see 2 Women’s World Cup Soccer matches in Paris, Matilda, the play, in London, the Harry Potter Studio in London and I got to go to Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios in Paris.

Not only did I get to do and see all that, but I was able to experience most of it with my whole family. (My husband got a sinus infection and had to skip out on a few things.) Sure, the kids argued some, and I was only able to get them in one picture, but we have memories that will last a lifetime.

Anxiety sucks! It will tell you that you can’t do things.

It lies!

You can do things!

Letter to My Students

I end each year of school with a letter to my seniors with words of advice and encouragement for moving on. This year I decided to give that letter to all the students in my sociology classes. And now I will share it with you.

This is my last chance to socialize you. My last opportunity to teach you some important life lessons; some of the “latent functions” of education or parts of the “hidden curriculum.” I hope you take it in and choose to learn from it, but that’s up to you; I can only put it out there.

Know your worth. There are some mean people in this world who make it there point to cut other people down and for some reason we tend to believe what they say about us. DO NOT DO THAT! THEY ARE WRONG! You are an amazing human being with so much to offer this world. You have friendship to offer, you have your sense of humor, or your wit, or sarcasm, or athleticism, or intelligence, or understanding, or… or…or… You have so much to offer. You are so valuable! Know that! Know your worth! If people treat you as though you are worthless, get them out of your life, because you are valuable beyond compare.

Love people. There is enough hate and division in this world, so love people. Unless they are personally hurting you, love people. Hate takes too much energy. If what people are doing goes against what you believe, but it doesn’t interfere with your life, let them be and love people. If it does interfere with your life, move on without them and love people.

Love yourself. I’m not talking about being conceited and arrogant and all about yourself. I’m talking about loving yourself enough to take care of you. You have to be important to you. You need to love yourself enough to exercise, eat right, to seek out doctors to help keep you healthy and friends to talk to when things get tough. There are so many important things that go along with loving yourself. Figure out what those things are for you and do them. Make you a priority in life, not something to get around to if you have time. If you don’t make time to take care of yourself and keep yourself healthy both mentally and physically, you will be forced to make the time when you get ill.

Be humble. Never put yourself above others. It is possible to love yourself and still build others up. Life isn’t a competition, we all just want to survive. Always bragging about yourself just tears others down and makes them feel worse about themselves, so be humble. Accept praise with a polite “thank you,” and you’ll be well on your way to being humble.

It’s been a great privilege to have been your teacher this year. Good luck in all your future endeavors. I hope to hear great things about you. You are amazing!

Have Fun! Be Safe! Make Good Choices!

What I Learned From My Mom

It’s Mother’s Day and it’s Mental Health Awareness Month. Coincidence?

Maybe, but there are many, many people who struggle with their mental health partly because of the relationship they had with a parent.

There are many others who struggle with Mother’s Day in particular because of the loss of their mom or their inability to become a mom.

What I’m trying to say is, for some people, Mother’s Day takes a toll on their mental health, including me.

So this year I decided to look at all the positive things I learned from my Mom and put them in a list ( I love lists.)

I learned to be resilient. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary resilient means having the ability to recover easily from misfortune or change or capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation. Those who know my story know I’ve been through a lot of junk and I’m not permanently deformed because of it, I’ve been able to recover and have a wonderful family and life that I love.
I learned how to be a mom. Growing up, I kind of made a mental list of what not to do as a parent. Once I became a mom, I used that list to be the best mom I could be. I’m sure I make mistakes, but I’m doing the best job I can at being a mom, based on what I learned from my mom of what not to do as a mom.
I learned to show and tell my kids I love them. I may not be the most hugging mom in the world, but there are plenty of other ways for me to show and tell my kids I love them. For one thing, I do actually tell them that I love them. Then I’m there for them. I listen to them, encourage them, talk them through things, support them…so many ways to show live besides just giving hugs and pats on the back.
I learned to take care of myself. I may not have been an excellent chef, but I learned to cook, clean, hold down a job, and take care of the bills all well enough that I’ve been able to be in my own since I was eighteen. Being able to take care of myself has expanded to being able to take care of my family as well.
I learned to ask for help. I watched my mom struggle on her own for years, too proud to ever ask for help. That taught me to never be too proud to ask for help. I’ve sought help for my mental health through both medication and counseling. I’ve asked for help in my marriage and as a parent. I’ve had mentors at work. I go to a doctor and dentist regularly.This life is too hard to do alone, I need all the help I can get.

This holiday can be hard, but today I chose to look at just a few of then positive things my mom taught me. It helped.

The best part of the day though, that I know not everyone has, are my two kids who made me a Mom and allow me to celebrate Mother’s Day from a different perspective.

“They are so OCD or Bipolar or…”

May is a great month for so many reasons. It’s the last month of school for me. This year I get to send my son to science camp. It’s finally spring, with wonderful spring-like weather.

And it’s Mental Health Awareness Month!

There are still way too many people who use mental health terms as negative adjectives to describe people whose behavior they find different from their own. All that does is minimize the people who suffer from those conditions and make them feel ashamed and less than everybody else.

You don’t hear people say “They’re so broken leg.” or “They are so breast cancer.”

These are all very real illnesses that affect people in very real ways. Just because you can’t see how anxiety or depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder affects someone doesn’t make it any less debilitating than a broken arm.

Just ask the person who can’t leave their house because of overwhelming anxiety that causes a panic attack at the thought of driving down the street or the one suffering from suffocating depression that leaves them too exhausted to get out of bed on a daily basis.

Statistics say that 1 in 4 people will suffer from a mental illness in any given year. That’s a whole lot of people! And all those people know people so it’s very likely that ever single person knows somebody who is suffering from a mental illness. If you know somebody is struggling with a mental illness, do you really want to make them feel worse by using their illness as a negative adjective when it’s really just a noun?

This month is all about raising awareness of mental health. I firmly believe that everybody should have a therapist on speed dial, but not everybody has health care that covers that (that’s a whole other topic), so…

Please be aware that not all illnesses are visible. That not everyone who is in pain is going to show you. Maybe its you who’s hiding the pain behind a smile, or an “I’m fine.” Maybe it’s your best friend that you don’t even know about their struggle because they’re too ashamed to tell you because of the words you use.

Please be aware of the words you choose to use.

Please be aware that sometimes people just need you to be there for them to listen to them; to hold them; to let them be who they are and let them feel how they feel and to let them know that it’s okay to not be okay.

If you or someone close to you is struggling with mental health issues or thoughts of suicide please use one of these hotlines or visit one of these websites or reach out to someone for help. In the case of an emergency call 9-1-1.

National Suicide Hotline–1-800-273-8255 or go to
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

National Alliance on Mental Illness– 1-800-950-6264 you can also text NAMI to 741-741 or visit
https://www.nami.org/Find-Support/NAMI-HelpLine#crisis

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