Last Sunday I completed another trip around the sun and celebrated my birthday with family. Yesterday is when I celebrated with friends. We spent the day in Santa Cruz, soaking in the sun, enjoying the delicious food, like a Texas Donut (thank you for sharing Bev!), watching a sea lion miss jumping out of the water onto the platform, riding the carousel that is 120 years old this year and generally having a fabulous time laughing and relaxing.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself and did NOT want the day to end. We even finished the day off with ice cream for dinner. Like I said it was a FANTASTIC day!
I haven’t had the best time since March 2020. When the world flipped upside down for everybody, my personal world also seemed to flip upside down and my mental health took a nosedive. I’ve shared that there was even a point that I didn’t even want to be alive any more in COVID world. My anxiety was through the roof!
Through talking with a counselor, a family member and a friend, as well as a LOT of time talking to God, I’m back to “normal”… mostly. At night, when I should be asleep, Anxiety still likes to sneak in and keep me awake with all the “what ifs” and “should’ves.” I don’t like Anxiety very much and I’m usually able to tell it to take a hike after a few restless minutes of a racing mind. I don’t always win though. Sometimes I lie awake from 3:00 am until my alarm goes off and face the day exhausted, hoping for a better night to come.
But yesterday. Those days I treasure. I can share with trusted friends what I feel. I don’t have to be invisible or make myself smaller so they feel bigger. I don’t have to say just the right thing to keep them feeling comfortable or to keep them as friends. They are my friends, through thick and thin; NO MATTER WHAT!
I’m so thankful to have such an amazing handful of people in my life that I can trust and call my friends. I didn’t get to be with all of them yesterday, but I’m thankful for all of my friends just the same. I would NOT have survived this pandemic without them.
Thank you to all my friends for being so AWESOME!!!!
Growing up I learned that it was good to be invisible. If I was invisible, then I couldn’t get in trouble. I couldn’t get yelled at. I couldn’t get beat with the stick. I couldn’t get dismissed. I couldn’t get sent outside. I couldn’t get told that I’d be given something to cry about. I couldn’t get ignored.
Being invisible was lonely, but it to me it was better to be invisible than any of the alternatives.
Of course when I was 5 or 6 years old, I didn’t realize what I was doing, making myself invisible, I was just trying not to be yelled at every time I didn’t argue or did exactly what I was told without talking back. By the time I was 7 years old, I was so good at it that when I cut my finger so badly that I needed stitches, I hid it from my mom for as long as I could, but it kept bleeding and eventually she noticed.
I learned that in order to get along and be loved, I needed to go along. I needed to agree with what people said whether I actually did or not. If I disagreed with them, they wouldn’t love me anymore and as a child, I NEEDED my parents to love me. I WANTED my parents to love me.
When I became a teenager, I became myself for a little bit, but not for long. I desperately wanted their love and acceptance. When I spoke my mind and said what I thought and how I felt that differed from their point of view I was rebellious, disrespectful, hateful, good for nothing…worthless. I couldn’t handle that feeling so I went back to being invisible. I went along to get along.
Once I starting agreeing with my parents again, I was the golden child, but who I was, how I felt, was once again, invisible. I didn’t really matter. The only thing that mattered was their perception of who they thought I should be.
This has really messed me up in many relationships. In my mind, I believe that for people to like/love/accept me, I need to hide most of who I am and only let them know the parts about me that agree with them. I know understand that this is a completely messed up way to live. If someone doesn’t love and accept me for who I am then they don’t deserve me.
I’d like to say that I’m completely over this, that I can tell people how I feel anytime, but I’m still scared. I still worry about if they’ll like me or not. It’s difficult to break lifelong habits, even ones that hurt you. But I am a work in progress. I may always be a work in progress and that’s okay with me.
When most people hear about somebody being abused by an intimate partner, like a boy/girlfriend or spouse, they will often ask, “Why didn’t they just leave?” Or will say, “If that had been me, I would have just left.” People who are lucky enough to have never been in that situation have no idea how hard it is to just leave.
That’s a picture of me the summer before I started high school. The very next summer I would meet a boy that treated me like nobody had ever treated me before. He liked me, he told me he loved me. He asked me to be his girlfriend. He risked the wrath of my dad to see me. I was in LOVE.
It wasn’t long before he started criticizing me. Little things, like how pretty I’d be if I just wore make up, or dresses. He started letting me know how lucky I was to have him as a boyfriend because most guys wouldn’t want to date a girl as tomboy-ish as me.
It also wasn’t long before he started pressuring me to have sex with him. (I’m talking weeks here.)
At first it was on phone calls. I’d tell him no, I wasn’t ready, that I wanted to wait until I was married. (I had been taught that a girl’s greatest gift to her husband on their wedding night was her virginity.)
Then I was fighting his hands off when we were kissing. I was constantly moving them to where I was more comfortable. It was a losing battle, I eventually stopped fighting it and let his hands go where he wanted them to and do what he wanted them to no matter how uncomfortable I was, because, as he said, “if I loved him I would.”
For TEN months I put off the inevitable. I put off sex with him. Then one day he told me we were going to hang out with a friend of his. When we arrived, he had the key to his friend’s apartment and let us in. We were alone. He started kissing me as soon as we sat on the couch, then whispered in my ear, “I’ve waited long enough.”
I tried to get out from under him, but he was too big and too strong for me. He forced himself into me and did what he wanted. Because he loved me and he wanted to show me how much.
I cried.
I had been told for so long that my entire worth and value was wrapped up in my virginity and he had just taken that from me, so what was the point in anything anymore. I gave up fighting. I didn’t tell a single soul. I was too embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to know what I had done. I gave in, I gave up. I was worthless. I was lucky that this guy still wanted to be with me because nobody else would want me since I wasn’t a virgin anymore.
For a year, I kept that secret. For a year, he continued to use and abuse me. For a year I continued to die a little more inside.
Then I went on a double date with a friend, I was still dating my abuser, but he was in boot camp and she really wanted to go on this date, but not alone so I agreed to go with his friend. We saw the movie Sleeping With the Enemy. There’s a scene where Julia Robert’s character’s husband forces her to have sex with him. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
My date noticed. We went to the lobby and he asked if I was ok. I told him, “That’s what he does.” His response was, “Your boyfriend rapes you?” I just nodded. It was the first time I used that word to describe what he did to me. He raped me for over a year while I stayed with him because I felt too worthless to leave him; too ashamed to ask for help.
That is why people stay with their abusers, among other reasons.
I gave up. I got tired of telling him no. That is not consent. That is rape.
Giving in because you are afraid of what will happen if you say no is not consent. That is rape.
Saying no and your intimate partner doing it anyway, is rape.
Being told when or how often you are going to have sex in your relationship is not consent. That is rape.
Being told that if you say no, you don’t love them, is coercion, not consent. That is rape.
Just because you are in a committed, intimate relationship does not mean that you owe your partner your body at anytime unless you are a willing participant in the activity. If you are not a 100 percent willing participant, that is rape. You have the right to say no, even to your intimate partner. Your body is your body.
Four years ago I released my very first book, Worthless No More. I began writing it the year before after a particularly difficult few months for me where I had been feeling especially worthless and making some bad choices for myself.
In writing the book, and with counseling, I began to see the reasons for why I felt so worthless. I saw the patterns of relationships throughout my childhood, teen years and young adult life that contributed to me feeling that way, but at some point it was no longer the people in my life making me feel worthless, I had internalized the feeling.
I believed that I was worthless.
Writing the book helped me see that and set me on a course of healing and realizing my own value as a person and a child of God. It’s been difficult, but well worth it.
When the book was finally published and I had copies in my hand, I had a book release celebration. For the celebration I found as many songs as I could that had to do with knowing your value and persevering through difficult times. The first song on the playlist that night was Fight Song by Rachel Platten. The first time I heard that song it spoke to me and reminded me of the inner strength I have. Here are the lyrics:
Like a small boat On the ocean Sending big waves Into motion Like how a single word Can make a heart open I might only have one match But I can make an explosion
And all those things I didn’t say Wrecking balls inside my brain I will scream them loud tonight Can you hear my voice this time?
This is my fight song Take back my life song Prove I’m alright song My power’s turned on Starting right now I’ll be strong I’ll play my fight song And I don’t really care if nobody else believes ‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me
Losing friends and I’m chasing sleep Everybody’s worried about me In too deep Say I’m in too deep (in too deep) And it’s been two years I miss my home But there’s a fire burning in my bones Still believe Yeah, I still believe
And all those things I didn’t say Wrecking balls inside my brain I will scream them loud tonight Can you hear my voice this time?
This is my fight song Take back my life song Prove I’m alright song My power’s turned on Starting right now I’ll be strong I’ll play my fight song And I don’t really care if nobody else believes ‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me A lot of fight left in me
Like a small boat On the ocean Sending big waves Into motion Like how a single word Can make a heart open I might only have one match But I can make an explosion
This is my fight song Take back my life song Prove I’m alright song My power’s turned on Starting right now I’ll be strong (I’ll be strong) I’ll play my fight song And I don’t really care if nobody else believes ‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me
I haven’t written a blog post since February, there are many reasons for that and someday, I may fill you in completely, but for now, I will let you know one of the reasons… my Mental Health.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and I began this blog in May 2016 as a place for me to discuss mental health and sexual assault issues. This blog has been a life saver to me as I wrote about my own struggles with mental health issues in hopes of helping others with theirs, especially during the times when I felt completely alone as though nobody was listening.
This past year has been a struggle with my anxiety often being in overdrive and leading me to question my very existence. There were weeks where getting out of bed in the morning was a herculean effort, just to do the things required of living was exhausting, never mind keeping two other humans alive as well.
I realized that my mental health needed attention and sought help in the form of a Christian counselor. I do my best to keep the fact that I follow Christ out of what I write on here, but this year that has been part of what has saved me so in this blog, I’m going to include it.
I wanted to find a counselor who understood mental health issues like anxiety, and also understood my belief in God and how strongly I hold onto Jesus in the deepest, darkest of times in my life. It has helped tremendously!
I know I will always have anxiety, it’s just a part of who I am. Most of the time it’s my superpower, but sometimes it’s my unraveling, as it tried to be this past year. Talking with someone who understands anxiety and lots of prayer helped me pull out of the deep trenches of anxiety and back into the land of the living.
Recently, a Christian told me that because of my anxiety, I live in fear. Because I’m living in fear, I’m not a good Christian and I’m allowing the devil to have a stronghold in my life.
This person has not talked with me about what I’ve done to combat my anxiety and fears. They have not asked to pray with me about my anxiety. They have not asked what they can do to ease my anxiety. They haven’t asked if my anxiety is better or worse.
They just decided that because I have anxiety, I am allowing the devil a place in my life and I need to get my life right with God and back on track. When I do that, then everything will be better.
This person has no idea the work that I have done with my counselor and with God this year to get better. I am better for the time being. I know that a bad bout with anxiety will come again, that’s the nature of the illness. It pretends to be my friend for a while, then BAM, it turns on me.
This person telling me that I just need to get right with God reminded me of this cartoon:
If we treated physical illnesses the same way we treat mental illnesses.
Mental illnesses are real! They are no more about the devil taking over a person’s life than any physical illness is.
Would somebody ever tell a person with cancer that they just need to pray more, or that they just don’t believe in God enough to be healed, or that they must be allowing the devil to have a stronghold in their life because they aren’t getting better.
Unfortunately, there are Christians who believe these lies about physical and mental health. Well I don’t.
We live in an imperfect world and I am an imperfect human. That means I have flaws and illness and I make mistakes and I have heartbreaks.
It also means that I am worthy of love.
Period.
No, “You are worthy of love; if you do this…”
I am worthy of love because I am me. That’s it. Whether you approve of who and how I am and the illness I have or the mistakes I make. I am worthy of love.
I have value because I am a human being.
I will not be ashamed of my mental illness.
“But you’re not ashamed?” “I trust GOD with all my heart. He hasn’t taken my anxiety and depression away yet…but he has taken my shame.”
Growing up, children should feel safe, secure, loved, and cherished. Unfortunately that isn’t always the case. Many children grow up feeling like the love of their parents is conditional. That their safety is reliant on their parents mood that day. That security is the guy at the door of the Target store. They’ve never heard of nor felt being cherished and wouldn’t even know that it was something they deserved.
Children growing up in these environments tend to become peacemakers, putting the needs of others before their own. Working their hardest to keep everyone else, especially their parents, “happy” so that they can feel safe and loved. It sounds like it might be a good thing, but it’s not for many reasons. Children who do this begin to believe that they don’t matter, their feelings don’t matter, their needs don’t matter. They internalize the idea that the only thing that matters is keeping the people who are supposed to love them unconditionally happy, so that they will continue to love them.
When they grow up, these children have a higher tendency to wind up in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship and may not even realize it, because that’s what they’re used to. They have learned that the people who love them also hurt them. That love and pain go together. They have been conditioned by the situation they grew up in to believe that those who love them will also make them feel worthless.
Or maybe, the abused child has learned they were abused as a child and healed from it. Maybe they thought they learned from that. Maybe they find a romantic partner who values them and shows genuine love. Somebody who totally understands the abuse they suffered and helps them continue to heal throughout the rest of their life. That would be amazing. There are people out there who will be that person for the abuse survivor.
Then there are people who will know that the person is an abuse survivor and try to understand, but because they don’t have empathy, they may be unable to truly help. After awhile, they may end up saying things to the abuse survivor that are hurtful, that cause the survivor to revert back to the hurt, insecure, scared child, but because of therapy, the survivor is able to say something to the partner. The partner apologizes or explains away the behavior and the abuse survivor, wanting to be loved, accepts and forgives and moves forward.
The hard part in all of this is that the words leave scars. If the motivations for the negative words are never dealt with, the scars may get infected. If the words continue to happen, if a pattern of negative words emerge, the childhood abuse survivor may end up becoming the victim of adult domestic partner violence.
The survivor of childhood abuse needs to heal from that, face it and always confront it in all relationships moving forward. Nobody ever deserves to be abused, sometimes abuse is so covert that we don’t even realize it’s happening, even more so if you are the survivor of childhood abuse.
Always, always, always be careful with your words. According to several relationship researchers, including John Gottman and April Stevenson, it takes a ratio of 7:1-4:1 of positive to negative interactions for people to maintain a positive relationship. That means that you need to have somewhere between four and seven positive interactions to every negative interaction to maintain a good relationship and build a person up. So when you criticize a person, you better have at least 4 good things to say about them too, I would tend to go overboard for a child. But be specific. Say things like, “You did a great job cleaning up the clothes off your bedroom floor.” “You worked really hard on that math homework.”
If you are an abuse survivor though, I think you can set boundaries without doing this. Telling somebody they hurt you, is not being critical as long as you do it in a way that emphasizes your feelings. Such as “I felt hurt, when I was told________________, because_________________.”
It would be amazing if we could end childhood abuse and domestic abuse, but as long as there are humans involved in relationships, we won’t be able to. Until then, my hope is that all who have been abused will find the help they need. Here are a few resources if you have been abused or know someone who has been abused:
I spent a lifetime hearing from others that I wasn’t enough, or I that was too much.
I wasn’t smart enough. “Why isn’t this A an A+?”
I wasn’t dumb enough. “Oh my God, how’d YOU get an A on that?”
I wasn’t pretty enough. “You’re just lucky that I like you, with how you look!”
I wasn’t girly enough. “Do you even have any estrogen in you?”
I wasn’t Christian enough. “How can think that? Are you even a REAL Christian?”
I wasn’t American enough. “How can you teach about slavery; don’t you love America?”
I was too much of a nerd. “Do we always have to go to museums on vacation?”
I was too emotional. “Stop crying before I give you something to cry about!”
I was too anxious. “You know that’s not really going to happen, right? You worry too much about everything!”
I was too tense. “Can’t you ever just relax?”
I was too much of a vagabond. “Geez, how many places have you lived?”
I was too compassionate to others. “You want to take care of everyone else and you don’t care about your own family!”
I was too selfish. “I can’t believe you got McDonalds for dinner; you know I’d rather have something you cook?”
I was too needy. “I can drive you to school, but I expect a homemade breakfast every morning when I get to your house to pick you up as payment.”
For the longest time I believed them.
All of them.
Every.
Single.
Lie.
Because that’s what they were. Lies. Lies that said I either wasn’t enough, or I was too much for everyone else.
Because I believed them, I started to hide things about myself that I thought they wouldn’t approve of. I tried to prove I was worthy of their love, their affection, and their approval.
I worked harder in school to get as many A’s as I could. I surrounded myself with other Christians, pushing away people who weren’t, keeping them on the periphery of my life, losing out on many good friendships in the process. I wanted my parent’s approval and love. I wanted the church’s approval. I wanted boyfriends to accept me. I wanted my husbands’ acceptance, love, and affection.
I did what I thought I should, I behaved how I was told. I stayed quiet about what I thought and what I needed. I went along to get along.
Even after a divorce, even after my mom’s death, even after being estranged from my dad, even after so much counseling, I still believed the lies that I wasn’t enough. I still believed that I had to prove my worth to others. That I had to keep my opinions, thoughts, ideas, to myself if they were in conflict with those of the people I wanted to be accepted by in fear of losing their acceptance.
I trust people will accept me for who I am, until they show me that they don’t. Until they say something or do something that shows me that I’m too much or not enough for them and then I fall into the trap of trying to prove myself to them.
That began to change in 2016 when I started writing my book, Worthless No More. As I wrote that book, I started to realize that I have worth for the simple fact that I am a human being and nobody has the right to treat me as though I am not enough or too much to handle.
I was created in God’s image. I was made to be just as I am. I prefer comfort over fashion and jeans to dresses, that doesn’t make me less of a girl. My curiosity is what makes me smart, I want to know things so I investigate and learn, it does happen to make me a nerd and want to go to museums in new places and I’m proud of that. I want to explore new places. I have experienced much trauma in my life, which has made me sensitive and reactive in certain situations, sometimes reliving past trauma, however none of it makes me unworthy of love or unconditional acceptance by those who claim to love me.
In 2018, about a year after my book was released, the movie, The Greatest Showman, came out. There is a song in the movie sung by Keala Settle, playing the bearded lady, titled, “This is Me.” When I heard that song in the movie for the first time, I cried. Right there in the movie theater, tears streamed down my cheeks because I completely understood the lyrics:
“I am not a stranger to the dark
hide away they say
’cause we don’t want your broken parts
I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars
run away they say
no one’ll love you as you are…”
As the song progresses it becomes obvious that she (and the others) have found their worth and are done hiding away and are proud to be who they are when they sing:
“I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me…”
I’m tired of being cut down and treated as though I’m not enough or too much. I’m tired of being an afterthought. I’m tired of hiding away.
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.
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
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 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.
Journal-it helps me to get the thoughts that are racing around in my brain out.
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.
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.
Read a book-books can take you away for awhile to a different place.
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.
Deep breathing exercises- There are a ton of videos on YouTube and apps that help with this.
Guided relaxation- Again, there are tons of videos and apps that help with this.
Focus on taking care of you- if you aren’t healthy you can’t take care of anybody else.
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!
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