Category: you matter

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”).

(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!

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

No Means No!

So many times this week, more than usual it seems, I have had to tell multiple students that “no means no!”

It seems obvious to me. If you ask somebody for something and they tell you no, that’s the end of that conversation, move on, walk away. It’s over and done, they gave you their answer. But that isn’t the case most of the time.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Instead of “NO!” what they seem to hear is, “keep asking me the same question over and over.” It annoys me, so I can only imagine how it makes the person being asked feel. Ignored, unimportant, good for only one thing?

I step in whenever I hear the conversation continue and tell them that “no means no” and to move on with their life.

If we don’t teach our children that “no means no” in situations that seem unimportant, like sharing toys or food, how can we expect them to know that “No means no” as adults in situations that carry life long consequences as in forcing or coercing someone into having sex with them?

Rape culture starts at a young age. What we teach our toddlers and children about the right to say no and the responsibility to respect when people tell us no goes with them into their teen and adult years where rape and other sexual assault happens. We don’t want to teach our children the wrong thing. We want them to be able to tell someone no, with conviction, and stand up against them, when they continue to beg, but we also want to teach our children to respect the right of others to tell us no.

April is sexual assault awareness month. I was in Junior High the first time that somebody touched me without my permission and I never told anyone until a few years ago. I was 15 years old when my boyfriend raped me, I was too ashamed to tell anybody what happened for over a year and when I did tell, most people blamed me since I didn’t break up with him right away.

According the the National Sexual Violence Resource Center Website ( https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics ) one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they turn 18 years old. One in five women and one in 71 men will experience rape in their lifetime while one in three women and one in six men will experience some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime. If you want even more heart breaking statistics, feel free to check out that link.

The only way we are going to change rape culture is to change what we teach our kids. Instead of teaching our daughters not to get raped, (well both genders, but girls do tend to get raped at much higher rates than boys) we need to teach our kids not to rape. They need to know that “no means no,” but so does silence, and “go away,” and “leave me alone”…

If you or a loved one has been affected by sexual abuse or assault and needs help call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4473 to be connected to a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.

Holiday Hope

I have overheard people talking baout how they don’t like Christmas because of a bad childhood. I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My mom and dad separated when I was almost 7 years old and my siblings and I spent the next several years living mostly with my mom, but sometimes with my dad, but we always spent Christmas with my mom and her family.

Even though they were separated and we spent Christmas day with my mom, our Christmas tradition included both of them.

Even though my parents fought, a lot. Even though they cut me down and made me feel insignificant, a lot. Even though most of the year was filled with anger and tension, Christmas time seemed magical.

One afternoon in December, when we got home from school, my dad would decide it was Christmas tree day. We’d load into what we referred to as the “banana truck”, a yellow, Volkswagen, flatbed truck, and drive to a Christmas tree farm. We’d see a tree and if it looked good, one of us kids stood there to guard it until we decided that was the one and we cut it down, or cut down a better one. He always let the three of us take a turn with the saw too, so we each had a part in bringing home the Christmas tree. Once we had the perfect tree for that year, he’d throw it onto the back of the truck, drive us to our mom’s and set it up for us. Sometimes he’d stay while we decorated and they’d get along for the evening. The magical part, they’d get along.

Then one year, when I was in middle school, we lived with my dad, and my mom rented a room from a friend. Even though it wasn’t my mom’s own house, we were going there for Christmas and there was already a tree. The problem, for me anyway, was that we weren’t going to be in a house with Christmas spirit, leading up to Christmas. My dad wasn’t going to get a tree if we weren’t going to be there for Christmas.

That year, my siblings and I took matters into our own hands.

My sister and I went hunting for the box of Christmas decorations, while my brother raided the wood pile. He found the perfect pieces of wood to fashion together in a Christmas tree shape, it wasn’t huge, maybe 2 feet tall, but it’d work.

Then, the three of is found my dad’s supply of green butcher paper. We cut off enough to wrap around our wooden Christmas tree frame, laid it out on the floor and decorated it. We drew on ornaments and Christmas lights in bright colors. Once the paper was Christmas-y enough, we wrapped it around our frame.

We took the Christmas lights and strung them up around the room, we didn’t want to put them in our paper tree, because it was the eighties and those big, old Christmas lights got hot and we didn’t want to burn our paper tree. We even hung lights in our bedrooms.

It was perfect.

Looking back, it’s still my favorite childhood Christmas memory. My siblings and I took a bad situation and filled it with hope and love. I spent many evenings that December sitting in front of our homemade, artificial tree, with nothing but the Christmas lights to illuminate the room, dreaming of a magical life and feeling peace in the hope that I could make Christmas magical on my own.

Right now, this world we live in is dysfunctional. People are fighting, a lot. People are cutting others down and making them feel insignificant, a lot. People are filled with anger and tension, alot. We can have a magical Christmas season.

We can choose to dwell on the negative and talk about how horrible things are. We can choose to keep the divisions between us and them.

Or…

We can choose to do something else.

We can choose to work together to make the world a better place, just like my siblings and I made our house a better place.

We can choose to see hope in the holidays.

We can choose to stop fighting and start talking.

We can choose to stop cutting others down and making them feel insignificant and start building others up and letting them know how important they are.

We can choose to let the anger go and find constructive ways to release the tension, like giving to others and loving them.

Each person in this world can choose to make it a better place.

My holiday hope is that everyone chooses love and peace.

#endthestigma Proud Mom Brag

I have two awesome kids and I’m super proud of them a lot. They are both friendly, smart, and totally different from each other.

In this post I’m going to brag on my daughter, just to warn you.

If you don’t want to know the incredible thing she did this week, stop reading now.

If you do want to know what she did this week to make me so proud, please continue reading.

She’s in eighth grade and taking a leadership class. This past week they were assigned to give a short, informative presentation, like a TED talk, but only about 2 minutes long.

The students picked their topics and some were; the importance of the gas light in your car, art, phobias, being a blonde, being a brunette, there was even one about TED talks.

My daughter chose to talk about mental health disorders. She wanted students her age to understand how common mental health disorders are, how they affect people’s lives  and not to make fun of people who have them.

She cautioned people to not use the names of mental health disorders lightly. For example, saying you have OCD because you’re organized. She informed her classmates that saying those sorts of things can really hurt someone suffering from that mental health disorder

.

The best thing is she didn’t even tell me about the talk; she usually goes about her school life without telling me what she’s doing. A student in her class told her mom about my daughter’s talk because it made such an impression on her. That mom came and told me.

When I asked my daughter about it, she shrugged it off like no big deal. She just thought people needed to know.

I can not put into words how proud I am.

#endthestigma

Fantastic New Song by Avril Lavigne

I have been having a fantastic, busy past few weeks, I haven’t even had much time to blog, so I’ll give a quick update before I introduce this amazing new song.

Last year, I started having a hard time with the anti-anxiety medication I was on. It made me not care about anything and all I ever wanted to do was sleep, I was always sooooooo tired. I like to get one medication out of my system before starting another one, so I asked my doctor is I could take the summer off any medication so that I could see how I do without it. It’s been years since I haven’t been on medication and while it initially works, each one I’ve been on has ultimately left me feeling exhausted and not caring about anything.

By the end of May, I was off medication and I tried natural ways to relieve my anxiety. I have a regular bedtime that I do my best to keep, whether its a weekday or not. I do my best to stay away from food that is made more out of chemicals than real food. I drink far less soda than I used to and way more water. I also walk two miles most mornings before I do anything else and practice yoga stretching and breathing exercises while listening to a local Christian radio station,which a friend of mine DJs on.

Overall, I feel so much better. I have energy that I didn’t have at the end of my run with medication. I’m feeling physically fit, I can walk two miles in 30 minutes. I’m losing weight from eating better foods. I don’t feel anxious all the time about every little thing.

Having said that, my anxiety is not completely gone. I still have the occasional panic attack, complete with rapid breathing, tears, and my whole body shaking. Sometimes I know what situation has caused it, sometimes I don’t. What I do know is that all I have to do to get through it, is focus on something relaxing, and take some deep breaths until the panic passes.

I still worry about random things too. For example, this past week I was in Washington DC, where I used public transportation to get around. It was hot there, but I wouldn’t wear shorts because I didn’t want to put my bare legs on the seats in the subway trains because somebody else may have put there bare legs there. It doesn’t even matter though because I’m going to take a shower, so who cares? I did. Little things like that still cause me excessive worry, but I can function. I just wore pants and went on with my life, the same exact germs that I didn’t want on my legs got on my pants instead. It all worked itself out in the end and I had a fantastic time taking new people to one of my favorite places.

Now, to this song by Avril Lavigne, called “Head Above Water”.  The words of the song tell my story and the story of so many others who suffer with anxiety. It’s beautiful and heart-wrenching. Thank you Avril Lavigne for putting these feelings into such an amazing song and video.

This song brings hope!

I have Survived!

For us, here in my little town, school started two weeks ago and I have survived. There is only seven weeks left until we get our two-week fall break; that’s only 34 more school days. Or six more weekends.

However you want to look at it, we’re in the midst of it and having fun, at least I think we’re having fun, I’m too tired to tell.

One of the symptoms of anxiety for me is trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. I regularly take 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep, while my husband can close his eyes and is out immediately. Then, I often wake up during the night and will lay there for two or three hours counting sheep, saying the alphabet backwards, counting down from 100 by threes, connecting countries, or any myriad of other sleep tricks I’ve learned, only to fall asleep just before my alarm goes off.

Lucky (?) for me, this week I have been so tired from school that I haven’t had any trouble falling asleep, or staying that way until my alarm wakes me in the morning. I’m loving it. I love my sleep.

I have amazing, complicated teen-aged human beings to take care of during the day and teach them about psychology or history depending on what class they’re in. Its fun! I love what I do.

Seeing those light bulb moments are incredible.

Knowing that they have learned that it’s okay to make mistakes is beyond compare.

Watching them realize that they are valuable and love-able is priceless.

My goal this year, is not to merely survive each day in exhaustion, but to make sure that each student knows, every day, exactly how valuable they are, that they matter and my class would be worse off without them.

So far, I think I’m accomplishing that.  I hope I’m accomplishing that.

I have survived and so will they!

Another Trip Around the Sun

So last week I completed another trip around the sun and celebrated my 44th birthday with family, old friends, and new friends. Be I also spent time reflecting on the past year of my life. It was a good, but challenging year.

Some of the good:

  • my book was published and is now carried at several major book retailers in digital and print format.
  • My kids and I all survived a year of school.
  • We made new friends.
  • I got to take my family to New York and DC.
  • I’ve learned more about my anxiety, how my brain works with it and more of my triggers to help alleviate severe bouts of anxiety.
  • I lost fewer days to migraine than previous years.
  • My son was finally, officially, diagnosed with Autism.

Some of the challenges:

  • My anti anxiety medicine caused more side effects than help.
  • My son was diagnosed with Autism, so now starts the challenge of getting him an education appropriate for him.
  • I was one of several defendants in a civil lawsuit, which brought many horrible life experiences back to the front of my mind and emotions.
  • I still lost some days to migraine.

Overall, this past year was great. I will look back on it with fond memories, every year brings it’s new struggles and the positive memories of the past year, as well as my family and friends will give me the strength I need as I begin a new trip around the sun.

Thank you for reading. If you haven’t done so yet, please subscribe to this blog. Also feel free to share it with your family, friends, acquaintances and whomever else.

Where Did The Time Go?

Children look forward to summer break all year long. I’ll let you in on a secret, most teachers look forward to it as well.

If you read my post “Hello Summer, My Old Friend” , ” you know that summer has been a difficult time for my anxiety in the past, I haven’t been looking forward to summer break for the past few years because of it.

This year I had a plan. I was going to get through the summer without a major episode of anxiety or depression and with one week left, I have been successful.

I’ve kept myself busy with my family and running my kids to all their activities. I’ve practiced relaxation breathing techniques as well as yoga stretches to start each day. I’ve focused on God and his role in my life. I’ve limited my time on social media and seen a purse and worked on my next book.

Most of the time I try to stay out of my own mind. I’ve learned that if I spend too much time in my mind, it begins to lie to me and drag me into it’s depths. Social media adds to those lies my mind tells me, so I limit it.

I’m thankful that I’ve made it through this summer. I go back to school in a week and my kids go back in two weeks. I know the school year will bring it’s own challenges as we adjust to another diagnosis for my son, autism, as well as homework demands, learning new routines and meeting new people.

This summer seems to have flown by, where has the time gone? I’m thankful I survived it and know that will give me strength to survive the school year.