Tag: youmatter

Tough Days Happen

Sea Sanctuary - #Repost @positivelytherapy ・・・ Bad days happen. Tough emotions happen. Confusing thoughts happen. Some days are going to feel like a completely messy scribble. And that's ok. • • • • • • #

I work with high school students. Today, I had two students who were having anxiety attacks come to me.

One was able to use the techniques I was giving them as well as some of their own to calm down. That is great!

The other, used various techniques and could not get their breathing to slow down, their tears to stop, or their brain to stop racing. That is okay too.

Sometimes we just have a day(or a lot of days) where we can not quiet our minds. When our hearts continue to race and our thoughts spiral into places we don’t want them to go. And that’s okay.

In the long run, feeling like that is going to have physical consequences for us, but sometimes we just need to feel what we feel. We need to accept the facts of what is happening to us or around us that are making us feel this way. Eventually, if you use techniques that you have found work for you to slow everything down you can get back to normal.

Calming techniques for one person, may not work for another. That’s why it is so important to find what works for you.

Here is a website that has ideas with videos to instruct how to use each technique they present. https://www.mind.org.uk/need-urgent-help/what-can-i-do-to-help-myself-cope/relaxing-and-calming-exercises/

Many people in anxiety attacks get upset with themselves for not being able to calm down, or call themselves names for having the attack in the first place. These reactions DO NOT HELP. It’s important to accept that it happened in order to get to a calmer state. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 4% of the world’s population have an anxiety disorder, you are not alone in what you experience. You can also reach out to a therapist for help in gaining techniques and strategies for when it happens and in making your life improve over all.

Heal to Handle Joy

A friend of mine sent this image to me recently. I have no idea who to credit for it, but it is so true.

I spent most of my life hyper-vigilant, not knowing who I could trust, even myself. I often felt like there was an overwound spring, ready to break free inside of me. The anxiety often threatened to pull me under and drown me. It took a toll on my body as I am still learning to relax my overly tense muscles.

Therapy has helped me tremendously. The first few times I went, I did the work to get through the trauma of the moment. Then because of insurance, or time committment, I would end treatment with new skills and strategies for dealing with the stresses of life.

This time though, I have continued beyond the trauma of the moment and gotten to the base of my mental health issues; feeling worthless, not good enough, abandoned, alone, and dealt with them. Now, instead of always waiting for the next bad thing to happen, I believe that I will find joy.

That is a terrifying, new experience for me. I’m not saying that I haven’t been happy before, but I never trusted it, history had shown me that good times don’t last. You get your heart ripped out of your chest, cut to pieces, and left alone to put it back together again.

As I have been learning to live my authentic self, not making myself fit into a certain mold or expectation of me, I have found people who like me, and all the oddities and nerdiness that go along with me. It’s scary to be vulnerable and honest with yourself and others, but in the process, I am learning how to handle joy in my life. I’m not scared that I have to behave a certain way to keep people likeing me, they just like me.

Therapy taught me that I can be me. As a friend learned in one of her therapy appointments, I’m not for everybody and everybody isn’t for me and that’s okay. As I have embraced who I am, I have learned to find joy in acceptance, peace in solitude, and contentment with others. I no longer feel as though I am a spring ready to break free, now if I could just get my shoulders to realize that they are not responsible for keeping everything inside so they can relax…

If you need someone to talk to, I am now an Associate Marriage Family Therapist working at Share Homes Foster and Adoption Agency in Lodi, Ca. If you are in California, I can work with you. Send a message for more information.

Invisible Me

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.

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: