Self Reflection November 2023
As we head into the week of Thanksgiving and with the end of the year fast approaching I can’t help but do some self reflecting on this past year. This has been one of the most challenging and life altering years of my existence. I have oscillated between so many high highs and so many low lows that I feel like I have whiplash sometimes.
In April we had our daughter, Elise, 3 months early due to some personal health issues. In all honesty, I am still traumatized by my pregnancy and birth. It felt like my body was against my pregnancy and my sense of well-being at each and every turn, throwing a fit and wanting this foreign invader out. It is one of the hardest things that your body and mind can go through.
Since having Elise I have felt the effects of my Anxiety and ADHD skyrocket to an unhealthy and overbearing level. I am very fortunate that I have a GP that has wanted to help me through those things and that I am lucky enough to be able to afford those things. So many go without and I just could not imagine how lonely and devastating that would be. It takes a village to raise a child and I am so beyond grateful for mine; family and friends alike.
I look back on those first few weeks after George went back to work and I just cannot imagine how alone and overwhelmed Mothers are who have no help from their SO because of work or other life circumstances. I felt alone and my husband was only a text or phone call away and was able to come home at any time when I needed it. That kind of love and support is essential for existing in this world and especially for raising a child .
The word “Mother” also hasn’t sunken in yet. Like the fact that I am a mom just absolutely baffles me. How can I be a Mother? I am just me. I love my daughter more than anything and will do anything for her but my brain is just still in shock. Even saying that I have a daughter feels like a sham to me. My brain is taking it’s sweet time reclassifying my self-identity but we get closer and closer every day.
Another concern that a lot of people don’t always talk about is the body dysphoria that comes with pregnancy. For me, my weight, mental health and appearance changed so rapidly from the person that I knew that it felt like a stranger was looking at me in the mirror. I did not recognize myself and I did not recognize the way that my body and mind felt. I know that some of the major changes are related to not being as healthy as I could be and that I need a better diet and need to exercise. I am genuinely struggling to make routines for those but every day brings more time for me to work on myself and the relationship I have with myself.
Another struggle that I have (and this is not new to Motherhood) is being unable to just “be” and always be in the “what do I do next” mode. It’s exhausting. I don’t understand how to relax and the swirling thoughts and feelings in my brain never settle even when I force my body to be still and sit down. They spiral faster when I don’t have something to occupy my brain with.
Struggling to maintain my interests. Where do I begin with this? I have to fight and push and prod my brain to get any kind of “want” or creativity flowing. Crochet? Can’t right now. Painting/ drawing? Can’t right now. Designing the website? Can’t right now. It’s not that I’m being lazy, more than anything I want to get those things done. It’s that as soon as I think about doing those things and then getting them out to do them I am just so overwhelmingly exhausted that I am unable to proceed. Unable to even look at the task in front of me without needing to immediately take a nap. It’s exhausting and disheartening sometimes.
Then when I do have the creativity to get these things done or the want to do them, I just fixate on them to the point of forgetting to eat or drink and make myself sick. See the vicious cycle here? Sometimes I get part way through a project and my brain halts all thoughts, processes, etc and tells me I need a nap. That I am beyond exhausted and need to sleep or I will drop where I am standing. Right in the middle of painting or drawing or any other important or personal task that I might be working on.
Sounds exhausting just reading about it, right? Well this is the daily struggle that I face and that many others like me face. This is why mental health awareness and non-hyperactive ADHD recognition is so important. What quality of life is this? The reason that I crash so hard before starting a task or during a task is because my brain is so busy working overtime at all times that when it has started to work through something else there is a “does not compute” and then the whole system crashes and needs a reboot, like a computer.
Not only that but many others that face the same struggles as me also have to face the struggles of being told that you couldn’t possibly have ADHD. I was told that by Doctors in my childhood that because I wasn’t failing out of my classes or constantly getting detention that I couldn’t possibly have ADHD and that nothing was wrong with me. But what was I getting? B’s, barely. And my teachers all knew I could do better than that but I struggled so hard to even be able to absorb the information or stay on task with an assignment or reading. It shouldn’t take rereading a paragraph 10+ times to finally understand what the letters on the page even mean.
One of my major faults that I need to reflect on and make changes towards this year is not putting my mental health and physical health ahead of some of my other activities. Prioritizing going outside at least once per day even if it’s to just sit on the deck with the baby and eat a snack or take a walk around the yard. Sometimes I find myself getting so caught up in what I need to do, what steps need to be done to even start that task and then just doing basic care for myself to exist that I forget to go outside until after it’s dark. And I don’t know about you but I find that life is just not the same without fresh air and the sun.
This is not a blog where I am looking for pity in any way shape or form. I am putting this out there so I can heal through sharing because so many are going through this too in their own way and we are not alone in our struggles. Everyone’s journey is different and everyone can acknowledge that mental health is important. This journey that life brings is full of ups and downs but the most important thing is that you are embracing the change and making steps to move in a forward direction.