Yo-yo mood

I want to work out.

I don’t want to work out.

I want to do yard work, or paint my kitchen, or clean my house.

I don’t want to do…anything.

I want to be with people!

I don’t want to be with anyone.

I’m excited for what’s coming!

I don’t give a shit.

I love my job.

I need to find something else to do.

Ever go back and forth between these emotions? Am I the only one?

WTF is going on inside my head that I can’t figure out what the heck it is that I want??

I’m assuming it’s stress or anxiety or perfectionism or fatigue or fear or all of the above. I haven’t quite put my finger on it’s etiology, and much like that drives me bonkers in my professional life, it bothers me in my personal life.

I feel like as a medical professional, I should have all the answers, but I don’t. I don’t know anyone who does, medical professional or not. But I still feel like I SHOULD know. And it’s frustrating.

I have no wise words to share on this, I just needed to put it out there that if you’re feeling this way, you’re not alone. The yo-yo mood is strong with this one. It’s real, it’s honest, and it’s apparently part of being human. Sometimes I wish I’d rather be an actual yo-yo. Then it would make sense to feel this way 🤷‍♀️

Should have named this blog Autoimmune Mama…

Stress sucks. There’s no other way about it. It just does. And those are very highly medical terms. Stress sucks.

I have worked in healthcare for over 20 years now in some capacity, but autoimmune diseases were not my specialty, so I didn’t know a ton about them. I’m learning, for sure, due to personal experience, and now I’m devoting education to it on purpose. Many autoimmune diseases are triggered by stress. Who knew?

In the last couple years I’ve been piling on the autoimmune diagnoses, and have tried several medications. It’s not fun trying new medications when you’re prone to side effects. While the meds may be doing some good, they cause more problems and can’t be tolerated. One last fall caused blurred vision, and since I have a long history of ophthalmological problems, I decided it was probably not the best idea to continue that particular medication. The two most recent meds caused me to swell up like a balloon and lose more activity tolerance than I had already lost from my disease process itself. So for fear of causing rare heart related side effects, it was time to stop those medications too. Now I’m on nothing, and it makes me a little nervous.

So I lie here wide awake with discomfort that I just read is common with my latest autoimmune diagnosis, Spondyloarthropathy. My neck is on fire, my left hamstring is on fire, my right shoulder is on fire. My boyfriend is snoring. The dogs are snoring. And I lie here awake, intermittently grabbing my phone to research another question that goes through my head, because if I do fall asleep anytime soon I’ll forget my question until another time when i won’t have the time to look it up. I do a lot of PubMed searches at about this time in the morning more often than I’d like to admit.

I wish I could go back and teach younger me to be more keen on stress management and pay attention to her body more. Had I done more to prevent stress and avoid foods that triggered my symptoms, maybe I wouldn’t be in my current mess. My advice to anyone reading this? Listen to your body. If you don’t feel well, search for an answer, and know that it may not come from a traditional source. Be open to treatment, even if it means you have some lifestyle changes to make. I used to call myself a “carbivore” until I realized the carbs were a trigger for me, since I essentially have a celiac type of response. Now I don’t really miss them, but it took me nearly 20 years to realize that they were a problem for me and be willing to make changes.

What changes would you be willing to make if it meant you’d feel better? Ponder that thought. Comment if you wish. While you think, I’m going to start another Calm app story in hopes of getting back to sleep…

Finding motivation

Do you ever just feel like sitting on the couch with a bottle of wine (yes, I said bottle) and a straw and a comfy blanket and just saying eff it?

Yeah, me either 🤷‍♀️

Adulting is hard. Mom-ing is hard. Parenting is hard. Living is hard some days.

Some days I yearn for the innocence of my youth. Those days were so much simpler. My parents worked and supported our family. My sisters made me sit on the floor while they got to sit on the couch. I chased the dogs around our 40-acre property, over and under tree branches, through mud. I made families out of everything – and I mean EVERYTHING. Rocks, corn cobs, tendons off of deer legs when we processed the harvest at deer hunting time… you name it and I probably made a family with it.

In my adult life I’ve made families and they didn’t stick quite as well as my rock families did. I had enough practice, you’d think I could have gotten that right.

In my adult life I’ve struggled to pay bills, cried over lost friends, patients, family members, relationships. I’ve had highs and lows: insomnia, health issues, stress, success, happiness, high energy, low energy.

I’ve noticed that my own children don’t seem to have that same carefree youth that I had. We are always rushing about, they don’t get as much time to play and be kids, they don’t spend nearly enough time outside.

All my best laid plans to exercise regularly and be motivational to others get derailed by injuries, autoimmune flares, depression/anxiety, mom guilt, and the occasional night where I just want to eat a pint of ice cream, do nothing, and probably drink some wine. It doesn’t mean I get to do those things, but I WANT to.

I want to be motivated to wake up early and exercise like I used to. Exercise helps my mood and prevents a lot of my pain. But sometimes I’m in too much pain to exercise, and I’m just not in the mood. I got up and pushed play this morning. The first time in 2.5 weeks. I could stress about how long it’s been. But I won’t. I have enough stress already. I’ll just pray that I can get up and do it again in the morning. Because motivation doesn’t come BEFORE you start something, it comes after and because of doing things.

Riding the struggle bus

Oh man, oh man. To say I’ve been on the struggle bus lately is an understatement. My coping skills for life are being seriously tested, and the parent-teacher conference here would not go well.

As we neared the start of the school year, I watched meme after meme going up about moms ready for school to start so the kids would “get out of their hair” again. I wanted my kids “in my hair” more often. I watch my youngest child, especially, struggle with life and I just wish I could hold him longer and love him more. Maybe then he wouldn’t have so many troubles.

Maybe I was wrong for going to school so long and building up so much debt. Maybe I was wrong for wanting to be a mom who works outside the home so much. Maybe I should have done this or that, or not done this or that. Maybe it’s my fault he has behavioral problems. Maybe there’s nothing to do with me at all. I have no f&$@ing clue.

All I know is I wish i could help my child, but I haven’t a clue how. I love him. I cuddle him. I try to teach him boundaries and coping skills. I discipline him when he’s naughty. Then I love on him some more, because maybe that’s what he needs. We had him in behavior therapy, play therapy, and now with a regular therapist. He says all the right things when he’s with them, and he graduates out of programs because he gives a line of BS. In therapy right now, he can talk about all of these helpful techniques for dealing with frustration. But will he use these techniques at school? Of course not. But it sounded good in the therapist’s office.

So I sit here dumbfounded, unable to fall asleep, trying to mull over in my head what I can possibly do to help him. But tomorrow he goes to his dad’s for a couple days, and I won’t be able to help him at all. And it breaks my heart. My heart breaks daily for this guy. And so the stress continues. This stressed out mama just can’t catch a break.

I wish I had more insightful words to share today, but I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes. If nothing else, of you read these words and they sound familiar, maybe you’ll find some solace that you are not alone. Keep loving those Littles and trying to help them the best you can. Being a kid is hard. So is being a parent.

On being loved

I thought only dogs were capable of unconditional love. Then along came my little boys. There really is nothing quite like being a boy mom.

My boys have loved me since the day they left my uterus. All three of them. I guess that’s a typical right of being a mom to boys, but these guys of mine are something special. I just have to take a moment to brag and HOPE to GOD that I’m not the only one who experiences this.

A few weeks back, my little boys and I started doing a live video on Mondays called “Mondays with Mom” and we talk about whatever comes to their minds before we go live. Today was what love truly means to us. I was MAULED with kisses from my youngest, and I absolutely LOVED it. We had so many giggles!!

It’s an amazing honor to be someone’s favorite person. That gift of being their mom makes up for so many bad days. I’ll take the temper tantrums and kicks and misbehaving any day as long as I can get mauled with kisses and hugs and told “I love you more than anything” at random times during the day. Even my adult child ends phone calls with “love you mama”.

All that stress I have melts away when I get love from my boys. I don’t turn down hugs. Sometimes I ask for faces to be washed before I get smooches, but I still get the smooch in the end.

While I love my puppies, there’s just something about a boy who loves his mama ❤️

I need to stay on vacation

Ever feel like you need a vacation, when you JUST got back from vacation?? Asking for a friend…

I spent a glorious 9 days in the woods of northern Minnesota with my little boys last week. We visited a bunch of MN state parks and had so much fun. We went to bed shortly after the sun did, and woke up shortly after the sun. We ate food either made on a camp stove or on the campfire, and we enjoyed every minute – well, except the mosquitos!!

There was no work email to check, no pager to respond to, no alarms. No stress. As we got closer to home on Sunday, I could literally feel the tension coming back into my neck. I started thinking about all the things I needed to do for the week to get ready for work, thought about how many emails would be waiting for me (150+), and came back to real life.

Happy mama went away. I’m back to rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off, having a hard time getting the boys to sleep and thus having a hard time getting them to wake up, and just overall feeling stressed. I need a vacation again. I need to be back out with nature. I need less stress. I need to find a job that I can work from a tent…who’s with me?

Keeping up with the Joneses

Remember that phrase from childhood? Or did I just age myself? Remember when there would be those families on town that always seemed so perfect and had everything together, and they always had the best of everything? Remember that envious feeling you’d get when you’d see them? Thank goodness it wasn’t every day!

But now we see them every day. Everywhere. On Instagram. On Facebook. On Twitter. They have it all. They’re practically perfect in every way. And you just want to puke.

YOUR kids lose their homework. They don’t get ready when you tell them to. They wear clothes that have stains on them, because “it’s my favorite shirt”. They may or may not have worn that same stained shirt the day before… The kids don’t listen at the grocery store and you have to count to 3. Heaven forbid you have malted milk balls as a treat in with the meat & cheese roll ups and blueberries in their lunch. Is this just me here? Or do you have the same experiences?

But as we scroll on facetagram or instabook, or whatever social media platform it is we’re mindlessly scrolling when we have a million other things to do, and we see all the perfection, we start to feel imperfect. We start to feel “less than”. And we start to wonder who’s judging us.

I used to live the ‘Facebook perfect’ life. Everything looked amazing on my Facebook page. Even my marriage that was less-than-perfect. And people were a bit surprised when we got divorced. Well, I wasn’t. I was in the trenches. I knew the truth. And I wasn’t surprised. And you know what? I’m not alone. People are living their truths every day, thinking they’re less than other people because of what gets blasted in our faces daily.

So why do we still feel the need to keep up with the Joneses? We SHOULDN’T! We should be free to live our own imperfect lives. Because it’s our lives, after all. Whether you’re a bento box mom or Uncrustable with a GoGo squeeze applesauce (real lunch that was packed this week), you’re still a great mom. Just ask your kids.

Finding yourself

Do you know who you really are? Do you know what makes you tick? Do you feel “stuck” in life? Did you answer these questions in your head as you read them? Then keep reading.

21 years ago I became a mom, then I became a mom again 10 and 6 years ago. And I guess I can say I’ve identified as mom and/or wife most of the time since then. I mean, sure, I had things I liked to do, but my kids always came first and my wants/needs took the back seat. Hell, if my kids eat all their food and they’re still hungry, I STILL give them food off my plate. Good weight loss program, I suppose.

I’m not saying I no longer want to or do pay attention to my kids; on the contrary, actually. I have realized I need to do things that are good for me in order to set a good example for my kids. I used to use the excuse that I couldn’t work out when I wanted to because I didn’t want to miss out on time with my kids. But now I’ll have my kids work out with me. Even if they don’t actually do the workout, they’re in the same room as me and we can talk and giggle together while I’m getting sweaty. And when I need to be on the computer to get some work done, I can give them some of their much coveted electronic time as well, and we can be sitting together on our devices. That way they get what they want, I get what I need, and we can spend time playing card games when I’m done.

It’s easy to lose focus on yourself. But at some point you start to feel empty. When you find that thing you love and that makes you tick, you get rejuvenated, and you’ll actually be a better parent. You’ll be more fun again. Just ask my kids.

You have not failed anyone

I grew up in the church, always active in the church – as a small child I was a “clown for Christ” (yes, a CLOWN! Yikes!), then I was a part of our bell choir, regular choir, New Life teen band; I once referred to myself as a “dork for Jesus”. In my early 20s, you could still find me in our church choir, but in a much larger church and much larger choir. Then in 2007 we moved to Iowa, and I haven’t called a church “home” ever since…

Whether you’re a church-going person or not, you have SOMETHING that you do religiously. Maybe fishing or hiking is your church, maybe serving others is your church, maybe you don’t do anything at all or you don’t believe in God. Whatever the case, I ask you to continue reading. Because there’s a point to this message.

I know when we moved away from Minnesota, I was comparing every church to my Minneapolis church, and nothing compared. Not even close. So I struggled to find a church home because of comparison. It’s probably no surprise that I struggled in my marriage because of comparison, too. We seemed like we were doing ok. I would see the struggles in other relationships and think ours weren’t as bad, or so I thought. I didn’t really know what a good healthy relationship these days should look like.

When we moved back to the Minneapolis area, we used the excuse that our old church was too far away and we wanted the kids to be able to be in church school with their regular school friends. But we still didn’t find a local church home. Nothing met the standards we had set from our Minneapolis church. So we continued not to go to church, and I continued to have a growing void in my life. In my marriage, in my relationship with God, in my relationship with myself.

In the words of one of our marriage, and then uncoupling, counselors, I had grown disgusted with our marriage. It was not what I had imagined, and I fought by myself for a long time to try to keep it alive. To no avail. Because a marriage isn’t sustained by one person alone.

I had started working on personal development because of the lack I was feeling in my life, and as I read books and listened to podcasts, I learned a lot of things about myself. I tried to improve these things, but I couldn’t do it by myself. In the process of divorce, I stopped going to our uncoupling counseling, because it was just making me more angry, and started going to my own therapist. In a previous blog post, I identified that we traced the start of my personal issues back to when I was 13. When I had adults in my life that I looked up to and respected, not believe what I was saying and instead support the people who were bullying me. For 26 years, I’ve been waiting for an adult I admire and look up to, to tell me that I hadn’t failed them and I was worthy of love and respect.

As we went through the tedious and angering steps of the divorce, I avoided the church. I became ANGRY with God. How could He have led me astray with my marriage and let me keep my blinders on for so long? How could He keep putting health issues on me and adding more stress to my life? God only gives you what you can handle? I call B.S. I’ve gotten WAY more than I could handle in the last few years. And then some.

After meeting with friends recently, and having started to feel the need/desire to go to church again, I finally sent a message to my old minister, the one that had married me and my ex-husband, requesting a time to sit down with him. He had time that week. I was shaking as I drove to see him. I got in his office and almost immediately started crying as I poured out a synopsis of what happened to my marriage. And I admitted that I had let my pride get in the way of coming back. I didn’t want to admit that my marriage wasn’t successful. I felt like I had failed him and God because I hadn’t stayed married. He told me the words I needed to hear – I hadn’t failed him or God, and mistakes are human. And anger is a natural feeling and was expected given all I’ve been through. And that God hadn’t left me alone all this time, but He had suffered through all of it with me. And He still loved me. He told me I’m still a good person with a lot of inner strength. He invited me back into the church, and encouraged me to get back into the choir.

I’ve needed to hear those words for 26 years. I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I’ve felt a peace that I can’t even recall when I’ve felt last.

Have my friends and family and my boyfriend told me I’m loved in this process and that I’m a good person? Of course they have. So why didn’t that do the trick? Because it was adults with authority, adults I looked up to and trusted to help me grow up into a responsible adult, that had let me down when I was 13. I needed someone with that same authority figure to fix it. I’m so thankful for my minister. I’m thankful for the words that he said, the meaning and love behind them, and the sincerity with which he welcomed me back. None of it is a magic wand that will make everything amazing overnight, but it certainly makes the road ahead that much more bearable.

What is it that you need to be able to truly feel that you are worthy, and to start believing the positive words that others tell you? Because you haven’t failed anyone. The only person you have to explain anything to is yourself, and you’re already forgiven.

On being present

I used to be a tech-aholic. I had a smart watch for monitoring my workouts, I turned on my phone running app to monitor my runs also (yes I’d monitor on my watch AND my phone, because they weren’t always the same), AND I’d strap on my heart rate monitor to keep track of my zones. And if I forgot to push the start button on my watch or phone? Let’s not even go there…

So now you get an idea why my boyfriend had to stop and pretend he was marking a day on his calendar as we walked at the zoo the other day. I had started walking the path, intermittently holding the hands of my boyfriend and/or my children as we went, and I didn’t look at my phone or push a button to mark the starting and stopping. WHAT?! You’ve GOT to be kidding me…

I NEVER would have done this in the past. I had to mark these trips on SOMETHING to get credit for it. If my watch ran out of battery in the middle of the day, I’d get VERY cranky because it wouldn’t track my every move! I mean, why even walk anywhere if you can’t track it?!

But in the midst of my autoimmune troubles lately, I’m really working on decreasing my stress and just being. Being present, loving, breathing, laughing with my children, not even getting pictures of EVERYTHING they do to chronicle our lives. I realized after tucking the kids into bed tonight that I haven’t taken pictures of them in two days. I’ve just been with them. We cuddled on the couch, we read books, we giggled. It’s been wonderful.

I’m still working HARD to have this become the norm. My stress level has got to decrease BIG TIME! It’s the only thing I can really control right now. I can’t control much in my life, none of us can, but I CAN control how I respond to things. And I want to enjoy the days I have with my kids. I think it’s safe to say we’ve enjoyed the last few days, even though I have very few pictures to prove it. You’ll have to take my word for it. Or theirs. 🙂