If you are reading my blog for the very first time, WELCOME and thank you for being here!  Please follow me by entering your email address and you’ll be notified of my future posts!  You may be wondering what I am all about and what I may have to offer.  Why should you read what I have to say and follow me?  Through this blog, I share stories and lessons of my life.  Happiness, sadness, struggles, and pain.  Yet I show you that happiness and success and new life can be achieved.  It’s not easy to be vulnerable and put our most heart felt feelings out there.  I do it with the hope that it will encourage somebody else to keep going.  Life can be very hard and the feelings can get you down, but you don’t have to let it beat you!!  You can win this thing we call life!  Never be ashamed of your story, it can save somebody else…with that, I share a little more with you tonight.

The past couple of years I have had a lot of health issues and major back problems, nerve issues and chronic pain.  If you’ve ever experienced chronic pain, it can be crippling.  Beyond the pain, it can also be incredibly depressing.  It is life changing, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.  I have been on disability from work since mid-August after rejecting my Dr.’s recommendations for months and working anyway, because that’s what I do.  I work.  I have always been dedicated to my job and the most loyal employee around.  But in light of growing anxiety with my job completely changing, going through a buy out/merger and not knowing what would change day to day, my nerve pain worsened and we couldn’t figure out why.  I finally took my doctor’s recommendation and am now taking some time off.  The theory is lessening stress will lessen the nerve pain.  It does seem to be making a difference!  Yay!  Unfortunately, this adds an additional stress because even though I pay in taxes for this exact kind of thing, they sure don’t like to pay when it is needed!  So I am currently going through the appeals process to try and get paid.  Just what I need…more stress.  But that is the least of my worries right now honestly, my health and peace of mind are what is really important.

You can probably deduce that recent months have been incredibly difficult for me.  Five weeks ago I started therapy to deal with the grief of deaths, I have lost 5 people in the past 4 months.  I also lost a relationship that has been a huge part of my life for the past 5 1/2 years.  The relationship has been off and on and never healthy, this is a hard, hard loss and I have never felt like this.  Frankly, the past few months, I have felt completely lost and I have not had the ability to reason properly.  I have had a lifetime of losses and being with a therapist I have really connected with, I learned that there are actually some much more deep seeded pains that I have ignored most of my life because I have always just been that “strong woman”.   Multiple deaths, the end to a long term relationship and worrying about losing my job = STRESS.. ANXIETY.. DEPRESSION.

People judge me daily, and guess what?  That’s ok.  Those people have not walked in my shoes, those people have no clue what is on the inside of me, what I’ve overcome and where I am at now.  They are seeing only the struggle, and the sadness that has been in my heart and showing through my eyes for months.  My friends watch me suffer silently knowing that I am doing everything in my power to change my circumstances.  I am not wallowing in self pity any more and that is the point of this post!!  You are allowed time to grieve, and that time frame is different for everybody.  There is no instruction booklet for grief  or anxiety.  There are, however, tons of resources that I have found useful.

The first lesson, be patient with yourself.  Nobody can tell you when you should feel better.  As long as you want to get better, you will.  Choose to stand up for yourself, make the change and take it one day at a time.  I get very overwhelmed when I think about the big picture, but I can handle day by day!  I made the mistake of going MIA from my normal routine, missing out on many events with my friends which only magnified the problem. The more I isolated myself, the more depressed I got. Trust your friends, take solace in time with them.  They care about you and that is irreplaceable.  I am not only getting myself back out there, I am donating a lot of my time to helping others.  I have met some amazing people and have really been feeling quite a sense of purpose in my life that I haven’t felt in a very long time!  I have actively and consciously been seeking out people and activities that will help me feel better.  I have accepted the things I cannot change and I have been working to change the things I have control of.

Don’t wallow in self pity.  (It’s soooo easy to do!!)  Don’t get stuck in the anger you feel; the helplessness.  It will eat you alive, it’s been eating me alive for months and especially the past few weeks.  That is the most helpless feeling in the world when you cannot control your own thoughts.  This goes back to being patient with yourself, but don’t stay there!!  It’s easy to be mad, upset or even to have no clue what exactly it is that you’re really feeling, just knowing that it sucks!  That’s ok!  Just don’t stay there.  Find the value in your experience.  Make it into something positive even though you may feel like there is absolutely nothing positive to come from it.  You have to search for it, FIND IT!!!  I am finding value in all of the turmoil in my life lately that will change me forever.  I am appreciating things I have taken for granted or completely overlooked.  I have bonded with old friends, I have created new friends and I have found where I can add value to others lives and make a difference which makes me feel great about myself instead of the self-loathing I have done most of my life.  Give back.  I can’t speak to that enough.  Donating your time, feeding the homeless, collecting clothing for shelters – none of this takes anything more than your heart and time.  You should live every day like it’s your last and you must nurture the relationships that you have.  Appreciate every day that the Lord gives you!  Make something positive out of whatever situation you’ve been going through.  I am so thankful for my followers and more importantly my amazing friends, my support system and my sweet daughter Lexie that has had to put up with my ups and downs.

The bottom line, the point of talking to you tonight is to help me, and to help you.  I want you to know that it’s ok to grieve over rough times, I have done a lot of it lately.  It’s ok to cry, to be angry and feel lost.  The most important lesson I have learned is that there is something positive to come out of everything.  Find it.  Don’t let yourself stay stuck.  I have been stuck for a long time and I have a long ways to go, a lot of exploring of my entire life to learn why I handle things the way I do and why I continue the same patterns.  So my journey is just starting but I am really exciting to be taking these steps to change my life for the better, for the rest of my life!  As always, I hope this is helpful for you and I hope you will sign up to follow me and read and share my posts with anyone that you feel could relate.  Goodnight.