I’ve made a decision. I’m going to stop trying so hard to be your friend. I don’t know if it has to do with living in CA for five years now and having to make so many new friends, or having a kid, which has left me with less time for friends, or the years of therapy that have finally built up my resilience, but I’m ready to stop trying to be friends with everyone. Continue reading
Last week my playgroup had a playdate with a discussion about juggling and self-care. I wasn’t able to attend because I was juggling an appointment with my therapist into my schedule so I could do some self-care. The plan was to read an article about balance before the playdate in order to fuel the discussion.
I wanted to participate in the talk despite being unable to attend so I wrote an email with some of my thoughts. Well, it ended up more like a blog post. I share it here with minimal edits: Continue reading
I put a lot of thought into how to be a happy mom. I’ve been seeing a therapist regularly for years to work on my tendency towards anxiety and depression. I had made a lot of progress. So much so that she told me at one point that she thought we could consider stopping my therapy if I weren’t about to become a mother. Continue reading
Am I happy being a work-at-home mom (the term I prefer to stay-at-home mom)? It is by far the most stressful job I’ve ever had and I do have a difficult time with the constant vigilance. Continue reading
Sometimes I have a feeling the universe is trying to tell me something. A while back I was writing about a man I once observed while riding the bus. He was the obligatory crazy man that all buses seem to have. Continue reading
Remember that movie Awakenings? Do you remember how Robin Williams’s character, the doctor, had a theory that these unmoving people were actually moving so much that they became frozen and that’s when he decided to try the medicine used for Parkinson’s? I haven’t seen the movie in a while, but it was something like that, right?
That’s how I feel sometimes. Frenetic to the point of paralysis. Continue reading
In preparation for the birth of our first baby sometime in the next few weeks I started reading HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie F. Mongan. I’ve just started it, but already I’m impressed by the calming effect it is having on me. Funny thing is, I haven’t even begun to read much about the specifics of the technique.
In the first part of the book Mongan spends much of her time convincing the reader that childbirth does not have to be painful. Continue reading
On Friday I wrote that I would post about the book Dave and I are reading that I hope will help me with my desire to raise emotionally healthy children. I started reading the Optimistic Child by Dr. Martin Seligman over a decade ago for a mentor program I participated in when I was in high school for which I studied depression independently. It has a slightly different meaning for me now and I feel as though I understand it a little better.
Seligman’s theory is that depression is caused by learned helplessness. Continue reading
On Wednesday I wrote about some of the fears I have about being a parent, but I needed a whole separate post to address my biggest fear. Continue reading
I’ve decided that if I can get through this pregnancy and the subsequent adjustment to a baby without too much freaking out, that will show that I have made an enormous amount of progress in the anxiety realm.
I feel I’m getting to the part of the pregnancy in which I’m having more anxious thoughts. Continue reading
A little bit of wisdom 