Overcoming Misfortunes During My Month From Hell

To say that January has been the month from hell would be an understatement. I have actually tried writing this before, but it was preemptive because I hadn’t reached the peak of my misfortunes like I thought I did. When I started to tell you all about how horrible my first two weeks of the year had gone I thought that we were out of the woods. Apparently life took it as a “Challenge Accepted” moment.

Let’s Start From the Beginning

Actually I’m just going to quickly give you the run down because if I wrote down in detail what’s been going on then this post would be too long. So here we go.

• Received some concerning news about my health.
• Husband became SUPER sick and is just now starting to feel better. Even ended up in the E.R one night.
• Both kids have been sick.
• Husband’s truck (that we just bought a few months ago) remains in the shop due to multiple things going wrong with it.
• And the usual suspect finances.

This may not seem like much, but I guess it’s the details that make it whole. Something I didn’t put in the list is the toll it took on my mental health. You see as a mom I feel like I have to control each and everything that goes on and if they go badly, well that’s on me.

Depression Settles In..

When all of this started happening it began taking pieces of me. Finding out something could be wrong with me took a piece. Watching my husband deal with being the sickest I have ever seen him took a piece. My kids getting sick, not sleeping, and the constant worry of how to pay the bills, took a piece. So much was being taken from me that eventually I was barely left with anything.

” I went to a dark place.”

Of course I have been through moments of feeling down or depressed due to some situations before, but this time I got really low. I wanted to cry all the time, but felt like I couldn’t. I felt like I had to keep it together and that I wasn’t allowed to feel this way. That I needed to suck it up and be a big girl because other people have it way worse.

I hate when people say that.

Don’t get me wrong I get it, my situation may not seem as bad as the next person, but just as you may be dealing with something pretty shitty, I too am dealing with something that is majorly affecting me negatively. You can compare your situation to the next person and yes it may shed some light on your situation, but what you are going through is still very important.

Because in my mind everything that could go bad was. Knowing something could be wrong with me, that my husband could be dealing with a life changing illness, the fact that both kids caught the stomach bug and continued to get sick because why not, and then add in financial difficulties and things breaking down makes for my emotions being in overdrive.

I was trying to salvage my sinking ship by removing water with a thimble.

I don’t like not being in control when it comes to things like this. I’m a mom and it’s my job to keep the ship running. However it felt like no matter what I did we just kept sinking. But because so many things were chipping away at my sanity and the fact that I wasn’t sleeping really took it’s toll. The dark place was taking it’s hold on me.

It was telling me that I was a horrible wife for not working and placing everything solely on my husband. It was telling me I was a bad mother for getting short with my kids. The fact that we weren’t financially prepared for this was my fault. I should have been budgeting better. There was so much guilt for everything and the main focus was that this was somehow all my fault.

This is why it’s important to have a support system.

At this point I was so far down that I couldn’t even see the surface. My husband and I were snapping at each other. I was barely talking to anyone because I didn’t want to be a burden, but also because I didn’t want to break down. Everything in me told me that I wasn’t allowed to show weakness and because this is my fault I needed to fix it. It wasn’t my fault though.

There’s something really beautiful in having a support system. Having people so close to you that even without saying it they know you are struggling. The beauty of it all though is no matter how hard you are struggling, they are in your corner fighting just as hard as you are.

Your job is to overcome whatever crap you are going through, their job is to help keep you above water.

If there is anything you can take from this long ass post is that, it’s ok to cry. It’s ok to not be ok. Sometimes just by laying it all out there allows your body the release it needs to start over.

Think of it as a reset.

The more you bottle things in the more you become a ticking time bomb. Don’t hold in your feelings because you feel like you are a burden. To be honest with you, if your friends or family make you feel like a burden then they were never in your corner to begin with. The ones who truly love you will do whatever they can to help you succeed. I had so many offer to help us (money, food, etc), but the best help I can say I received was just having them listen to me bitch and cry for a minute. Allowing me to have a total breakdown really helped me release all of that tension I had built up. It was almost like I was free.

Did it completely solve our problem? Of course not, but I was able to regain control again and now I had the strength to tackle the problems.

Luckily January is finally over. My husband seems to be doing better, my kids seem to be doing better, and my health seems to be doing better. Everything else will start falling into place.

So here’s to February, the official start to 2019.