So This Is What Calm Feels Like

Sometime last month, around the same time I mustered the courage to call my doctor and say HELP, I’M LOST IN A BLACK FOG, GET ME OUT, I made a decision. All I had to do to convince myself that it was the right decision was think back to Christmas 2008, when I was an anxious, nervous ball of stress every single day. Christmas is always stressful for me anyway, so the last thing I need to do is make it harder for myself.

So I decided this year that after a certain point in December, I would allow myself to stop worrying about my blogs all the time.  I saw how I had been living more of an online life than a real life, and I saw everything I was missing. I decided that I was going to make my husband and kids the number one priority. I began choosing to close my laptop and actually LOOK at my kids when they talked to me, instead of listening halfway while continuing to type. I started actually watching TV with Chris instead of half-watching while continuing to type, then looking up every couple of minutes saying “wait a minute, what did that guy say?” and making Chris rewind, which drives him nuts.

I’m a lot happier this year, my friends. The combination of the Effexor plus turning off the panic switch in my mind has made such a huge difference in my life, I can hardly explain it. I feel like I’m HERE, like I’m really being a wife and mother.

I’m still feeling a little bit of stress, mostly related to the fact that I STILL didn’t get cards sent out before Christmas, or do the baking I had planned to do, or get any presents wrapped yet at all, but I don’t lay awake for hours every night composing lists of posts I have to write. I don’t jump out of bed in the morning in a panic about the state of my email inboxes (which is pretty major since it used to be a daily source of stress for me). I don’t feel overwhelmed, I feel…calm.  I just wanted to share that with all of you. Thanks for reading!

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