Category: anxiety

The Day I Won the “World’s Okayest Mom” Award

EricaLeave a comment

I am about to tell you a story that I can hardly believe happened to me – one that I feel is worthy of putting myself up for the nomination to win the “World’s Okayest Mom” award. (In other words, I basically had a big parenting fail moment!) Initially I felt so terrible about it, but have since laughed and shared the story with friends and family, so I figured I might as well share it with the world!

I hope on those days when you feel like you’re not good enough, when you feel bad for making mistakes, you will think about this story and know that we’re all in this together! You are worthy – you are good enough – you are loved.

A few weeks ago, I was in the midst of the one of the most stressful weeks I’ve had in a while. It was the final week of my Fall semester at grad school, and I had two major projects due that were between 20%-30% of my final grade (no pressure!) I am a very good student, but due to some crazy circumstances this semester, I was genuinely worried I was not going to pass one of my classes. I knew these projects would require many hours of work to be acceptable to turn in, but it just so happened that this final week Dean was planning to go out of town for work two different times – which meant I was by myself with our two-year-old son. And after working all day and then finally getting my son to bed, I found it very difficult to stay awake to complete my homework. When I don’t get enough sleep, I start to get sick… so of course about halfway through the week I started feeling terrible. It was a classic snowball effect situation.

During this final week, one of my sweet coworkers asked me if I would like a Christmas ornament with Calvin’s name and birthday info on it – she was making ornaments for other friends who had recently had kids, and they were turning out so cute that she thought I might want one.

I replied that yes I would, and so my coworker told me that I just needed to send her the basic info: first name, middle name, date, time, weight, etc. I started typing out a text with all the information:

Calvin Alex
June 30, 2016
11:40pm
6 lb, 7.5 oz

My coworker responds via text that she hadn’t known what Calvin’s middle name was, to which I said, “It’s Dean’s middle name too.”

Another week went by, and I got my assignments turned in (I passed the class by the way) and my coworker brought me the ornament she had made. It was so cute, and I told her I loved it! I set it on my desk at work knowing I would take it home later that day. I took a picture of it and almost posted it to Instagram, but I didn’t want the surprise to be ruined for other friends she was giving ornaments to, so I waited.

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I went to lunch, our university was providing a free meal to all faculty and staff in the cafeteria, so I ate with some of the other library staff and then headed back up to my office. I sat down and logged into my computer, and I again noticed the ornament sitting on my desk.

At that point, something suddenly occurred to me: “Alex” is not Calvin’s middle name.

It is Dean’s middle name, and it was the middle name of Dean’s grandfather for whom Calvin is named after, “Calvin Alex Pye,” but I then remembered that we had decided on a different middle name for our son: Miles.

Can I just tell you that I have not felt that embarrassed in a long time? I literally forgot my son’s middle name for a week and a half – I literally told my coworker that my son had the same middle name as my husband, a fact that was completely false.

I texted my coworker at that point, and the text began: “you are going to think I am insane…”

Genuinely, I think I had been under so much stress, that I kind of had been a little out of my mind. I cannot believe that I didn’t realize my mistake sooner – but hey folks, that’s what stress does to you!

So, if you’re feeling like you’ve made a huge parenting fail – it’s okay – tell someone, they’ve probably done something similar or crazier! Find someone to laugh about it with you. Surround yourself with people who will love and support you and not shame you for your mistakes.

And give yourself some grace.

Also, if there really is a “World’s Okayest Mom” award – please consider nominating me.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

It’s Just What I Do Now…

Erica3 Comments

Well folks,  I wanted to share that I have actually been consistently working out since about April of this year. (Yay me!)

Back before I began working out, I read a blog post by my cousin Will – who is an avid workout-er… I guess you could call him an athlete – and he talked about how so much of our actions revolve around instant gratification, and how it’s hard to buckle down and do something when you know you won’t see results for a while. His blog motivated me to stop thinking and wishing that I was working out, and just do it. So I started telling myself that exercising was just “something I do now.” Like brushing my teeth or taking a shower. It’s not something I have to wonder if I’m going to do, I just do it.

Honestly, this mindset has been a great strategy for me. Other times when I began trying to work out consistently (my longest stretch in the past was 6 months before I gave up cold turkey), I was always in it for some goal. I wanted to get to a certain weight or look a certain way or be able to run a certain speed or distance. But this time, there’s not a distinct goal – it’s just what I do now.

If I’m honest though, I did have two motivations for starting working out: one was my physical appearance, and the other was my mental health. If you’ve read my blog before, you know physical appearance is something that I can get consumed with. I sometimes struggle to accept how I look. Well, I knew working out would not make me look worse, and I hoped it might improve how I felt about my body as well. I actually have read that working out can make you feel better about how you look, even though you might not look any different at all. I don’t remember the science behind it all, but that intrigued me.

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My Obsession: Down the Rabbit Hole

Erica2 Comments

Orthorexia – an obsession with eating foods that one considers healthy

We’re about to go down the rabbit hole into my obsession with having perfect skin and beating acne. Last chance to turn back…

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To give context for this post, in another post I talked about my struggle with acne and the connection it had to my body image. I talked about how I had taken Accutane and the worst of my acne had cleared up. And while it had some pretty substantial results, it was not a complete miracle. I found that I still got breakouts more often than I wanted.

By this point and time, I was hyper-sensitive to any breakout, whether it was one or 100. Even one blemish was too many for me. After having gone through a few years of my face being completely covered with acne, I think when even a few spots started coming back, it triggered significant fear in me. I was determined that I would never go back to looking like that.

A pivotal point in my life was when I found the book, “The Clear Skin Prescription” by Nicholas Perricone. I remember being in a used bookstore and coming across it, and thinking it was worth a shot. The book is based on the premise that diet is the main contributor to inflammation in our bodies, which causes acne. So, the book outlined a very specific low-glycemic diet, which recommended cutting out sugar, even sources like bread and certain fruits and vegetables. This was over 10 years ago, before Keto and Paleo were big – so it was a concept I hadn’t heard of at that point.

I had always heard that what you ate didn’t affect your acne. I read it in teen magazines under the “Acne Myths” section, and it was plastered all over posters at the dermatologist’s office: FOOD DOES NOT CAUSE ACNE. Young and naive Erica never thought to question that “fact” and so I never worried about my diet. And since I didn’t have any weight issues, it meant that I ate whatever my heart desired, such as ice cream for breakfast and lots of fast food.

I decided to give the diet a try, and lo and behold, it really did make my skin look better! (You’ll notice I said BETTER and not perfect.) With this newfound information that diet was the key to clear skin, all I had to do was find the perfect combination of foods to eat (or not eat) to solve all my skin problems. And thus, I spent the next several years in search of the ultimate clear skin diet.

(Here’s where the rabbit hole really begins…)

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