Impostor Syndrome

I have had "blog" on my to-do list daily for a week. I have not completed my to-do list and gotten my "I DID IT" sticker in a week. My mental health has been shaky at best and I don't feel like I belong on my own blog. I feel like if I can't even make my own brain work, then how can I give suggestions to other people. I am currently tricking myself into writing because no one reads this blog yet anyways, so it's just fine.

Impostor Syndrome:

noun

1. the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills.

This week I have been feeling this big time. I am a project coordinator for a construction company and I am good at my job. Logically I know this. I have the data points to show my success and the feedback from my peers and bosses to back that data. But, I feel like I don't belong. I feel like one of these days they will see though my facade and realize that I actually suck at my job and they made a terrible mistake in hiring me. 

I feel like this in my relationships right now, too. I'm not very good at cooking, I have the ability to keep house but I hate it so I do a sub-par job. I make quite a bit less money than my partner so obviously I'm not contributing enough. I feel like my parenting skills are lacking and I'm probably going to break my kid. Again, logically I have the data points to refute these claims, but I can't seem to get past this.

I don't have any advice. I can't tell you or myself how to feel better. I can tell you that I am making lists of the things that I know to be true so that I can go back and read them. It seems to be helping at least a little bit.

s.m.

Little Acts of Self-Care

I think the little acts of self-care like face masks, getting your nails done, going for a walk, taking time to read, and anything else you can think of get a bad rap. A lot of people seem to believe these things are not “real” or meaningful self-care. I don’t agree.

It took me a long time to learn to tolerate myself again, let alone start loving myself. Part of what helped that was small acts of self-care. I wasn’t ready to go to therapy. I wasn’t ready to talk to my doctor about what medications could help. I wasn’t ready to start doing the things that I needed to do to really improve my mental health, but I knew I hated myself and I needed to do something.

I started small; keeping my nails done was the first step. I figured that if my hands looked nice, I would feel more confident meeting new people and shaking hands. Then I realized that my skin had seen better days, so I started working on skincare and learning what my skin needs to be healthy. I’m still not great at keeping a skincare routine, but it’s a vast improvement. I noticed that when I was washing my face and applying my products that I was “talking” to myself as I did it. I started trying to appreciate different parts of my face. This led to me being able to appreciate different parts of my body and my mind.

Those small steps led to big steps because I now had some idea of what it looked like to start taking care of myself. I spoke to my doctor about meds, I started therapy. I started to treat myself they way I would treat someone that I love. I worked on feeding myself well and working out. I worked on learning how to be gentle with myself when I was struggling instead of beating myself up.

I can’t say I’m just bursting at the seams with self-love yet, but I definitely get along better with myself than I have in a very long time.

It’s OK to Just Let It Happen

Last night (Thursday) I was worn out. My week went like this:
     Sunday – cleaning, homework, planning, mom stuff
     Monday – work, study, mom stuff, clean up, final
     Tuesday – work, cook dinner, mom stuff, clean up, final
     Wednesday – work, eat, phone calls, clean up, mom stuff, fold laundry
     Thursday – work, emailing teachers, calling doctors, mom stuff, event at the kid’s school, scouts
By 9pm last night I was done and out of me to give. It was a long week, and I’d had a bad day at work.

I decided to take a bath and try to relax. What I got instead was those first rumblings of a panic attack; my chest was tight, my jaw was tight, I had racing thoughts, and the tears started to well up. I was too tired to fight it and try to make the panic stop. So, I just let it happen. I knew that if I fought it I might not win and I would still have the panic attack or I could let go, ride it out, and go to bed. It sucked, panic attacks always suck, but I knew I’d make it out the other side. After it was over and I was calm, I went and woke my partner up and asked him to snuggle with me and I fell asleep.

Here it is Friday, and I feel a little lighter, a little less gross from the past several days. I feel like I did a brave thing by letting myself feel what I was feeling and get some stuff out. We don’t have to keep it all in and spend all our time fighting and avoiding dealing with the way we feel. That pressure builds up and it’s going to have to come out eventually.

s.m.

Sunday Selfcare

I have a Sunday ritual that I almost never miss. This is the not super fun kind of selfcare, but it sets me up for a less hectic week which helps keep my anxiety as low as possible. I like to take about 2 hours in the early afternoon to get a cup of coffee to sit and plan out my week and spend some time on my own.

Step one is planning. I use The Happy Planner, below is the format that I prefer. 

I check my calendar on my phone and make sure that there isn’t anything else I need to add to any of the days of the week. Then I start adding in my to-dos. I have three that are daily: reading, journaling, and taking my meds and vitamins. This ensures that these tasks get done with much more consistency. I also love the “bills to pay” box so I never feel like I’m missing anything. I use “to buy” to make my grocery list during the week and “errands” to make notes of anything I need to do but not on a particular day. “focus” is just for notes and random tasks that need to be added to daily to do lists.

*Bonus Hack* I give myself a sticker each day when I complete my to do list.

Step two is journaling. I like journaling after I plan because it gives me a chance to break down any anxieties or concerns I may have come up with while I was making my plan. Sometimes I decide to rework my plans for the week because I realize that I just do not have enough spoons to complete everything that I need to, or maybe I need to be sure to schedule in downtime if its going to be a busy week.

Step three is reading. I read every day, but on Sundays I sit and I really try to get through a good chunk of whatever book I’m working on at the moment. This week I am reading “The Self-Love Experiment: Fifteen Principles for Becoming More Kind, Compassionate, and Accepting of Yourself” by Shannon Kaiser and I am loving it!

That’s it. These two hour sessions on Sundays set me up for success each week and give me a structure so that I don’t have to worry about what to do next.

s.m.

Why I Deleted My Facebook: Social Media Literally Made Me Sick

About 6 months ago I decided to delete my FaceBook account. I kept trying to cull down my friends list to remove anyone that was posting things that were not good for my mental health, but I just kept running into reasons to keep people even if I didn’t think I wanted to. This person is my family, this person isn’t trying to be harmful, this person posts cute puppy pictures. I never got to a place that at least once a day I wasn’t seeing something about suicide, removal of women’s rights, politics, fear mongering. Taking in this kind of information on a constant basis without a say in what you are going to see is harmful to a healthy person’s mental health, it’s can be an anxiety inducing death blow to a mentally ill person.

One day I was scrolling and getting more and more anxious and I made the decision to completely remove myself from the situation: I completely deactivated my FaceBook. I made a post letting people know that I was going to, and I did it. I have kept my messenger app to continue staying in contact with my supportive friend group, but my FaceBook pages does not exist.

The first week was ROUGH. I was so used to the mindless scrolling and I didn’t have that security blanket anymore. I kept trying to open the app on my phone and it just kept not being there. To be honest, that first week was anxiety inducing. I wondered what I was missing out on, what might be happening with my friends that I would want to know about. Turns out, I wasn’t missing out on much, except maybe the birthday reminders.

After that first week I decided I did want a social media platform that I could post on and get my thoughts out and kind of show the people I love what’s going on with myself and my family. I turned to Instagram. I had an account that I rarely used, so I updated the profile, set my account to private, and started there. I follow a lot of artists and comic creators, and people that post pictures of my favorite animals, as well as a few friends. I have carefully curated an online space where I feel safe and it’s pretty rare now that I see something that is very upsetting to me.

I would encourage everyone to take a look at your social media accounts and think about how you feel when you look at them. Do you feel empowered? Do you feel shameful? Do you feel loved and supported? Do you feel anxious? Think about how you want to feel and decide if you want to make change. Then do it.

s.m.

Benzos for Breakfast

Hi, I'm Sarah, and this is my blog.

This is my second attempt at starting this blog, and I'm fairly dedicated to really going for it this time. I decided to create this blog so that I have a platform to share what I think about mental health, growing as a human, and to provide support and maybe build a community for people like me.

So, who am I?

I work full time as a project coordinator for a construction company; I also go to school full time and am working am majoring in business management. I have a 9 year old son with some academic issues that we are working though, a partner that I absolutely adore, 2 dogs, and 2 cats. We have a very busy home.

As the blog title may suggest, I also have mental health issues. At this time my diagnoses are: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I consider myself high functioning, but I do struggle daily especially with the BPD and anxiety.

I want to be able to share my thoughts and life hacks that I have come up with over the years and maybe learn a few also.

Please let me know if you have anything you want me to write about. I am really excited to see where this goes.

s.m.