you are invited to my pity party

I have been feeling a little blue lately. Not quite right and my anxiety has skyrocketed a bit. Basically, I've been having a daily pity party for about a week now and misery sure does love company so I thought I would share here too. :)

There's no real reason for my feelings - I'm a new mom of a 10 week old. I spend the majority of my days alone with Charlotte. My husband works full time and by the time he gets home from work, we only have a few hours before Charlotte goes to sleep. The baby sleeps in our bed with me (daddy is currently couch bound) so on most nights, I go to bed at the same time as Charlotte which is super lame sometimes (and sometimes I love having a good excuse to go to sleep early).

I have gained weight back after losing it from breastfeeding. Nothing but a few pairs of yoga pants fit me at the moment. 

I can't really get my husband to commit to too many holiday get togethers - he just doesn't really like dealing with a whole bunch of people at once. 

Charlotte won't take a bottle so I am within 20 feet of her 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thank goodness she is adorable!

My hormones seem to be up and down, and I get really anxious so, as most women let alone new moms do, I cry from time to time. All I really need is a hug but my husband just gets frustrated with me (which most men do) and then I cry even more (really men, why are you surprised by this?).

When I get this way, everything piles up and I become super overwhelmed. I need to take a bunch of deep breaths, brew a cup of tea and put things into perspective in my mind:

• I am a new mom and therefore there will be hard moments and days. And that's okay. It's normal. 
• Charlotte isn't going to sleep in our room forever. The situation will change. It already changes daily so this too will be different soon. I need to cherish the moments with my little roommate.
• I can lose weight and I can buy new clothes. Not easily on either account (schedule right now and a lot less money on maternity leave) but I can. And besides, yoga pants are comfortable.
• I actually don't want to do much this Christmas either so why so I guilt trip my husband for it? Duh!
• I need to talk to my husband about being more proactive on the bottle thing but she won't breastfeed forever and I will miss it when she is done. This is a hard one on bad days but I'm working through it. But people need to understand, I can't go out without Charltte and I can't leave her erg you because she won't eat if my boobs aren't  with her. What don't people get about that?!
• I'm never going to change my husband and I can't control my hormones. And I've recently discovered that my anxiety is directly related to my need for control (and lack of sleep). Doesn't take a genius to figure this one out. God grant me the serenity ...

There you have it - I've rationalized each point and feel much better. Not an easy task but if I take the time (for me, writing it down helps), it is worth the exercise.

So, know that you too can flip your crappy, screaming child, annoying husband day upside down with some deep breaths, a good cry (it IS okay) and a cup of tea (or wine or vodka - I won't tell). You will feel so much better after your own pity party. Thank you for joining mine! xo

fear of the phone?!

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Ever since I was little, I have hated talking on the phone. Even before technology evolved into pagers and emailing and then text messaging (so grateful for these changes) I didn't enjoy the telephone. 

I remember dreading it when I was at my grandma's and she would get a call from a friend or family member and she would say, "Come here Jaclyn, someone wants to talk to you!" What the hell was I going to say to this person who I couldn't even remember really because they were my 2nd cousin twice removed?! 

I've mentioned in previous posts that I have issues with anxiety so I know this is where the fear stems from but throughout college and into my working career, it was definitely an issue for me. 

Over the years it has gotten better for sure but I have always much preferred emailing or texting over actually talking on the phone. I'm an event organizer so lucky for me, email works really well for me because I can keep a paper trail of what people promise me and what I commit myself to. 

It was a random moment last week that I realized that I am cured!! Ha ha - not medically or technically - but when I'm given a task at work that involves a lot of phoning, I tend to procrastinate. This time, however, I was given the task of phoning about 100 people and started it right away, flew through it and then realized part way through that it was no big deal.

I still prefer the writing over the spoken. I hate talking to people on the phone who tend to speak at the same time as you do and the conversation becomes seriously disjointed and hard to follow. But do I have telephone phobia? Not anymore, that's for sure.

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Telephone phobiaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Telephone phobia (telephonophobia, telephobia) is reluctance or fear of making or taking phone calls, literally, "fear oftelephone".^[1] Telephone phobia is also considered to be a type of social phobia or social anxiety problem.^[1] It is often compared to the fear of public speaking, in that both require engaging with an audience to a certain extent, followed by the fear of being criticized,judged or made a fool of. ^[2]As is common with various fears and phobias, there is a wide spectrum of severity of the fear of phone conversations and the corresponding difficulties.^[1] In 1993 it was reported that about 2.5 million people in Great Britain have telephone phobia.^[3] The term Telephone Apprehension refers to a lower degree of telephone phobia, where it is the anxiety derived from telephones, but less severe than that of an actual phobia.^[4] These people may have no problem communicating face to face, but have difficulty doing so over the telephone.

cheers to my health! part 6: bye bye anxiety!?

photo courtesy of

My mind is officially blown!

If you have been following my blog you will know that I was very sick twice with the flu - once in November and once at the beginning of January. I missed work both times and basically my whole world had to come to a complete stop. It was horrible, I was miserable and I felt so bad for my husband who had to put up with me :)

An old friend suggested I look into Thieves Oil. She has a messy toddler and no one in her family ever gets sick so I thought "what the heck" and gave it a try. I rub it on my feet each night before bed. I started using it before I got sick the second time so I was really frustrated but continued using it. You might also know that my husband and I have slowly started eliminating gluten from our diet. I have also been journaling a lot, and doing some other self-improvement activities to improve my state of being.

The great news is that it is working. The bad news is that I wasn't sure what the it is because I started everything all at once ... until today. I spent the day Saturday shopping with my girlfriend and she was asking me a bunch of questions about my process because most people who are close to me have noticed a difference. I have noticed that my sinuses are so much clearer (I have a chronic drippy nose, suffer from cold weather asthma and had to have ear surgery as a child due to ear infections) and that it feels amazing to be able to breathe so much better. I thought that this was due to the gluten free changes we have made in our diet but it turns out that it is most likely due to the Thieves oil.

Now - it gets better! For as long as I can remember I have suffered from GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) with a twist of OCD and SAD in there for good measure (self-diagnosed and I am probably more anal than OCD). I have noticed that I have started feeling incredibly happy, relaxed, alert and healthier lately. All in all - life is great. I couldn't quite put my finger on it and was really just hoping that this feeling wouldn't go away ... and then I did a bit of random research this morning and learned that sinus problems can lead to anxiety and that Thieves oil can help eliminate sinus problems and therefore ... a natural cure to my anxiety!!??

I am not 100% sure if this conclusion is true - more of a hunch until more time passes. And I am by no means a doctor but I am feeling better than I have in a long time and if an essential oil is the reason - bring it on!

PS - I didn't post any of the articles I found about sinuses and anxiety because they weren't accredited and most comments came in the form of message boards. But knowing that others out there feel the same was as I do and deal with the same things I do is so refreshing and helpful. I don't advocate for doing your own Google research but peace of mind is worth millions in my books!