Finding the Happy Medium Between Caring For Others & Caring For Yourself

I have a hard time making sure that I take time to do things for ME. I am totally the type of person to give and give and give myself away to everyone else in order to keep those around me happy. I truly believe that giving is better than receiving, but let’s be honest… It does feel good to receive!

You owe it to yourself to not feel shame about doing what makes you happy. I used to think that doing so much for everyone else was simply me wearing myself down and not taking exploring the things that I love. But then I changed my perspective. I love to comfort people. I love to take weight off of people’s shoulders. Ilove making people feel welcome and at home. And just because I go out of my way to make those things happen, doesn’t mean that I care any less about myself. It makes me happy making others happy, and I shouldn’t feel shame or regret about the fact that caring for others (sometimes more than myself) brings me joy.

Find a happy medium. So… yeah. I like to make others happy. Most people do. But what you have to keep in mind is that you can’t truly be happy unless you are happy with yourself. You can give endlessly for those around you, but if you aren’t giving yourself even half of the attention that you are giving to everyone else, there is no way you can possibly be happy. I can’t stress just how important it is to spoil yourself every once in a while. Sometimes I forget that my happiness and mental health matters too, and it always end in a crying fit of rage and jealousy. So find a happy medium. It’s good to care for others, but do not forget that YOU MATTER TOO!

Spoil yourself! Believe it or not, but I am not the typical girl. I would much rather go hiking or fishing than going to get my nails or hair done. The point is, it’s important to identify the things that bring your mind and body peace and do those things! If you’re not sure what things you would enjoy to do for yourself, there is nothing wrong with exploring to find what works best for you and your schedule. You deserve to be spoiled because YOU ARE AN AMAZING, LIVING CREATURE! Life is hard! Make the most of it!

Here are some ideas of activities you can do to make sure you are caring for yourself:

Play an instrument
Read a book
Wash your face or put on a face mask (I tried this for the first time the other day, and even though it was a quick and subtle fifteen minutes, I couldn’t believe how refreshed I felt afterwards!)
Ride a bike
Paint your nails
Take a bubble bath
Go for a walk or drive alone
Put lotion on (I have recently made this a habit after every shower. It sounds silly, but that extra 5-10 minutes I get alone to myself after a shower really makes a difference! Plus, who doesn’t love soft, smooth skin!)
Take yourself on a date
Paint, write, or draw
Listen to music

Whatever activity or hobby you decide to take part in, make sure you are doing it without distraction and focusing on reaching a peaceful and happy state of mind. What do you do to rejuvenate your mind and body? I’d love to hear some of your ideas or recommended products!! Drop a comment and let’s chat!!

Excuses & Friendships

Maintaining friendships after parenthood is hard. Most parents will agree.

But I always kind of had a hard time keeping up with others even before I had a baby. I have always been more introverted, and I can’t really think of a time in my life where I truly felt like I had a “best friend.” Sure, I had people I trusted, hung out with, and considered more than a simple acquaintance, but I never really felt a connection deep enough to where I felt totally comfortable and completely understood.

A short time ago, I had an old high school friend message me and ask how the baby and I were. I hadn’t heard from this friend in quite a while. I will admit, I was being petty about her not coming to visit me like I feel a good friend should. After all, she lives a county away from me. When she messaged me, I was busy doing whatever thing I had on my list of things to do as a working mom, so I gave her a simple: “We’re good.”

I didn’t mean anything negative by it. I was just … BUSY! So she ended up getting upset about how she tries to keep up with me now that I have a baby and that all I do is shut her out. I can see where she is coming from. In all honesty, I will probably always be the type to keep my distance when it comes to outsiders. I like friendship and I do believe that healthy relationships are important, I just no longer have the time to put a bunch of effort into people that aren’t making an actual, solid attempt to see me. You can make every excuse under the sun as to why you don’t go visit someone, but when it comes down to it… it just shows that you don’t actually care that much. And I told her just that.

How much you care is how much you try.

On the other hand, I had a friend that actually put in a great deal of effort to see me and meet my daughter for the first time. When I first got out of high school, I headed straight to Eastern Illinois University. There I met a girl named Tiffany. Now, we both only went to school there for one semester, but we were thick as thieves. We would run out to my car and smoke cigarettes, go to the frat houses, and hang out in our dorm rooms. All college fun… but that was four years ago. We never lost touch.

I actually met up with Tiff in Chicago about a year ago, and then this past weekend she made the four hour trek to come visit me and meet my daughter.

I’d say that is a helluva lot more effort than most people give.

And we had only seen one another one time in the last four years.

My point of this isn’t to bitch about the people that aren’t putting effort into relationships.

My point is… The people that care, will show up.

It doesn’t matter if you only knew them for a total of four months.

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen them in years.

And it doesn’t matter how far away they are.

If they care, they will show up.

“Sometimes you gotta take a break from all the noise to appreciate the silence.”

I’ve hit a wall with my writing. It seems that I’ve ran out of all inspiration that is required to create a “good post.” So that led me to come to the conclusion that I am going to take a break on my blog. Sad face.

I just want to make sure that I gather some quality ideas and meaningful words so I’m not just pumping out average, boring posts just to fill my wall. I did not start this page with the intention of only focusing on follows or likes. I started this blog so that I could share my story and provide words of encouragement and advice to those that have been through similar situations.

For now, I want to focus on me.

But have no fear… I will continue to read and interact with what everyone else is writing. Maybe I can find some inspiration from one of you.

ALSO, Mathew S. and I have been working on a cool fiction collaboration that we will hopefully be publishing sometime in the near future.

Have a great week – I can’t wait to share with you all again sometime soon!!

Xoxoxo

-Chrissy

Forgiveness After Pain

I’ve been struggling to come up with new content lately, I won’t lie. I was sitting at work one day and the urge to write about this suddenly came to me. I immediately flipped to the very back of my work notebook to jot down some thoughts on what forgiveness after pain means to me.

Forgiveness is hard. Whether you are the one in the wrong or you were the one that the wrong was done upon, deciding that you are going to move on is hard. It’s not easy saying that the pain you were feeling is simply… in the past.

I have thought a lot about the ideal of forgiveness. It can be freeing and bring a lot of relief. I like to think that, for the most part, I’m pretty good at doing it. After digging deeper into the situations of genuine forgiveness that I have personally experienced, I came up with a few points to remember when it comes to forgiveness after someone has caused you pain. Keep in mind, these are just my opinions.

To “forgive and forget” is foolish. I heard that phrase a lot as a kid. I believed in it for a long time. But let’s be honest. It is foolish to forgive someone and then tell yourself there is no chance that it’ll happen again. I’m not saying hold grudges. You can let go of the pain, but still be conscious of what they have done to you in the past. There is nothing wrong with be cautious with your heart. Hurt me once, shame on you. Hurt me twice, shame on me. Forgiveness does not necessitate that you set yourself up for more pain in the future.

Sometimes forgiveness requires distance. You can forgive someone and completely move past a heartbreak without allowing them back into your life. Some people are just plain negative, and some people will always have toxic tendencies – no matter how many chances you hand out. Sometimes the best way to heal is to conclude the relationship altogether.

Just because you forgive, doesn’t mean you dismiss their actions as acceptable. It just means you’ve let go of the resentment. There is a reason we all feel pain. Your feelings are always valid. Sometimes they may be exaggerated, but they are always valid.

You are not your parent’s mistakes

You are not your parent’s mistakes. You are not responsible to carry their burden.

I have always struggled with this. Living in a small town community, nearly everyone knows your business, baggage and all. The thing about me, though, was that I was so very different that most of the other kids in my high school. When I say that I was from a small town, what I mean is that I graduated from high school with a class of 54. There were only two students in the entire high school that identified as something other than white. When I say there was no diversity, I mean NONE. Zilch.

So to feel like the outsider when most everyone was all so alike, was like carrying a bowling ball in my backpack hoping no one would notice.

I was ashamed of my mom. She was using meth and was in and out of prisons all throughout the state. And I felt like it was written all over my forehead, as if someone could see her mistakes when they looked at me. I felt nervous if someone looked at me for more than a few seconds.

They probably know that I’m the kid of a drug addict.

So my confidence went on the decline. I didn’t give people the benefit of the doubt – I just assumed that everyone could tell what I came from. I thought my mom’s choices defined me, and that held me down for a very long time.

I grew up, moved on, and came to understand that the person she became was not going to be the person that I would become. I wanted different, and I was in the position to do so. My aunt and uncle took me in, taught me right from wrong, supported me, and loved me as their own. All I had to do was believe in myself as much as they believed in me.

It’s hard to distance yourself from something that feels like a part of you. I will always feel the void where my mom doesn’t exist. I will always feel a tingle of embarrassment when someone tells me that they know who my mom is. I came from her. I exist because of her.

And to decide that those things don’t matter is very hard to do.

I am not my mom’s lapse in judgement. I do not have to carry the weight of her misguidance on my shoulders. I am not her.

I am strong-willed and brave. I have a brilliant mind. I am a force to be reckoned with. I am happiness and power, rolled up as one. I am nature. I am beautiful. I am hard-working and resilient. I am me.

There is so much that am, and it has nothing to do with my mother.

You

Are

Not

Your

Parent’s

Mistakes.

Mental Health Awareness Month

I’ve never talked about mental health on my blog before, but I figured it’s a great topic to talk about, and since May is Mental Health Awareness Month, there’s no better time than now!

When I think about words that describe myself, I first think about words like happy, energetic, motivated, determined, etc. But the truth is, there are more times than I’d like to admit where I feel the exact opposite of those. There are days I want to pull the blankets over my head and sleep the day away. There are days where I feel sad, have no energy, no motivation, and no patience.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. (46.6 million people) experience mental illness in a given year. Also, mood disorders, (including major depression, dysthymic disorder and bipolar disorder) are the third most common cause of hospitalization in the U.S. for both youth and adults 18–44 years old.

So if so many people are affected by a mental illness, why do I feel so alone when we realize that I may be suffering, too?

When I look back on my life, my darkest time was definitely throughout my junior high school years. I remember talking to the school counselor a lot during my 6th, 7th, and 8th grade years. It was the time in my life where I most struggled with the absence of my mom. I think it was when I first started to fully understand what had happened to me and began to realize that my life was much different that those of my classmates. I was angry a lot of the time. I grew up in a family of six siblings, and at this time I remember I would get in trouble a lot for hitting on them. I don’t consider myself a hostile person, but at that time I was looking for an outlet of my emotions that didn’t involve talking about or dealing with the severity of them. I resented my mom and the fact that she chose drugs over my sister and I, but my sister was years younger than I was and couldn’t fully understand what had happened. She was only 3 when DCFS took us from our mom. So I was dealing with all of those demons completely alone- even the person that I went through this with couldn’t help me.

It was my eighth grade year when I hit rock bottom. I had a bedroom in our basement, and my bed was one of those bunk beds that had a desk under it instead of a second mattress. I was sitting at that desk listening to some of Eminem’s darkest songs and thinking about how much I hated what I was going through. I got up and searches the medicine cabinet for any and all pills I could find.

I went back to my desk, laid the pills out, and started writing goodbye letters to my loved ones. Before I got through the last letter, I was bawling and starting to realize that this wasn’t something I could go through with. I imagined what my family would be like as they read these letters, and I realized I loved them WAY too much to put them through something like that.

I went to school the next day. During PE hour, I gave my best friend the letter I had wrote her the night before and explained to her what I was feeling. We cried together in the locker room and she took me to go get help from a teacher.

I’ll never forget that moment.

We grew apart in the following years, but I have treasured that moment of love and understanding for all of these years. She was the one that picked me up without judgement and led me to the help I needed. I love her for that to this very day.

Many years ago!!

There is no shame in getting the help you need. I recently read a post on Facebook that said something along the lines of hoping that one day getting help for mental health would be as normal as going to the doctor for an injury, and that getting released from school for mental health would be as normal as leaving for a tummy ache. What a world that would be. Let’s end the stigma against mental illness and help those suffering get the help they need.

The big 5-0

I have finally hit 50 followers! I just wanted to dedicate this to all of you awesome readers that follow my journey, read my story, and leave your comments.

When I started this blog, I had no idea what I’d be getting into. I’ve always had a passion for writing, and I knew exactly what my platform was going to be. Writing has always been a great outlet for me, and it’s something I love to do!

I started to write a book back when I was in high school, but kind of just let it go to the way side. I’ve decided I wanted to get back into creative writing and work on publishing chapters of a new book! I already published a prologue for it, if you are interested in reading it I have left the link at the bottom of this article. I think it will be a fun journey and a great way to challenge myself while also pursuing a long-standing dream of mine.

Anyway, THANK YOU for your follow, your friendship, and your support! 50 followers may not sound like much, but this blog has turned into way more than I ever could have dreamed!

-Xoxoxo, Chrissy-

❤️

Read Prologue here.

Della is three months old today!

It has been awhile since I’ve given an update on my beautiful Bebe girl, but since today she turns THREE MONTHS old, I thought it would be a great time for an update on my new life in motherhood!

Ever since we brought her home, Della has been one of the most content and well-behaves babies I’ve ever seen! For the most part, she does not fuss unless she’s hungry, wants attention, or needs changed. She sleeps through the night pretty well- only waking about two times a night to eat. Once fed, she goes right back to sleep. 🙂 We are so lucky! However, it makes those nights when she’s up more than a couple times even more frustrating because we’re not used to it! Haha, but I truly can’t complain!

She’s such a happy, smiley girl. I’ve had quite a few moms tell me she should be a Gerber baby! I think her beauty is rooted in the fact that she has these long, beautiful lashes and curly hair. Ahhh, she makes my heart swoon!

She hasn’t yet let out a hard giggle, but she’s smiling and trying to get one out!

I can have bad days, but it’s amazing how those frustrating times no longer matter once I get her in my arms. Motherhood is truly one of the best things in the world!

Hope you all enjoy the photos of our beautiful girl. I’ll try to give more updates on here. What can I say? I’ve been pretty busy! 🥰

You say you love your mom, but I can’t relate

I have always been a mildly jealous person. Not that I am in a rage when I see someone with something I don’t have myself, but I am the type of person to let little things hurt me.

And the one thing that probably makes me the most jealous and hurt is when I see others rave about how much they love that their mom is their best friend.

You say you love your mom, but I can’t relate.

I have had a lot of outreach from my blog’s readers. I often hear how others have really connected to what I write about my mom, so I wanted to write one for them- For those that feel the same hurt that I do. For those that have had their own pain and find it comforting to know that they are not alone. For those that relate to this title before even reading the article… This one is in honor of you. (Thank you for reaching out to me, telling me your own stories, and sending love. I hope that never stops!)

I was 7 years old when I was taken from my mom by DCFS, and I actually do have a lot of great memories of my mom from before then. Maybe I exaggerate how awesome those memories really are, simply because I have yearned for more time with her ever since I could understand what even happened. I remember her tickling me while snuggled up on the couch. I remember how good her pepper gravy tasted. I remember how beautiful she was as I looked down on her from the top bunk of our bunkbed.

There were times I would lay with my face in my pillow crying, just so my sisters wouldn’t hear me. I never googled my name because the one time I did I was terrified to see a nasty methed-out mugshot of my mom. I was mailing letters to my mom while she was in prison, whereas some of my friends didn’t even know how to address a letter or buy a stamp. I changed the TV channel every time I saw a CrimeStoppers commercial come on, just in case her picture would pop up under the WANTED list. These are things that I’m sure the average kid doesn’t have to deal with, but they shaped me into the girl that grew up angry and jealous of everyone else that brags on how awesome their mom was. You may love your mom, but my mom has hurt me more than any person on this earth. I do not feel sorry for how blunt I can be about the pain that she has caused. I do not feel like I have to sugarcoat the emotional and mental hurt that she has brought to my life. So when you say you love your mom, I can’t relate.

You may think, “… But she’s your family, you should love your family no matter what!” Here’s what I have to say to that: Would someone that truly loved you do that to you? No, seriously. Yeah, I get that family is important. My family is truly one of my highest priorities, but someone that can cause you that much heartache is not family. She could look me dead in my eye, tell me she was done with the drugs, then walk down the street to a buddy’s house for a hit after I drove away. So when you say you love your mom, I can’t relate.

I remember one of my high school best friends would bring a perfectly folded and packed suitcase with her to every basketball tournament. To this day, I still remember standing there watching as she opened it up and took the beautifully arranged items out. Something as simple as that made me wish that I had my mom do that for me. There are so many small things moms do that get overlooked, but there are people like me that notice every single one of them. To those of you that have that amazing relationship with your mom, I hope this post makes you realize your love for her even more. I hope this gives you the urge to go hug her and thank her for nurturing and loving you the way a real mother should. You are living a life so many others can only dream of. Never waste a moment to tell her how much she means to you!