I battled anxiety for 6 years before having my son, and I don’t know why it never dawned on me that this major life change would trigger it.
Add the trauma of our newborn staying in the Children’s Hospital for 4 ½ months, with him undergoing 3 major surgeries and coming home with a colostomy bag, and you have a recipe for a mommy martyr.
I lost myself in spending 8 hours a day in his room at the hospital, and trying to pump every 3 hours so that at least he’d have the healing benefits of my breast milk.
I lost myself in taking care of him 24/7 after he came home, because I couldn’t imagine someone changing a colostomy bag on a 6-month-old.
I lost myself in making the healthiest organic baby food possible for him when he started eating.
I lost myself to motherhood.
When he hit one year old, I had a total mental breakdown, culminating in me rocking back and forth on our couch in pajamas, hair in a towel, repeating, “I’m not OK!” over and over again.
I always cringed when I heard the term self-care, but in the past 6 months, I’ve come to realize that it’s not just self-care, it’s self-survival!
Here are 3 of my favourite ways to go from I-can-barely-cope to cool, calm mom:
1. Eat a better-than-sex baked good:
I’m a huge proponent of the benefits of Vitamin P (= Pleasure), and as moms we’re deficient in it 99.5% of the time. We're always putting everyone else’s needs ahead of our own. This isn’t the green light to eat your feelings, but taking the time to actually sit down and pay attention to how amazing that baked treat really is has its time and place. It's OK that it's better than most of the sex you've ever had, just don't tell your husband.
2. Clean your makeup brushes:
I can go 6 months between cleaning my makeup brushes. Every morning I say to myself, "GOD, these are so dirty, I need to clean them!" and every morning I get distracted by all the other crap that I need to do. It takes all of 5 minutes, and the next morning I'm so happy that my brushes are soft and gorgeous again. Plus, my under-eye concealer covers better.
3. Take a joyride:
Freedom and time by myself is what I miss most now that I'm a mother. Even when I'm out by myself, relaxing for a few hours, thoughts from my daily mommy to-do list will leak into my head. So, I blast some old school tunes in the car with the windows down, rap like I’m the next Iggy Azalea, and get a taste of freedom—that keeps me sane for the next day or two.
What simple things do you treat yourself to that totally chill you out?
If you liked this, you might also like "More Me-Time" and "Calming Down When Our Kids Are Ramping Up."
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