Anxiety Attacks, Identity Crisis, and Burnout, Oh My!

Have you ever had an anxiety attack that felt like it came out of the blue? The kind that wakes you up to the realization that on the way to where you are in life, you somehow lost yourself along the way? 

I talk to a lot of people who have had similar experiences once they became parents. 

Life becomes all about your family and kids, and suddenly a well-meaning break offered by your husband to take a few hours to yourself becomes an identity crisis in a matter of minutes. 

Excitedly, you take him up on this offer and begin looking for something cute to wear, but none of the non-mom clothes stuffed in the back of your closet even feel right anymore. So, you settle for the jeans and sweatshirt daily attire you’re used to now. What happened to the person who used to give a crap about how she looked?  

Anyhow, you get in your car and drive to the local coffee shop and go through the drive-thru because when was the last time you even thought of going in? With a couple of kids in tow, it’s easier to stay in the car. Besides, what are you going to do, sit in there by yourself? Weird. But, you used to do these things by yourself, and you wonder why this is so weird now? 

So you roll through the drive-thru blasting some music from your glory days when life was a party, and anything was the limit, and you remember for just a second who you used to be.  

And you miss her. OMG, you miss her so much! 

You miss her so much that your bones hurt with longing for how you used to be. But not because you don’t love your family and not because you want to party like it’s 1999 again, but you miss YOU.

You willingly sacrificed everything for them, but maybe you went just a touch too far, eh?

So you sit there in your car with 3 hours to burn and nowhere to go. You don’t even have a usual place anymore that doesn’t involve the kids, and you wonder if she’s gone forever.  

And then you get mad. You get mad because you did this to yourself. No one told you to give yourself up, but here you are. 

But being mad isn’t a bad thing. It means you give a shit. 

It means you’re willing to fight for her. 

To go into the depths of yourself and find that woman who knows there is more in life for her to experience. To show her kids that she doesn’t have to give up on herself or her dreams just because she’s also a mom. 

How this story ends is up to you. 

You can sit in that car sobbing over a lost identity and your lack of style, or you can dig deep, DECIDE you’re worth it, your kids are worth it, and turn your Universe back onto its right axis again.

I share this story because it’s mine, and I decided to choose me. 

Not because I was choosing myself over my children, but because I needed to choose myself for myself, my children, and my husband. 

It’s been ten years since that breakdown. I can’t imagine if my life had been any other way because I know I’m worth fighting for. I can be myself and the kind of mama I want to be. 

 And you can too. 

 Are you ready?