My Stress Story

I usually say my stress story begins when I was going through a divorce, but it honestly started much before that. When I was in grad school and working full time, I always had so much on my plate and I attributed it to being ambitious and driven; but in reality, I really just had this story in me that I needed to work really hard to be loved and to get ahead.

So towards the end of my marriage when the stress of that relationship got really high, I noticed that I was withdrawing a lot - I would do a lot of escapism behaviors, I was yelling at my kids way more than I care to admit, and even after our divorce, that continued. I just exchanged one stress for another: the stress of a marriage that I was unhappy in for the stress of being a single parent.

My last straw was yelling at my child one more time and just seeing the pain on his face - I knew I couldn’t blame anyone else for my stress anymore. I had to make changes. I couldn’t keep operating this way. It wasn’t fair to me, and it wasn’t fair to anyone else, and it was all my responsibility.

I got really focused, and my priority became not being so stressed out and really lowering my anxiety. So everything that I did, every decision I made was really about, “Is this going to raise or lower my stress?” So I took some pretty serious measures, took a lot of stuff off my plate, said no a lot, had to withdraw from a lot of social contact just so I could heal and manage myself and do some self-care practices.

I have not had anxiety for awhile now (or when I do, it’s only every now and then), but it’s probably been over two years to where my chest isn’t tight anymore, I sleep better, and I just truly live a happy life. It really feels like my life flows. There is ease in it, versus me waking up every day feeling like there’s not enough time, everything is an obstacle and a challenge, and just being really overwhelmed with my life.