2020- dumpster fire, blessing, or both?

Like every year, 2020 was…something. however, as shitty as some of 2020 was, I refuse to call it a bad year.

Before I go into why this year wasn’t a bad year, I want to list all of the bad things that happened, in Chronological order:

• February 2020, we lost a family friend.
• February 2020, we lost my husband’s mother, which still is impacting our family in so many ways.
• March 2020, I left my ‘dream’ job (that also gave my family financial security) for a job that ended up fourloughing me for months because of Covid-19.
• March-July 2020, a global pandemic of Covid-19, depression, and unemployment due to being furloughed. Now, unemployment itself was a great idea, but because I left my job for a new job that was deemed below my previous job there were a few issues.
• June 2020, my brother left for basic training and due to Covid-19 he was unable to see us after graduation and was quickly shipped overseas. The earliest we will probably see him is late next year.
• July-August 2020, I was convinced we finally were pregnant with our first baby, but unfortunately every test I took was negative- despite symptoms and being days late.
• November 2020, it was deemed that I needed to pay all of my pandemic and state unemployment back to the government. After being unemployed for months and being alloted around $7,000 for bills and living expenses in those months, we now had to set up a payment plan to pay it all back, for no justifiable reason.
• November 2020, due to Covid-19 numbers increasing again we made the decision for me to leave my job for the foreseeable future, putting all of our income on my husband’s shoulders.
• December 2020, my parents were diagnosed with Covid-19 meaning we had to postpone our Christmas traditions.

Looking back, we went through so many terrible and difficult things that it would be so easy to mark this year off as a bust. Let’s shake it away and forget it happened. However, a few magnificent things happened this year as well. So let’s chronologically look at the positive things that happened to my family this year:

• January 2020, we started the new year at Universal in Orlando, Florida with my parents, brother, and his girlfriend!
• March-July 2020, I was able to remember my love of books, I found out I was actually good at cooking, I planted a garden, and I made so many more wax melt sales than I ever thought I would!
• June 2020, we celebrated our third wedding anniversary!
• September 2020, after three years of trying, we finally saw a positive pregnancy test!
• September-December 2020, we’ve been able to use apps to watch our babies weekly development
• September 2020, my husband started a new and better paying job!
• December 2020, we found out we were having a baby girl!

Overall, this year has sucked for a lot of reasons. However, it seems that no matter what negative or bad thing happened to us we were given or found something positive in return. Every step of our journey this year, we have been blessed to know that God has been there with us and has been planning for our future. He has given us a financial break during a time when we were terrified of financial collapse. He gave us our perfect baby girl who is due in May. He gave us a mental break during a time where the world was literally falling apart. Everything that has happened this year has led us closer in our relationship with God and has created an environment where we can continously work toward putting all of our faith in Him and trusting that He will help us with everything we need.

With all of that positivity, how can I say this year was trash? This year was difficult and there are so many things I wish I could change about it. At the end of the day though, I am so thankful for the year 2020 and what it has set up for our future.

See you next year, Iris 🌱

Love Yourself Enough to Love Yourself

If I’ve said it on this blog once, I’ve said it one thousand times… It is time to love yourself!

Something I have noticed a lot is that in my family we often relate positive or negative terms to the food we eat. For example Taco Bell is a “bad food” and a home cooked Mediterranean meal is a “good food”. However, I’ve been thinking and at the end of the day both of these foods prevented me from starving to death, they both offered my body something it needed, and eating both of these foods brought my taste buds joy… so why do I consider Taco Bell a bad food? And why do I consider a home cooked “clean” meal a good food?

Another thing I’ve noticed is that my family (including myself) glorifies weight loss, often times more than happiness. It’s almost as if we directly correlate the idea that weighing less ultimately brings more joy. Losing weight is an amazing accomplishment, but why is it that when we notice someone has lost weight we congratulate them? Why don’t we respond with things like “hey, you seem a lot happier!” Or “hey, you seem a little down is everything okay?”. You could even respond with “hey, I’ve noticed you’ve lost some weight, is this something you were trying to do? What kind of changes are you making in your life?”. Basically what I’m saying is, instead of immediately commenting on the weightloss, let’s start a conversation, because not all weight loss is good/healthy weightloss.

Now, why are we like this? In my opinion our brains tend to function this way because it’s what society has taught us. Shows like “The Biggest Loser” shaped most of our minds and fad diets show the “before” picture as some who is sad and depressed whereas the “after” picture is someone who has never looked happier. These two media ploys have caused our brains to see this correlation that fat is unhappy and skinny is happy.

So, how can we change this? Short answer we can’t. Society and the media will always run on fad diets (I’m looking at you Atkins/Keto). Long answer we can do it through starting to try and look at our food and weight by using positive terms/thoughts. Instead of saying “I can’t eat that, it’s a bad food” let’s stop and ask ourselves if this is a food we would actually love to eat. If it is, eat it. Having a healthy relationship with food is not about withholding, it’s about allowing your body to partake in what it wants/needs in a way that keeps your body nourished and healthy. (Carbs are your friends!) (Cake is delicious).

When I look in the mirror the first thing I notice is everything I hate and honestly I’m over that and I’m tired of hating myself because I have fat.

So this is my challenge. I want you to look in the mirror and pick out two things you absolutely hate about your body. Now I want you to twist it and remind yourself why you should love those parts.

I’ll start. I hate my arms and I hate my stomach. I love my arms because they allow me to give those I love hugs. I love my stomach because it’s soft and it makes a nice little spot for my cat to sleep.

Do this challenge and remember. Hating your body louder will do nothing in the long run. We have to love our bodies louder in order to find change and peace ❤

This is me in a dress that I hate the way looks on me. This is me in a dress that keeps my body cool and allows me to not wear pants.

Pause.

I want you to take a moment. Stop whatever it is you’re doing and I want you to follow these directions.

First, I want you to take a deep breath. The kind of breath that straightens out your posture and lowers your shoulders. Do you feel that relief? That is the tension exiting your body.

Now, I want you to take notice of your jaw. Do you feel that stiffness? The pain? I need you to unclench that by forcing yourself to yawn and work out the uncertainty that life has given you.

Next, I want you to say outloud the thing you are most worried about. I don’t care if you are in a crowd of people or if you feel silly. You need to say the worry and help it exit your body.

Finally, I want you to close your eyes. I want you to close your eyes and and feel your pulse. Every beat you feel is purposeful in keeping you alive.

The world is a terrifying place right now. Many people around the world are losing their jobs, losing their loved ones, suffering from illness, and we are slowly being quarantined into our homes. We wonder if we will have enough supplies to last us through this. We wonder how long this madness and uncertainty will last. Unfortunately, we don’t have an answer to these fears. We have zero control over what happens next. However, we do have control over how we respond.

So remember, in times of uncertainty you can always find something that is certain. For me, my certainty is knowing that not only my family is here for me, but that God is here for all of us and that in Matthew 6: 26-27 God tells us: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

As scary and uncertain as everything is we have to remember that we as a society have lived through harder times and if God did not give up on humanity then, He is not going to give up on us now.

We can do this.

I Woke Up Ugly

I was in second grade the first time I realized I was fat. I was playing on the playground when my frequent bully walked up to me and asked me if I was pregnant; I had a chubby belly.

I was in fifth grade the first time I realized I was ugly. I was talking on my new Nokia flip phone when my “boyfriend” told me that I was too ugly to be his “girlfriend”. I was still fat, but I had no idea I was also ugly.

It wasn’t fair that as a fifth grader I had to start questioning my beauty and self worth, but I did.

I was in highschool when I first started skipping meals. I was terrified to eat in the cafeteria because I did not want people making fun of the fat girl for eating. I wore baggy clothes and tried to blend in as much as possible. I wanted to be invisible.

When I went to college I thought everything would change. I was going to a university with new people and I could reinvent myself…I was wrong..

By second semester I was in an emotionally abusive relationship that tore my self-esteem down even more than the bullies in elementary school.

I left college at the end of the semester feeling unworthy, unlovable, and ugly.

Here I am though three years later married to a man who thinks I’m beautiful, and yet I still question my beauty.

Many times I see people talking about the emotional scars of their past.. I don’t have scars. I have scabs. When the wound is scabbed over I feel fine, but when the slightest shift of negative feeling falls across me, my wound starts bleeding.

I spiral into a hole of self doubt. I stop eating again, I avoid mirrors, and I cry because at 22 I am still fat and ugly.

It is when I am almost at the bottom of my hole that my husband reminds me that I am not fat and that I am not ugly. His love and reassurance reminds me that God made me unapologetically beautiful. I may have my moments of self doubt and disgust, but it’s okay.

It’s okay to not wear makeup every day. It’s okay to have a few extra pounds. It’s okay.

I woke up ugly one day and that is okay.

A New Diagnosis

For those of you that follow my blog, you may have noticed that I stopped posting. Well the truth is, I started feeling weird about sharing all of my thoughts and telling all of my secrets to strangers. However, what I forgot was that I started blogging to let people know they are never alone and that someone else out in this crazy world is going through the same things. So, let’s talk.

As I have blogged about before I suffer from Anxiety, Depression, and OCD.. well recently I was also told that I may have Boarderline Personality Disorder. Now that sounds scary, but really it just means that my emotions can change at the flip of a switch. So my doctor recommended Zoloft and talk therapy.

Honestly this new diagnosis is terrifying to me. I mean, it makes sense because I can reach a full spectrum of emotions in a small time frame at any given moment and it also explains a lot of my more negative personality traits. So overall I am glad to have this diagnosis because now I can work toward understanding my brain.

What is scary though is telling people that I have this diagnosis.

Obviously I don’t have to tell anyone, but it’s not something I should be ashamed of. This mood disorder does not change who I am or what I believe in, it just makes forming new relationships and maintaining old ones a little harder. I have to remind myself that while it is okay to get upset it is not okay to want to self harm. I have to remind myself that it is okay to get angry, but it is not okay to yell and curse. My emotions are constantly on the boarderline (haha get it?) of being too extreme.

Luckily for me, I have an amazing support system. My husband is always so understanding and loving, my family is always there to encourage me, and my friends continue to love me despite certain flaws.

Unfortunately though, not everyone has this same support system, or they do have it, but their mental illness blinds them from it. So, I encourage anyone who is suffering from any mental disorder to seek help. Whether it be from a support system or a therapist; there is nothing wrong with asking for help and there is nothing wrong with having a mental illness. I wish it wouldn’t have taken me so long to realize that, but now that I have I am ready to help myself.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide please get help. Your star is too bright to end this soon.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255