Healing , Becoming, Changing, and What That Has Looked Like For Me Thus Far or Something Like That(part 2)

  The hardest part of what I call the "becoming" phase of my life I find myself in now has been my mental health, emotions, and parenting. I suffer from ADHD and anxiety, and mild depression. I say mild because I am surprisingly upbeat and positive, considering what I've gone through. My ADHD and anxiety, however, are not so mild. Now that I am no longer self-medicating, my ADHD and anxiety have become almost unmanageable. It's crazy having to just sit with my disorders and feel their full force and effect. My ADHD makes my mind go a million miles an hour with thoughts of what I need to do, how to do it, what I'm going to do next, and different ways I could do it. You get the point. My anxiety, though, sits me the fuck down because I look around at or think about all the things I need to do, and I get completely overwhelmed and can't do anything at all. If you know, you know; if not, I hope my explanation makes some sense.

My other hurdle has been parenting after having my children in foster care for 3 years. I fought and won the hardest battle, not allowing my children to get lost in the system. Which was no easy feat, I can tell you that. I had my children taken away from me and was expected to act like a functioning adult and a mother, no less. I struggled with addiction and bad choices throughout this process but what I never did or could do is give up or even entertain the thought that my children would ever end up anywhere but home with me. Of course, in my mind, I thought that everything would be rainbows and sunshine as soon as they were home. That was definitely not the case. 

Yes, it was amazing having my girls home with me, and the amount of joy I felt seeing their little faces every morning when I woke up and putting them to bed every night was nothing short of miraculous. However, it sometimes was (and still is) overshadowed by the overwhelming amount of damage caused by the ordeal. They suffered so much trauma, mostly psychological that they were home for the first couple of months; we were miserable a good chunk of the time. Or I was, anyway. They wouldn't listen to me. They acted out in any and every way possible. There were meltdowns and breakdowns several times a day. Of course, this brought out a pang of newfound guilt because I thought I was a piece of shit for getting angry, frustrated, or overwhelmed. I thought I should be so happy that they were home that none of that other shit should matter. Again, not the case; not even close.

I was in tears every day, multiple times a day. I yelled and said shit I shouldn't have said, spanked them, freaked out, and was carrying on generational trauma that I had hoped to not repeat due to my own childhood. Things have started getting better (manageable, at least) almost 5 months in. It is far from perfect here at the Hot Mess Mansion, I still have battles every day, but they are more like skirmishes than full-on wars. They have started to realize that I am not going anywhere, I have developed much more realistic expectations of myself and my children, and we are loving each other through it. My struggles with my own mental health have had a lot to do with my parenting, or lack thereof, throughout this process. I am slowly but surely getting a handle on it. Like everything in my life these days, it is a work in progress.

I am far from where I would like to be in a perfect world, but closer than I've been in a long time. So to anyone struggling with parenting or anything, just know it gets better. Not immediately, and not necessarily in how we imagined they would, but they do. All you can do is allow yourself the chance to grow and learn and accept that you are doing the best you can with what you've got in any given moment, and that's enough. It's more than enough because you are fucking doing it. You made the conscious decision to get up and not give up. 

As always, I hope that this resonated with someone, that someone read this and felt less alone or that someone read it at all. If you're reading this, just know that you got this. Even when you feel like you don't, you're making progress.

Sendin' Love and Good Vibes, 

Hot Mess Momma