Today I had another appointment with my new counselor. This new one I'm seeing is a much better fit for me than the first one I saw. I feel like he understands what I mean when I talk, and he communicates in a way that I can understand too. Plus, he's also LDS so I feel comfortable bringing up topics of discussion that another therapist wouldn't understand.
He's given me several good tools to help work with my anxiety. He told me to schedule some time for myself each day- it didn't have to be anything big. Just 5, 10, 15 minutes where I did something that I wanted to do. This seemed similar to what my last counselor had asked("what do you do for yourself?"), but to me, this was more approachable. I had a goal that I could see, attack, and check off.
He also recommended that I pick a time to be my "worry time". During this time I could freak out, write down all the things that I didn't want to forget, or curl up in the fetal position in a corner in cry. You know, whatever I needed. For me, most of my anxiety revolves around things that need to be done or that I don't want to forget, etc. So I took this time (for me, right before bed) to write out all of the things that I needed to accomplish the following day or that I didn't want to forget.
And it's great.
It's much easier for me to fall asleep now because I know that stuff is written down. I won't forget it. If I remember something else, my notebook is right there next to my bed and I can just add it to my list. And during the day if something comes up I just think, "okay, I'll add that to my list tonight".
Today, my appointment was great. I've been feeling good lately. I recently decided that piano lessons in the afternoon had become too stressful for me. I would spend the whole day dreading it, worrying about if the kids would behave, if William would get into anything, and so on. So finally one day, as I'm sitting on the couch dreading the upcoming lessons. I decided I needed to be done. I had thought about stopping before for several months, but it was always more stressful to consider because I use the money I earn as my "spending money" and if I didn't teach piano lessons how could I earn money? But it finally got to be too much and I said "enough".
After that, everything kind of came together very quickly. I was trying to decide if I should work(because, let's be honest, if I'm working and I have to put William in child care I would basically just be working to pay for him to be in child care...which is not a very appealing situation to me) and the thought just came to me: what about the YMCA? I knew that their child care was only open in the mornings from 8-12 so I thought, time-wise that might be perfect because I could work while the girls were in school and they might let me keep William in there with me so I wouldn't have to find child care for him. So I checked their website, and they didn't have any openings in the child care, but they did have an opening in the Preschool program! It was perfect! It would still be only in the mornings, but now I would even be scheduled during "school days" so when my girls were out of school, I would have the day off too! And I felt comfortable with applying for the position because I had worked in preschools before and I had been doing a preschool co-op with several friends and planning preschool-type activities. I submitted my application, and got a call to interview on the same day. Everything else kind of fell into place like clockwork and I am now working as a preschool teacher!
It's a little crazy to think about how quickly everything has changed, but I think it will be a good change. Even after only a couple days of working Aaron kept commenting on how he could tell I was feeling better and how noticeable the improvement to my mood was. And honestly, he's right. I do feel better. I think I might have been lacking a sense of accomplishment at home. Not that stay at home mothers don't do anything, more that a stay at home mom's jobs are never "done". The laundry is never "done". The dishes are never "done". There will always be more to do tomorrow. It's exhausting even thinking about it. And for me, this is helping. Getting out of the house(and getting William out of the house!) and having something to accomplish has helped me.
Anyway...sorry, this post was a little longer than I intended...and maybe a little rambling....but, you know- Baby steps.
