2021 and Done

 It’s the time of year when I take some time to reflect and reframe the next 365!

(and it's slowly becoming the only time I tend to blog these days...)

I re-read last year’s reflection and it made me feel a bit defeated. I really did think my anxious days were over but 2021 came along and gave me a rude awakening.

While I still do believe that mom-guilt and facebook were big contributors to my anxiety, I’ve since realized I gave them a bit too much credit. It turns out I was so content and happy in 2020 because I was living in my nice cozy bubble and no one expected me to go anywhere or do anything with other people. So there it is folks, the rest of my anxiety pie chart is filled with social & health anxiety. 

Last year I framed 2021 in discomfort, to my own peril (which I knew would happen). I thought I would spend the year in discomfort working on reconnecting my marriage and doing second-adoption things, but mostly I spent the year dragging my feet to a lot of social events, assuming every single one of them was going to be a super-spreader of some disease (not just Covid), and figuring that inevitably my daughter (or us) would get gravely ill and I would fail as a mother and fail her birth family. 

People =  giant germ harvesters with whom I don’t know how to talk or be. 

My mind was so consumed with dread and annoyance at having to go places that I had no room left to even think about my marriage.

The real annoying part is that I did finally start to hit a pretty good stride. I was attending things and enjoying them, I was not worrying as much about disease and I felt like maybe I was on the path out of the pit I was in…and then BAM, we all got Covid and I plummeted back to square one. I wanted SO BADLY to yell “See! I told you it’s dangerous out there!”, crawl back into my 2020 bubble and never leave again. 

I’ve gotten pretty good at immediately recognizing my unhealthy thoughts and patterns so I try my best to nip them. Throughout this year I prayed ad nauseam, I read books on anxiety, I bought anxiety workbooks, I watched online anxiety workshops, I read the Bible, I came up with mantras, I journaled…but I could NOT silence those voices in my head. I could get relief for a day or two but they would always come roaring back with a vengeance.

Right before Christmas I was talking with Brian and I shared some of the thoughts that had been going through my head. He just looked at me, sighed, and asked, “How can you live like that?” For some reason that comment really hit me. I know I can’t live like this, but I realized I don’t know how to make it stop and I’ve officially exhausted all the tools I could think of on my own. So, the next day I found a therapist. 

This is not the first time I’ve seen a therapist but it’s been a long time. I went to the first session expecting it to be like the first day of class…you know, introductions and going over the syllabus. It was a 45 minute session and she had me sobbing (like SOBBING) 30 minutes in. She was exploring with me what the root cause(s) might be for this health anxiety, and after sharing some ideas, she stopped me and said, “I don’t think that’s it either. It sounds like you waited a long time to be a mom and now you’re afraid something, anything, will rip your daughter away from you” and that’s when my breath escaped me and I broke down sobbing. She said, “Aha, there it is”.

She gave me homework to write down the Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) I have throughout the day and try to find a trigger or a pattern. 

Within a week I had found my trigger: plans. 

If I was supposed to be anywhere or see anyone in the next 36 hours, cue the influx of ANTs. If I had no plans for the foreseeable future, my mind was calm and I had a pleasant day. My first response to seeing that pattern emerge: OK, great. I know what causes it now so I should just never make plans. 2020 bubble engage! Seal the hatches!

But then I read this quote while scrolling Instagram: “Avoiding your triggers isn’t healing. Healing occurs where you’re triggered and you’re able to move through the pain, the pattern, and the story, and walk your way into a different ending” - Mercedes Cusick

Ugh, fine. I do know that becoming a recluse is not a real solution. But remember, I’m an enneagram 9 so I naturally fight hard to feel peace in my life and I miss (so much!) how calm and quiet my mind was in 2020. It’s hard to imagine finding that same peace while also still leaving my bubble because so many of my ANTs are habitual at this point. My brain is on auto-pilot with the same dumb thoughts every time. If I had to sum up my thoughts: I always assume everyone hates me and that I’m long overdue for extreme hardship. When you believe those 2 things, the world outside your door is no fun. My therapist also pointed out it’s clear I don’t actually believe God loves me, at least I don’t live in a way that says otherwise. So that's cool.

Bet you didn’t know you were going to my therapy session today…All of this to say, for 2022 I want so badly to find a way to rewire my thoughts. I want to find that way THROUGH the triggers to a different, happier, healthier ending. I want to turn my ‘what if’ thoughts on their head to focus on the positive instead of the negative.

What if everything will be fine? 

What if no one hates me?

What if our immune systems are good at their jobs and we will recover from every virus or disease we catch in our lives?

What if God loves me as much as he says he does?

What if when I read a statistic about risk/illness, and it happens to 5% of people, I'm in the 95% and not the 5%?

I want to lean into those more positive (and honestly probably more realistic) “what ifs” in the deepest reaches of my heart and mind.

In conclusion, in 2021 I was a hot mess surviving on grace. How was your year?

P.S. I’ll write another post updating you on the second adoption soon.