Shout Out to the Mom Who Saved Me From an Anxiety Breakdown

This past weekend, I felt it coming. I call it "the gremlin." It's a hormone-induced anxiety fog that when provoked has led to a horrific storm-like meltdown of epic proportions. (That usually only happens around the holidays!)

The gremlin starts out as irritation and escalates. Everything is incredibly irritating - smells, scratchy clothes, sounds, ignorant people. Medication helps. Eliminating outside stimuli and stress is the best medicine for me, though. Don't feed me after midnight, people.

Know what's extra stressful and full of smells, sounds, and questionable choices? Kids. Try telling my vivacious, incredibly loud, dramatic first grader to be a little less extra. Without question - it backfires. Mama has a headache. Can you play quietly upstairs? means Entertain mama by scream-singing every song from The Greatest Showman, try to love on your kitty until he's as crazy as I am, and in a grand finale, whip around your Batgirl cape until you break all the expensive things.

She isn't a bad kid. She's just a kid who craves a LOT of attention.  A LOT OF ATTENTION. And asking her to tone it down is like telling someone NOT to scratch an itch. It gets itchier and itchier and ITCHIER to the point of madness.  It's just in her DNA and she's not going to change anytime soon.

I try to approach all things through humor. Without laughter, I'd be crying all the time.  YaknowwhatImean? So, I posted this to Facebook:

I felt like the 18 clown emojis were just the right touch to say, "THIS IS NOT A DRILL." Why can't we all get a good laugh out of my insanity, eh? I was laughing on the outside but on the inside, I could feel that perfect storm swirling into a fervent tornado of emotion. I feel a gremlin. I'm all cute and cuddly... until I'm not.

To my surprise, another mom saw my post and took action.  We aren't super close. She isn't someone I grew up with or someone who I hang out with on the regular but my daughter and her daughter became besties in Kindergarten.

She didn't comment on my Facebook post or even give it a thumbs up to validate my feelings. Instead, she took action. She immediately texted me and asked if my daughter wanted to come play. I felt like a bad mom for about a second when I thought, "YES. YES. YES. YES." Then I remembered that being a good mom is taking care of this situation and not let her see me turn into that weird hairless gremlin that terrorizes everyone in her path.

When my daughter came home, she explained that she saw the post, had been there before, and wanted to help. It was AWESOME. No judgment. Just offering tangible help.

My daughter even stayed the night which gave me a full day to get my crap together.  I  diverted my extra energy into deep cleaning my house and got a full uninterrupted night of sleep. #bliss The next day, I felt 100% better and was ready to take the girls to MY house for some extra playtime.

Even those parents who don't face diagnosed issues still get overwhelmed and need a break from time-to-time. And that's okay. Life is hard. Let's all remember that and support each other through every season. <3

So, thank you, Katie! I feel so blessed to have you and your daughter in our lives!