I’m introducing a new posts category for cultivating a grateful heart.
These posts will just be short little snippets of gratitude.
Everyone has struggles, and those struggles are real and valid, though always context-dependent. I have plenty of struggles right now too, but I know that in this life I also have many, many blessings. Fresh water, access to safe food, access to safe, clean water for my daughter’s formula, access to formula in the first place…the list goes on.
I am not someone who believes in hiding or downplaying life’s challenges and nor do I believe in constant positivity.
I do believe that there is a way to balance being real and acknowledging struggles with an awareness and appreciation for blessings, and that’s what I intend to do here with my Grateful Heart posts.
Earlier tonight, I was thinking about the tagline I picked for my blog: finding meaning in the mess.
I started to wonder: what if Iām not really living up to that tagline? I havenāt exactly been philosophizing about finding meaning.
But then I thought, well, finding meaning in the mess is kind of the default in life, isnāt it?
Despite our best efforts (and I think even for neurotypical people), life is often a mess. What we choose to do every dayāor have to doāis all in the pursuit of survival first. But once thatās out of the way, it becomes about finding meaning, even if we donāt consciously realize thatās what weāre doing.
So Iām covered!
Haha. But I think I originally conceptualized this tagline as something I might explore further, kind of in a silver linings way. This year has felt particularly chaotic, so the question becomes: What have I learned from that?Did some good come out of the chaos?
And I believe the answer is yes.
But I also think Iād be putting the cart before the horse if I didnāt address something else first:
Iāve been thinking about death a lot lately.
The other night, I realized Iād been thinking about it so much that I started to get nervous: was I experiencing a sense of impending doom? That can be a legitimate medical red flag.
I donāt know if thatās whatās going on. But itās true that death feels everywhere right now.
Look at this administration. Weāre seeing death all around us: the death of rights, the death of certain values (integrity? honesty?), and actual death in Ukraine, Gaza, and around the world of people who relied on USAID for sustenance.
I canāt look at the news without seeing death.
And then in our little familyās orbit:
My husbandās father died the same week our baby girl was born. His grandfather passed away a few weeks later. My grandmother had a stroke recently, and it seems like the end since sheās no longer responsive.
And of course, my mother died when my siblings and I were kids. That loss is as present as ever since becoming a mother myself.
But somehow more affecting, in some ways, is the sudden, brutal death of our dreams.
In just a few months, and even as grateful as we are to have our daughter, weāve gone from working on home projects and dreaming of future plans and vacationsā¦ to just existing.
Knowing our life here is now temporary.
Knowing that any day now, weāll find the foreclosure summons in the mailbox.
We poured so much energy into the fight at first. Side jobs, side hustles. I was out doing grocery deliveries three days after giving birth.
But the fight has since kind of gone out of us, as obstacle after obstacle knocks us back.
Weāre not really talking about the future anymore.
I havenāt really sat down to process thatā¦let alone grieve it.
I see photos of us from last fall and early winter, and I already donāt recognize those happy faces.
And honestly? I donāt really want to grieve it. It already sucks. The thought of sitting down and unpacking every regret, every smothered hope, every wrong turn, itās just too much.
And despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise, Iām not really finding any solace in saying things like:
This is our journey. This is a new chapter. This is just another adventure.
Maybe itās some lingering trauma, or whatever you want to call it, from when we were kids. After my mom died, my dad used to say that: Itās a new chapter. He said it for different life events. But things never really settled down. Things never felt normal or stable again.
At some point he just stopped saying it.
And that train of thought led me to my first real sense of grief over my ADHD diagnosis.
After the evaluation, the practitioner told me I might feel some grief thinking about what couldāve been. I didnāt really connect with that at first. I thought:
āWell, that may be true for some people, but I am who I am, diagnosis or not.ā
Exceptā¦
In a way, an ADHD diagnosis feels like being told other people were right about you all along. That you are the reason everything in your life is a mess. That you donāt see things clearly, you make stupid mistakes. And worse: thereās not much you can do about it except maybe take medication to get closer to who you should beā¦ but arenāt.
And suddenly, I felt regret over getting the diagnosis, which, of course, is irrational, but hear me out.
The medication has helped. I feel more like a complete person. I donāt wake up feeling like a freshly-risen zombie anymoreāstumbling around, confused, hungry, disjointed.
Butā¦ does it matter?
I feel better, sure. But who cares, when our family is on the verge of losing our home?
Great. I have a little more focus during the day. But what good is that when I canāt translate it into any real income?
This is the part where I could try to find a hopeful way to wrap things up. Something uplifting. Something sunny.
But Iām not going to do that.
Sometimes you just have to sit amongst the debris of your life.
Psst. I’m starting to try to tackle my next steps, and to do that, I need to wrap my head around The B-Word (Bankruptcy). If you are interested, you can read more about that here.
I havenāt posted about the Baby Book Club in a few days, and to be honest, Iām still refining what I want this series to become.
But then I realized: I never actually explained what ābaby book clubā even means.
So. Letās fix that!
āBaby book clubā isnāt an official thing. It doesnāt follow a curriculum. Thereās no meeting schedule or membership list.
But it does mean something to me.
Itās a playful name that popped into my brain one night when I was getting excited about all the books I want to read with my daughter, and all the stories I hope sheāll get to discover as she grows. Itās about building a life where books are part of the everyday rhythm.
To me, the phrase ābaby book clubā brings together two great things:
A love of reading and stories
And a sense of community, something book clubs have always symbolized
Iāve noticed the spirit of reading, writing, and book-loving communities feels like it’s fading a little in our culture. That makes me sad. So this series is one small way Iām holding onto it, and hopefully passing that love on to my daughter.
When I think back on my own childhood and teen years, I remember so many peaceful, joyful hours spent lost in books. Every novel was a new world, full of possibility and adventure.
Here are just a few of the series that held a special place in my heart growing up (some of them when I was way older than my daughter is now!):
Cam Jansen
Nancy Drew
The Magic Tree House
The Babysitterās Club
Dear America
Redwall
The Boxcar Children
Harry Potter
The Rats of NIMH
(I also raided my momās collection of Danielle Steele and Nicholas Sparks books when I was around 11. I donāt think Iāll encourage that for my daughter. It wasnāt exactly age appropriate reading!)
This series is about sharing that joy, reflecting on what books have meant to us, and building excitement for what they might mean to our kids.
If youāre reading this, Iād love to hear from you! What books or series are your children loving right now?
This post is about my anxiety diagnosis and the medication I take for it, Sertraline, which is the generic name for Zoloft. Iām 33 years old and Iāve been taking Sertraline for about three years now.
Below is the story of how I got there.
This isnāt a clinical explanation or a perfect before-and-after story. Itās messy and personal. Iām sharing it because sometimes hearing someone elseās unfiltered experience can be more comforting than advice.
My Anxiety Diagnosis at 33: Why I Finally Sought Help
I know there are people out there who say everyone needs a diagnosis these days! Everyone needs a label!
Well, Iāll tell you what: saying āI have anxietyā is a lot cleaner than saying:
Donāt mind me if I call you frantic because I think maybe possibly I left the stove on last night even though I checked it five times. Donāt mind me if I start involuntarily crying. Just ignore it and keep talking, and whatever you do, don’t say it’ll all be alright, or what’s wrong? That will make me cry more. Don’t mind me if I don’t text you back right away. Trust me, I saw your text and I thought of probably ten different ways to reply, and I appreciate you as a person, and I don’t want you to feel that I’m dismissing you or ignoring you, but I’m afraid of what happens if I open the door to this conversation because maybe you have a good impression of me and I’ll ruin it by saying the wrong thing, or maybe I’ll just generally say something and you’ll react and I won’t know what I did and then maybe the relationship will be over, so I guess maybe it’s better if it’s over now…
Yeah. I could go on, and trust me, there is a similar monologue for just about every mundane happening on any given day.
But in a crisis?
That rambling, nervous Nelly voice finally shuts it and despite the chaos and adrenaline, I can actually think!
So What Is Anxiety?
I donāt know!
Is it unresolved trauma? Is it genetic? Just a different sensitivity level?
Does it really matter?
Iāll say this, and it only applies to my journey, Iām not suggesting anything about anyone else:
Iām glad I didnāt have the diagnosing type of parent. Iām glad that, despite the struggles, I had to fight it out for a while and came to a place of seeking diagnosis and medication on my own. I think I needed that foundation first.
Again, Iām not suggesting anything for anyone else. If my daughter displays signs of anxiety, Iāll take what action seems most appropriate at the time, and I wouldnāt try to recreate my own experience for her. Not to mention, that would be impossible!
Ha!
Iād have to get her a bunch of siblings, start her off with a disciplined mother from a well-organized family, kill off that mother from cancer (no thanks, knock on wood), add a second marriage, add some additional kids, add a messy divorce that never ended, and on and on it goes.
Itās ridiculous to think I would approach an entirely different set of circumstances with the thing that seems to have helped me. Now that thatās out of the wayā¦
The First Signs of Anxiety I Didnāt Recognize at the Time
I donāt really know if I was an anxious child. Per my fatherās stories about us as kids, I donāt think so.
The first memory I have of what truly seems to have been anxiety is from when I was a senior in high school. The church was having a ācelebrate the seniorsā thing, where the families made those fleece tie blankets, and then we all stood up there draped in the blanket while our parents put their hands on our shoulders and somebody said some words.
I have no idea what was said. I just remember getting extremely hot and uncomfortable. I didnāt want them touching me and couldnāt stand the thought of us all pretending to be a happy family (although now as an adult, I realize there are plenty of families who arenāt āhappyā but are perfectly fine, so yes, I was probably being dramatic).
I just couldnāt take it and found myself making a scene by bolting for the little back exit door in tears. I went upstairs and hid in the preschool until everyone was gone, including my own family. Iām pretty sure I then drove somewhere or drove home, but I definitely donāt remember ever having a conversation about it with anyone.
Living With Anxiety: What It Really Feels Like
Fast forward to the job I was working three years ago as a financial coordinator in a healthcare setting. Prior to that, I had quit my first job. I had stopped jobs before due to things like going back to college or moving, but I had never just quit.
(Well, now Iāve gotten too good at that, but thatās a different story.)
I thought I was all set. The new job was task-based, semi-professional but still relatively active and urgent. It was post-Covid, so we wore company-supplied scrubs (thought that would eliminate social anxiety and decision fatigue), there was a gym nearby Iād use at lunch, and in many ways, it was a good job. I thought I had figured out the formula.
And yet, that dragon anxiety, or whoever she is, reared her head.
Involuntary tears. Analysis paralysis. Overwhelm. All of it.
Another thing about this job: a whole bunch of women in the office were taking Sertraline. Sounds kind of laughable, right? Like I just decided to succumb to peer pressure and jump off the cliff with them?
Not quite, but I did get to hear a lot of first-hand experiences. One woman described the day she dropped her 6-year-old son off and just drove away. She eventually came back, but the anxiety that prompted her to do that was what led her to talk to her doctor.
One final notable aspect of this job: the health insurance was cheap, and I could easily see a counselor for a small out-of-pocket copay.
So I figured, why not?
From āMaladjustedā to Diagnosed: The Insurance-Driven Labeling of Anxiety
Iāve never gone to a counselor for any significant length of time, but on and off Iāve seen different people. Iāve never felt like oh wow! after a session, but the conversations often helped shake things loose. Sometimes just anticipating the appointment was helpful.
With this counselor, we did telehealth sessions, even though she was local. Was she helpful? To some extent, yes. But she also seemed to be practically snoozing through sessions. Her questions and comments also werenāt particularly perceptive.
Still, two important things came out of those sessions.
1. The Medication Suggestion
I talked about my previous job, which was unorthodox, abrasive, and even, though this word is overused, toxic. (Long story short: lots of behind-the-scenes personal connections. Small town stuff.)
At the time, I was wondering if my experiences at the previous job were affecting my perspective at the current job.
I told the counselor I was considering asking my doctor about Sertraline. She just shrugged and said, sure, maybe itāll take the edge off.
That nonchalant response did not endear her to me, but it did kind of help. Iād built up medication in my head as this terrifying, life-altering decision. Her casual response helped me realize maybe itās not such a big deal to ask my doctor.
2. The Diagnosis Debacle
After a couple sessions, I got a notification to sign a document: Iād been diagnosed with adjustment disorder. This sent me into a (now hilarious) spiral; I thought Iād been labeled a maladjusted loon. I prepared a big response to talk it out with the counselor.
Her reaction?
āI just had to write that for insurance.ā
Uhhh.
A few sessions later, I got another diagnosis: general anxiety disorder. I didnāt sign it. I canceled my next session and never went back.
Was it an official diagnosis or what?
I guess.
I still think it was odd and unprofessional to drop that on me without a real conversation. But after talking with various professionals since, yeah the shoe fits.
And honestly, I donāt care. The result is what matters: Sertraline helps me feel more even and relax more easily.
I also truly believe it helped me get through pregnancy, birth, and post-partum relatively unscathed.
Finally, I think it makes me a better mother. I still intellectually have all the same worries in the world, but Iām able to tone down the emotional side of it, and be present and gentle around my daughter.
Iāll never know of course, but I donāt think that would have been the case without medication.
But, Iām getting ahead of myself.
Talking to My Doctor About Anxiety Medication
The conversation with my doctor was the opposite of the counseling experience. Even after the counselorās rather dismissive comment about medication, I still had it built up in my head quite a bit: what if the doctor thinks Iām drug-seeking? What if I cry? (Spoiler: I did.)
Ultimately, the doctor was very kind and supportive, almost too much so. Overwhelming in a different way. (My theory is that since I didnāt grow up with an affectionate parent, I find big displays of support unsettling.)
She suggested Sertraline, and said itās a very common prescription for women (what does that say about this country?), and that side effects are mild unless youāre on a high dose.
What Itās Like Taking Sertraline (Zoloft): Three Years Later
My experience on Sertraline has been very positive. I donāt feel it ākick inā or anything, but I do believe itās helped me better navigate life. It is a pretty gentle medication, compared to things like Xanax, from what I understand anyway.
I used to be skeptical of medication. But hereās where Iāve landed:
Modern life in the U.S. is unnatural in many ways: low on physical activity, low on quality community connections, rampant hyper consumerism and emphasis on independence to a fault.
I have tried asking myself: what are my alternatives to participating in it?
There arenāt many good ones, though I’m working on it. So if I have to participate, why fight the thing that helps me do what I donāt want to do, but have to?
Itās like owning a car. I hate owning a car. Itās a giant scam. But thereās no public transportation where I live, so I own one. That’s how I think of the medication: a tool that gets me from A to B for my sake and my familyās sake.
Would I rather get from A to B on a bike and later nap, snack, and swim with no medication required? Maybe decompress with friends and family over a delicious and healthy dinner? Take regular vacations from work?
Yes. But I donāt live in that world.
I havenāt yet figured out how to make enough money to live in that world and our culture certainly gets further and further away from that world for the middle and working class every day.
Interested in personal experience posts like this? Read about my birth experience here, or my musings on my ADHD diagnosis here, or even my post about the blues here.
