I keep going back and forth about what I really want to write in this post. I don’t know how much I want to share, but maybe it’ll help push it all out if I just write about all of the super personal inner workings of my brain. I’ve been struggling a lot worse than in the past lately, for what seems like no apparent reason. Maybe the only purpose for this post will be to let anyone who is feeling the same way know that they are not alone. I promise, I’m not always this way.

So, lately, my brain gremlin has made its way out of its cave in the recesses of my mind to make me feel terrible about every aspect of who I am. Referring to this horrible, unseen creature as a gremlin is not my original idea. In fact, it came from this book that Bobby bought me probably close to 10 years ago. It is a great book and helped me quite a lot. Apparently, though, I need to go back and read it again to get refreshers on how to banish this awful thing back to where its been hiding. I’d love to think I can just get rid of it altogether, but I’m not sure that’s possible. There are a lot of complicated ingredients that go into making me into the person that I am, both bad and good. More on all of that at a later time. Some of it has left me scarred, and sometimes I feel a little broken because my emotions can get really overwhelming, even positive ones. I used to have a very low opinion of myself, and I’m still not fully on the confidence train most of the time, but I get by. I had been feeling a little bit down for maybe the past week or so. Earlier this week, though, and on and off since, I was just full on feeling horrible about my abilities at my job, at home as a partner, as a mom, as a friend, really as a person. It kind of came out of nowhere and blindsided me. I had one day where I just felt terrible and nothing was really making it go away. A nice run in the evening at least helped. This recent bout of whatever this is has reminded me of how far I’ve come, but also how far I still have to go. I now have the ability to feel like I’m good at things that I enjoy and work hard at, and I can frequently accept compliments without coming back with something negative, or even something as lame as ‘yeah, right’. That’s not the case all the time, though. Especially recently. I’ve become terrible at accepting any compliments again because I just can’t allow myself to believe they’re genuine. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this badly, but it’s been ebbing and waning. A lot of times, some physical activity, or some socialization, or even talking about it with Bobby, helps push it off a little. I know that I’m really hard on myself, and that I need to let up, but that’s easier said than done. I don’t really have much advice on how to deal with stuff like this, distracting myself helps, activity and little victories definitely help. I’m still re-figuring out how to not just be completely, ridiculously hard on myself.

I used to be much, much worse. On top of having no confidence in myself, I was also very shy and introverted. This is after high school that I’m talking about, too. I struggled with low self image in high school, but that seems pretty common. Even after finding an awesome boyfriend (who I eventually married), I still struggled with it all. He really helped me overcome it when it was really bad. He helped give me ways to come out of my shell and just be able to say hi to strangers as I walked past them, and he also helped me find ways to feel good about myself and feel confident. I’m still a work in progress, and a lot of times I brush off what he says as him just saying things because he loves me, but I’m a lot more receptive to hearing positive things about myself than I used to be. It’s not a fun thing to experience, hearing positive things about myself and just brushing them off as a knee-jerk reaction because I just can’t let myself believe they’re genuine since they’re coming from someone who cares about me. That’s kind of dumb, and I know that, but it’s not so easy to overcome that.

There has been a lot of good this week, though. Monday was our first time working with a personal trainer and getting back in the gym to do some weight training, and we managed to go a few times this week with a short workout plan he gave us. Lukas is both super awesome and insanely difficult at the same time, but such is life as a 3 year old. He’s so funny, smart, and loving. He is also very independent and opinionated. We’ve had some delicious dinners and spent some time with good people. We went and spent some time with old friends on Tuesday night, always a good time with Ben, Missy and the Ullmann family. Lukas and I had a mom and kid date with Meghann and Ben. Yesterday, Bobby and I spent a good portion of the day at Plex letting Lukas run around and play while we tried to write and traded writing pieces with Christian to get feedback from each other. Last night, we got another big chunk of our new 3d printer done, connecting most of the cables. Today, we went shopping, got an oil change for my car, and took turns working out. Running after a pretty intense workout is hard, and I was a bit down on myself for not having a very great run. Bobby had to remind me that I’m not used to weight training and then running, and that it’s good that I ran at all. Later on, we went to a family birthday party for my cousin’s little girl, who is absolutely adorable. After he warmed up a bit, Lukas was his energetic, daredevil self, and people loved him for it. My papa had him cracking up, I love his deep belly laugh so much. I had a nice time catching up with my family. After this post, I’ll snuggle up with my love and chill out before we head to bed to get ready for another week.

I really do have a great life, and I am surrounded by awesome people. I think maybe that is potentially the key to getting through this rough patch, realizing how great things really are. It’s sometimes hard to see it with that terrible gremlin constantly tossing negative things around my mind. I just have to re-learn how to send it back to where it came from. I’ve started drawing what I think it looks like. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the drawing yet, if anything. Maybe just drawing it will help get the negativity out that I’m feeling. That might sound a little bit odd, but it could potentially help. Who knows. Bobby and I are taking a 4 day vacation up to Bellaire for our anniversary in a couple of weeks, and we’re taking a full week off of work to get stuff done around the house, I think that break will help reset me.