growth

Falling in Love with my ADHD Brain

adhd, Motherhood

For most of my life I struggled to fit in. Even though I was “successful” at a lot of different things, I was really hard on myself for not being able to stick it out any one thing. How was I ever going to be the best at anything if I eventually got bored and moved on to the next idea that sparked my interest?

I constantly told myself that I wasn’t enough. I silenced myself; therefore, it left a lot of room for miserable people in my life. I have recently met several females who were diagnosed with ADHD later in life. Even though I had a diagnosis pretty early on, I didn’t understand my brain.

Because I didn’t understand my brain, I stayed in the wrong relationships for for too long. I said yes so many times when I wanted to say no because I was scared of what other people would think of me. ADHD can be a beautiful thing. There are so many things that I am good at but often times we hyper-focus on the wrong things.

Almost 10 years ago I had a mini me who is so beautiful and smart. She’s creative. She’s kind. She’s the kind of person who puts others before herself and if we are being honest, that’s exactly what scares me the most. Being empathetic isn’t a bad thing and I wouldn’t trade the ability to feel so deeply for anything in the world. I’ve learned to look at it as a super power. But that doesn’t change the fact that sometimes empathy is extremely overwhelming.

Sometimes being overwhelmed causes us to lose sight of our vision. I can do this. I just told myself so many times that I couldn’t. I started to believe it. So I’m going to tell myself I told my daughter last night. It’s OK to stand out. It’s OK to be different. It’s OK to do things in your own way. I personally don’t think that codependency is always a bad thing. Just be careful who you depend on.

You are going to meet people who light your world on fire. There will be people who try to understand you that never can. That’s OK. Love them anyway! You inspire so many people just by being you. I know how frustrating it is to have a great idea that nobody can see but people will see it. You just have to show it to them in the right way and you’ll get there I promise. It takes all kinds of kinds.

I’ll let you be free as much as possible because I know that you were going to change the world one day. I can’t wait to see how you do it.

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Job Loss and Confidence

Mental Health

I saw a video going around not too long that talked about describing who you are without any labels…without saying I’m a mom, a wife, a sister, friend, etc. Who are you without naming your occupation? Who are you without your degree or hiding behind your social circles? It hit me differently because I don’t think I know who I am without those things.

It’s easy to lose yourself in the process of giving everything you have to your family. It’s easy to define yourself by your occupation and bury yourself within your career. We grow up thinking that it’s normal to not be happy at work if the money is good. For years I worked night shift as a scientist and homeschooled my kids during the day. I had the best of both worlds…or at least that’s what I told myself.

I was proud of myself for finishing school despite having a second baby and I never wanted my girls to give up on their dreams because of a difficult situation. But was being a scientist really my dream? Was it? Maybe. Can our dreams change? Absolutely. You’re allowed to redefine yourself a hundred times over and it’s normal for your path in life to change. You are under no obligation to be who you WERE…one minute ago.

The problem with using those labels to define yourself is that sometimes life happens and those titles can be compromised in a heartbeat. I lost two jobs this year. Both times were unfair and handled poorly but when enough people say you do something it doesn’t really matter, does it? Before 2019, I’d never lost a job. I don’t even think I’d ever interviewed for a position that I didn’t receive an offer for. I went to school, got a degree, and even received a promotion at the job I thought I’d retire at. A couple weeks before I was brought into the office about my “negative influence on the workplace” and “intimidating behavior” I’d received a near perfect evaluation.

My performance review was nearly perfect and I wasn’t given much that I needed to work on. I got along with my coworkers, and I loved going to work. Despite the work environment being extremely toxic, I tried my best to make it work. I was diagnosed with PTSD and extreme anxiety after experiencing a very public trauma and I felt like my job was all I had left to hold on to. I couldn’t imagine starting over again or going through another change. After all, I’d spent years in school and given up so many hours with my children to accomplish goals that I thought would provide them (and me) a better life.

I went from being the lead of two departments as a Medical Laboratory Scientist to being unemployed. The years I’d given to that organization ended with less than a page notice that returning to work would not be best for my mental health. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make but looking back it wasn’t really much of a decision. I didn’t have a good choice. They’d proven they’d stop at nothing to make my life miserable there and it didn’t matter how much experience I had, how well I performed my job, or how much time I’d invested outside of work just to keep things peaceful when I was present.

Leaving taught me that life goes on whether you really want it to in the moment or not. It taught me that I’m more than a scientist, but also that someone else’s disapproval of me can’t take my degree or who I am away from me. Maybe I didn’t do the smartest thing, but I did the right thing. Doing the right thing doesn’t always pay off immediately, but I know that in time I will heal. That being said, I strongly believe that time heals nothing unless you move along with it. I needed to feel it. I needed to hit rock bottom so that I could learn to pick up the pieces and stop hiding behind the image of what I thought life was supposed to be like. Something tells me that I’m not alone in that feeling.

It took me a long time to begin to recognize the difference between my intuition guiding me, and my trauma misleading me. Losing a job is a loss. I needed to take the time to grieve but I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t have a support system. Not truly. Everyone expected me to make lemonade out of lemons like I always do but I was too exhausted. Telling pieces of my story and realizing that I’m not alone has helped. I was too ashamed to admit, *even to myself* the full story because this wasn’t supposed to happen to me.

I’ve learned that hurt people, hurt people and I don’t want to be that person. I want to heal not only for myself but for my girls and the relationships that I will make in the future. There are so many things I want to get better at. As much as I didn’t want to leave certain people behind I’ve realized that it’s hard to turn the page when you know your favorite character won’t make it into the next chapter of your life…but the story must go on. It’s not finished yet. You’re not finished yet. You repeat what you don’t repair so please make peace with your broken pieces.

Follow along for more. Tiktok: @ashleelemay IG: @ashleeleighann

-The Zombie Mom

What I Learned from Losing my Best Friend…How to Deal with Ghosting and Rejection

Motherhood

I’m not a stranger to rejection. I don’t think anyone is…maybe everyone just deals with it differently. The last year was by far the most challenging of my life. I hurt more, cried more, felt all the things, and grew more than I ever imagined. Trauma tried to complete break me down and in some ways it did. I picked myself up and started over more times than I can count.

I felt like a failure at work no matter how hard I tried to get back to a place where I truly enjoyed what I did. I felt like no one truly had my back or could understand what I was going through. But how could they when I didn’t even understand what I was going through? I felt like a failure in my marriage and I dreaded being anywhere besides my bed (where I got very little time to even sleep between working nights and homeschooling four kids during the day). The only constant that I had in my life was my best friend. I thought she’d always be there. She was my person that I searched my whole life to find. She was the person that I wanted to be when I grew up. We went through pregnancy together, a toxic work environment together, Home Goods trips when we felt like we were about to break. We were neighbors, our kids were best friends, we went on vacations and lake trips together. Some of my best memories include planning our toddlers’ weddings, suffering through our little girls’ dance classes on no sleep after working all night. But we were in it together.

When I knew that my marriage was over but couldn’t admit it to myself, she picked me up more times than I could count. I couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t include planning birthday parties or a world where we didn’t wish each other’s kids Happy Birthday. I still can’t wrap my head around never having another pool day in the backyard with mimosas.

Losing someone who is still here was one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. I’ve cried more tears at night over the loss of that relationship than I did when it finally sank in that my husband cared more about controlling me than saving our house or our family. I’m still angry that she couldn’t even have the decency of letting my kids say goodbye to their best friends before moving across the country.

I’m angry that she couldn’t support me in doing what was best for my children when I would have walked through fire for her. I’m so angry that she knew how panicked, how hurt, how scared, how broken I felt because she was the one person I opened up enough to to share those feelings and she couldn’t even give me a reason. She just ghosted me like you do someone who you have no emotional attachment to at all. I’m angry at myself for still wanting to reach out for answers after months of being ignored. I’m angry at myself for being angry. I hate that in giving so much of myself to other people I completely lost myself.

At the end of the day, the biggest loss of my life taught me that you have to love yourself. You have to believe in yourself enough to pick back up on the hard days. You have to find strength in who you are but to do that you have to know who you are without any labels. I could try to word this better and add in some bullshit about a beautiful tomorrow but the truth is that tomorrow isn’t promised. There is beauty in breaking but it hurts like hell. That’s the truth. It hurts like fucking hell.

As a mom of four, I’ve seen, heard and experienced alot of different cries. Some tears flow freely. But the ones that don’t come with alot of sting. The tears you try your hardest to hide from the world are the ones hurt the worst. Let it out. Don’t hold that shit in. Breathe. And move on. No matter how much you wanted them to want you…if they can’t at least respect you enough to give you an answer…they aren’t worth your time.

One thing that I’ve learned from suffering from PTSD is that you deal with trauma at some point or another. You don’t walk away completely unscathed. It might be something silly like a trip to Home Goods by yourself where you break down looking at Rae Dunn coffee mugs because it was much more fun with your best friend. It may be working in Seattle thinking about Grey’s Anatomy and realizing you don’t have anyone to discuss it with anymore. It might be a phone call from a complete stranger who is mentally disturbed a year after the worst moments of your life were broadcast on national television reminding you that you still don’t have answers. Triggers are different for everyone. But since I can’t avoid the pain, I’m choosing to move on the only way that I know how.

I’m choosing to forgive. I’m choosing to accept that I feel things and that’s okay. I’m choosing to keep the happy memories and hope that one day maybe my tears will be the ones that flow freely. I forgive myself for making excuses for someone who could have sent a simple text message. I’m vowing to try and be better at communicating my feelings even when it’s hard because I don’t want to hurt anyone else. I’m choosing to accept that just because I want something to be okay doesn’t mean that it is. We are all human and at the end of the day the basic rules, wants, and needs are the same. We don’t know what the hell we feel sometimes. At others we think we have it down to a science but we aren’t even close. We need interaction but fear getting close to anyone.

I don’t regret any of it. The world hasn’t hardened me yet and I still love her deeply. And I’m proud of myself for trying to fix what I broke even when she wouldn’t give me an answer. Forgiveness isn’t always for the other person. It’s so that we can pick up the broken pieces and try to put them back together again. Things will never be the same. I know that…I didn’t always, though. I used to fight so hard to avoid change. But I think I’m on to something. I don’t know what that is yet but I’m a hell of a lot closer than I was yesterday.

I Moved across the Country when Life Got Boring

Motherhood

I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy with my job. I wasn’t happy in my marriage. I no longer felt secure in my home and I could no longer tell my kids that everything would be okay with a sparkle in my eyes.

See, I used to carry the desire for adventure in my back pocket. I wanted to see the world, do something important…I wanted to help people and nothing was going to stop me. Steve Jobs once said that the people who believe they will change the world are the ones that actually do…or something like that. I’m typing this in notes on my iPhone while traveling surrounded by nothing but clouds. Honestly, it’s the only place that I find peaceful nowadays.

Life is funny like that…once your worst nightmare happens in your safe place, everything else is fair game. I lost my fear of flying or being bit by a shark. Oh yeah, about that…I met a guy on my travel assignment that survived a shark attack. Maybe it was then that I realized I’m my only limit. I learned that I invested way too much of my energy into caring what others thought about me. I don’t do that anymore. We’ve all had our own shark bites. We all deal with trauma in our own way and I’m still learning to deal with mine. What I do know is that I no longer expect people to understand. As a matter of fact, I hardly have expectations anymore. Life is better that way.

I’m no longer bitter. I no longer hold resentment towards the people who treated me unfairly. No matter how much I wanted them to be, they weren’t my people. I’m special. So are you. I care. Too much. And I’ve learned to love that about myself. I feel this way when I fly. Who are you without any labels? I don’t want to know if you’re a mother, what you do for a living, or what kind of car you drive.

Who ARE Y O U? Maybe that’s why flying does this to me…because I’m above all the pain, the labels, the responsibilities. I have time to think about who I am and what I want out of life without all the other distractions. I’m a better person when I take the time to reset. Aren’t we all? Give yourself some grace…some time. And realize that time doesn’t heal all wounds. Learn that it’s okay to be a little broken. But put yourself back together in a way that matters. PTSD and trauma never completely go away, but I’ll be damned if I let it destroy me. I will rise above it. I’ll fly in the clouds as many times as it takes without offering an apology to anyone for how I choose to reconfigure the broken parts of me. I’ll swim in the middle of the ocean in a country I’ve never been, hike a mountain in a new state, and say hi to a stranger even though it makes me uncomfortable. Because being comfortable is boring anyway and I want to feel alive again.

How Setting a Reading Goal for Yourself can Improve your Mental Health

books, Mental Health, Motherhood

No matter how busy you are, you can and should make time to experience the positive health benefits associated with reading.

This year I set a reading goal for myself. I wanted to read 50 books by the end of the year. Obviously life happened at the end of last year. Negative thoughts occupied my mind for far too long. For months I have worked on growing as a person, avoiding negative thoughts, and keeping a positive mindset no matter what. It’s something that I have to work at every day, but it’s getting easier. Now when I set a goal for myself, I try to spend time actually reaching that goal and avoiding all excuses. There’s no reason why I can’t accomplish something that I’m passionate about. Negative thoughts will consume your mind if you let them, and it’s estimated that about eighty percent of the tens of thousands of thoughts that go through our mind every day are negative. Crazy right? Let me share with you how reading positively impacted my mental health and helped me escape.

Learning to love myself didn’t happen overnight. First, I had to realize that I’m an empath. I am happiest when the people around me are thriving. I feed off of other people’s emotions, and that’s only okay when I set healthy boundaries. I’m still learning to say no, but I have found ways to make the most of my time and not allow room for unhealthy thought processes. As a teenager, I remember letting go of any anxiety as soon as I walked in a book store. I could spend hours enjoying the magic of picking up a book and reading the plot summary in an effort to make the best selection for my next read. I was one of those nerdy kids that looked forward to purchasing books during the summer for required reading.

When I feel a destructive or negative thought coming on, I take a deep breath, count backwards by 5 (utilizing the 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins LIFE CHANGING), and replace that thought with something productive. I love to read and learn new things. I also love to create and escape through travel and books.

I’m sure you can come up with a million and one excuses for why you don’t have time to read. But I’m a toddler mom and I can play this game all day. Leggo.

I don’t have time.

Yes, you do. We make time for the aspects of life that we find valuable. Find value in yourself. Invest in who you are as a person. Tell yourself that you are worth it every day until you finally believe it. I have four children, work full time on night shift as a laboratory scientist, homeschool my kids by choice, have a photography business on the side, and about 20 different things from day to day. We throw the words “don’t have time” around way too freely. We shut down suggestions before we even hear someone out.

I remember graduating college with my five month old a few feet away from me as I walked across the stage. Any time that I would talk to someone who either didn’t attend or didn’t graduate college, their reasoning was that they couldn’t study or couldn’t focus. I’m ADHD. I couldn’t take medication for the majority of my college career due to pregnancy. But I did read. The more I read, the less I struggled with it. Picking up the book is the hardest part. Sometimes we are so reluctant to welcome change. We are so scared to fail that we limit ourselves before we even try. That gets us no where.

The Guest List is a chilling thriller for sure!
Book of the Month Club

I have kids and they deserve my full attention.

You’re absolutely right. They do. I’ve been there. For years I took my kids to the zoo on no sleep after working the night before. We constantly went on trips and honestly I was happy…for awhile. But somewhere along the way I forgot to fill up my own cup. I forgot how to reset. I had four babies that absolutely gave me joy, but when you forget who you are as a person, you lose the ability to truly be present. You lose the ability to give back to them.

After so many years of going through the motions and just trying to stay awake, I stopped seeing a beach sunset as magical. I stopped looking back as we left a pretty field during golden hour. I couldn’t picture it anymore. I was there, but in my mind I was constantly searching. Your kids know when you aren’t really there. They don’t want a warm body. They want Y O U.

Fitness isn’t just about tightening your core or a good cardio routine. We have to put our brain to work also. Stop acting as if your brain doesn’t control everything else because it most certainly does.

Reading increases your critical thinking skills, vocabulary, and writing skills. Links to decreases in blood pressure and even longer life expectancy have been made in correlation to reading. Reading for pleasure helps us relate to others, be compassionate and empathetic, and reduces stress levels. It’s good for your mind. Daily reading keeps your brain engaged and aids in preventing memory loss.

Good Reads helps me track my reading goal. When I can see progress, I am more likely to stick with something. I can mark books that I’d like to read, books I’ve purchased, books I’m currently reading, and books that I have previously read. It’s also fun to see that other people are reading and discuss the characters of a book that felt so real to me. I’ve related to so many characters in books and I carry them with me. Being an empath can mean feeling things way too deeply. On the other hand, I wouldn’t give up being able to ride the Magic School Bus, or walk into a tree house and end up in ancient times. I wouldn’t give up feeling the sand between my toes at a beach I’ve never physically visited. I wouldn’t even give up having my heart break for a fictional character.

I utilize Book of the Month club because it helps me with book selection when I’m feeling overwhelmed with options, the book is shipped to me, and I can read reviews from an app on my phone. I can discuss the book with other members as I’m reading or by leaving a review when it’s finished. If I don’t like the book choices that month, I can skip. In my experience, the few times this has happened I used my credit to pick two books the next month. I am able to support up and coming authors and have access to books before they are released to the public. Who doesn’t love having something exclusive?

Get a discount on your first BOTM here!

Thrift Books, The Book Bundler, and a local thrift store are all good outlets to keep you looking forward to your next read. I typically pick out my next book as I’m reading my current selection so that I have something to look forward to. Sometimes I give myself a day or two to process the book that I just read and then I start a new book. Don’t give yourself too much time to get out of the routine.

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Magic Tree House books are THE BEST

Here’s the thing. This year I have lost more than I can count. I lost my sense of security, I had my car stolen, my marriage was barely hanging on by a thread, and I saw the true colors of the people I thought were “my people”. Plot T W I S T…those colors weren’t so bright and wonderful. I lost financial freedom, my daily routine, and my ability to stop the racing thoughts and go to sleep. But you know what I didn’t lose? Knowledge. And it really is power. I’ll admit that my thoughts weren’t always positive, but one day I was able to say enough is enough. On that same day, I already had the tools to begin taking my life back.

In the words of Dr. Seuss, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go”.

I didn’t engage with people because I felt like I could no longer bring value to the conversation. As moms, we do this all the time. Look, I get it. I’m a mama to four little girls. The youngest hasn’t even turned two. They are the best thing about my life. But was I the best part of theirs? I see the smiles returning to their faces when they are around me now. I see the relief, and as much as that breaks my mama heart…I’m so glad that I finally see it. Reading helped give me something to contribute again. We feel as though our lives are boring or others won’t relate. Sometimes it’s easier to relate to a character in a book and mention his or her story in conversation. In my experience, your friend is probably feeling the same way. She is just too afraid to say it out loud.

Let me know if you found this helpful! I’d love for you to follow along. Drop a comment with your favorite book <3.

-The Zombie Mom