Anxiety

I promised an anxiety post a while back so here it is. Please excuse me if I go off on a tangent because this is something that I am passionate about.

First off, generalized anxiety disorder is an invisible illness. There's been a lot of things circulating lately on Facebook trying to raise awareness for invisible illnesses and that makes me super excited. The word needs to get out that you never know what the person beside you is dealing with and what their inner struggle is like.

generalized anxiety disorder is defined by Webster as "an anxiety disorder marked by chronic excessive anxiety and worry that is difficult to control, causes distress or impairment in daily functioning, and is accompanied by three or more associated symptoms (as restlessness, irritability, poor concentration, and sleep disturbances)"

For the people who have asked me "well what happens if you try to do things that make you freak out?" I feel like that definition alone should explain it all but I know that it doesn't because my anxiety cannot be bundled into a single definition.

Looking back, I know that I have had this disorder for almost my entire life. I was the child who worried about everything. My mom says that teaching me to read and write was torture. I do remember how upset I was every night when we were learning cursive because I was left-handed and we watched videos of right-handed people writing the letters.

I didn't like to talk to people. I still have issues with calling people I don't know or having to have normal conversations.

I wasn't truly diagnosed with anxiety until I was 18 years old. I started having panic attacks in crowds or when I had a huge task to perform. 

Anxiety is a hard thing to live with. It is something I work on every single day from the time I wake up until I go to bed at night and it will be that way for the rest of my life. 

When we got married, my anxiety was the hardest thing for Stuart to adjust to. For someone who has never experienced it or been close to someone who has it, it is a very hard thing to comprehend. I tend to come off as rude or I just don't want to do something. That's the hardest part for me. I would never be rude intentionally; That's just my anxiety.

Anxiety has a way of driving a wedge in relationships. Stuart and I have gone round and round over this. I don't want to come out and say "Hi my name's Meghan and I have anxiety" every time I meet someone but at what point does it get so much in the way that you have to say something?

I hope this gives some insight into anxiety and hopefully people will think twice before judging people and assuming that we're all just rude and standoffish :)

Encourage

I try very hard to be encouraging to my husband. It is hard sometimes though! I struggle with trying to be the "fixer" instead of just giving him words of encouragement and letting him figure it out. Although I'm still working on that, I have decided that I can at least put a smile on his face every day at lunch.
Yesterday was his first day back with students. This is only his third year teaching so it is still filled with nervousness and anxiety on his part. We've made a few changes in the past couple weeks and so I have decided to get up with him every morning so that we can eat breakfast together and actually see each other before 5pm! Since I teach preschool 5 days a week now and we don't start until after Labor Day, I was not so excited about this first week and a half of getting up because I don't always have places to be and things to do in the mornings. But I have successfully done it two days so far and it isn't really that bad!
One of the ways I've started trying to encourage him is by fixing breakfast and packing his lunch for him. He says that it helps him because he will actually eat those two meals if he doesn't have to think about them so I am happy to help. :) I was just trying to be funny when I did this...

I was just trying to be cute but it became a challenge to me when people on Facebook started commenting on other things I should have drawn. So now I have challenged myself to see if I can do 180 days of lunch bag designs. I should probably draw them a few in advance because this morning I was struggling for ideas but that probably had something to do with waking up at 5:30...

Life isn't complete without at least one Star Wars themed lunch bag!

Please excuse my apple that definitely looks like a pumpkin! It was 6:15 and I wasn't awake yet!

So keep an eye out on the blog for updates each week on the designs of the week and keep the ideas coming!

Absent

I know that I have been absent from the blog for a little while but it has been for good reason! I've been super busy and that is a good thing! We have so many July birthdays in our families (6 to be exact!) So we have been busy celebrating!

Last week I went on an awesome trip to Student Life for Kids Camp in Toccoa, GA. This was my second year going and it did not disappoint. Kids Camp is so much fun because they are little sponges! They are so into the games at recreation, the songs at worship, and the bible study activities. Not to mention the canteen with 16 flavors of homemade ice cream! (that was one of my favorite parts, too!) As soon as I got home, I was headed for the rehearsal and dinner of the wedding I was co-directing. Our pastor's youngest daughter got married and it was a gorgeous wedding. Today is my first day in about 2 weeks that I've actually been able to breathe! So this will be a short post but do not fret! Tuesday is our 2nd wedding anniversary and I have a blog in the works for the coolest gift for your guy! I have been wanting to write about it earlier since I've been working on it for about a month but I can't trust that he won't read about it so we will wait until Tuesday!