#Anxiety Stress weightcontrol hotmessmom Dieting weightloss thestruggle

[latindiva25]

What does Anxstressity look like?

That’s right, I said it... anxstressity! You know, that feeling you have deep down inside when you are so unbelievably consumed with life and so overwhelmed that you’re acting out but don’t even know it? Yeah, that thing. I call it anxstressity!

Check it out... I woke up this morning in the best way. My hubby left for work, the kids slept in, and I had blissful uninterrupted sleep until almost 10 AM. I woke up naturally (which almost never happens) and I laid in bed thinking about all the things I had to consciously let go in order to fall asleep last night. There... There in that very moment is when it started, anxstressity, only I didn’t know it.

I have been leading this group, Girls with Goals, and so far it has been going well. It keeps me accountable and allows for some pretty awesome female mentoring. Yesterday I made a call for action and asked each lady to pick one goal they would really like to dig into before August ends. My goal was to find a way to successfully meal prep. I have struggled with this for a long while (to long to pubicly admit) and it’s high time that I get on track. I stated my goal then spent a good portion of yesterday evening dilly dallying on line looking for cookbooks, spices, and other things to aid in my success.

When I finally laid my head in the bed, I had that undeniable knot in my stomach, that one that tells me that I am once again going to epically fail at something that I publicly proclaimed as a goal. Ugh. I YouTube’d some sleepy time weight loss meditation and geared up to pass out. I had so many thoughts floating in my head that I had to restart the guided meditation three times before I was able to drift off, and as I felt myself fading into a sleepy oblivion, I asked for help. I asked for a tiny miracle to come my way so that I could make this weeks goal become a success!

I slept... I slept like a champ. When I got out of bed I hit the shower and enjoyed the few minutes of quiet time before my kids found their way out of their rooms and into my hair. Before I was done showering, the chaos started. First my daughter, then my son. Both of them pounding on my door with yelps of “we gotta peeeeee!” I pulled myself out of my steamy safe haven and headed to my room to get dressed.

I walked into my bedroom and I was met with the flashing of my cellphone. Someone called. I scooped my phone up and noticed several missed calls and a few messages. My prayers for a tiny meal prep miracle had been answered. My earthly angel recently rejoined JC weight loss program and decided she was going to take me along for the ride, AGAIN! We are lifetime members, but I haven’t JC’d in damn near 20 years! Any who, my earth angel dropped me off 2 entire weeks of pre-packaged meals (neatly placed outside my front door) and sent me a love text telling me that it was high time that I get in the drivers seat and zoom towards my goals. I cried.

Who the hell cries because someone dropped off some diet food? Me, that’s who! Why? Why cry? Anxstressity, that’s fricken why! That overwhelming feeling that bubbles up from way down low and stops right between the pit of your stomach and your throat, leaving you confused about whether you want to throw up or sob. Anxstressity!!!

In that moment, I knew my day would go all to hell. I knew I was going to spiral out of ever-loving control, have a full on adult melt down, and hit that jaggedity ass rock bottom before I was able to get it together again... Anxstressity! So what did this emotionally driven, terrified of failing, to proud to admit the need for additional support, wanna make everyone else miserable because I was going to be limited to diet food for 2 entire weeks, day look like? Let me break it down from my perspective to the best of my recollection!

I sat on the side of my bed excited to not have to meal prep on my own, but pissed because I would now have to eat JC food for two entire weeks. I mean, I was pissed! I am pretty sure I cussed as myself, I know I cussed out my earthen angel, and I may have cussed about whatever else popped into my mind at the moment that deepened my pissed off episode.

I began to feel like I was sinking so I phoned a friend. By phoning a friend, I mean that I called my bestie and asked what time he was supposed to be back from his work trip. He was originally supposed to be back last night, but they are short staffed and the routes are long. To my ever loving dismay, he told me that he would be back super late tonight if he made it back at all. Well... definitely NOT what I wanted to hear.  I was desperate for a distraction AND we had tossed the idea around of a family day with the kids and in a split hair of a second, both ideas went to hell. So, I did what any adult would do as they were ramping up for an adult tantrum... I hung up the phone. No goodbye, no take care, just CLICK as the emotions grew.

Clean... I need to clean! Right? I mean, when you’re pissed, cleaning makes you feel better. Buuuuut, it didn’t. My hubby has the attention span of a toddler and has shit all over the basement and the common areas of the house. Clurdy piles of clothes in the living room, game room, dining room... what the hell? So I start to stomp, and cuss some more, and slam stuff around! Why? Because I had a point to make. 

By now my children are in the thick of it. I am barking commands and rattling off tasks quicker than they can follow along. My daughter was moving shoes, vacuuming, and folding clothes at the same time. My son was wiping counters, sweeping, and trying to wash dishes as I kept piling on the chores. Was that enough? Nope!

Let’s pick a fight! I was already feeling out of control, but didn’t even realize it. So I did. I picked a fight with my oldest. He is my favorite to fight with. Neither of us fight fare, and he is 100% not afraid to give it right back to me, definitely a worthy opponent. I started in on him about his messy trail, I piled on comments about why he was recently grounded, and when  he popped back in verbal self defense, I hit him with the verbal knock out punch, “You just ain’t going anywhere today!” What was that for? It was like I unleashed the floodgates of hell! Full on warfare. It was every ass for ourselves and God for us all! We went at it for a solid 2 hours. Yelling, making verbal digs at each other, slamming things down and around the house until I bull dozed past my threshold and slid face first into “Oh fuq, what did I do and how did we get here, AGAIN?” Anxstressity, that’s how!

I tried to rebound. I did. I apologized, retracted my statement about keeping him at home, stepped away from the situation to calm down. But I wasn’t done yet. Nope... I wasn’t done.

X asked me to take him to grab something to eat. Without going into to much detail, I will safely say that we have been working on trying to get him to learn that we don’t run out and grab fast food whenever we are hungry. This is a hard lesson to teach because I am 100% guilty of this! Keep in mind that tension is still high, because even though I apologized, he is still feeling attacked, so he claps back with an under the breath response. Here we go... round 3, or 23, or whatever! He stomps to the kitchen, makes himself a snack, is too pissed off to eat, and throws it away! Side note... I had not eaten a single thing at this point, and it was pushing 1 PM. So, I lose the little bit of sanity I had left and completely flip my shit. I command both my kids to the car and I yelp all the way to his destination. I pretty much open my door and boot him out of his seat and then keep rolling. Rolling where, you might ask? Right to the damn Taco Bell drive thru.

During my bickering match with X, lil Miss Y states that she has a headache. I look in the back seat and she is miserable. Curled up, fetal position, hands on ears. So, I diagnose her as “hungry!” Why wouldn’t I feed her one of my favorite stress relieving foods? I drive straight to Taco Bell, order my stress relieving concoction, and then we pull over into a spot to eat. I take my food out of the bag, sink my teeth into my first bite, and the tears start rolling, AGAIN. Anxstressity.

It wasn’t until my 12 year old baby girl looked at me and said “Go head... eat your taco and have you a good cry, sis! We all have them days. Have your moment, wipe off your face, then get it together” that I realized what the hell was going on. I was having a full blown anxstressity attack! I mean full fricken blown. But why... Over meal prep and diet food? 

Yes, in the simplest of terms it was over meal prep and diet food! But when I think about it, it was so much more. It was over battling a life long addiction to emotional eating. It was over feeling like I had no control over my decisions for 2 entire weeks. It was over someone else helping me when I swore that I would be able to do it on my own! It was over missing my friend and failed family plans. It was over piles of clean vs. dirty laundry scattered all throughout the house. It was over anxstressity! 

So, now what? What do I do now that I have sabotaged my day and probably my kid’s day too? I write. I sit and and write about it in hopes of getting myself together so that the next time I feel anxstressity coming on I’ll be able to sit and (hopefully) read about today’s chaos and use it to make better decisions!