Mental Health Matters & Family Matters

In one of my earlier blog posts I touched on some of my struggles with anxiety and depression which rocked my world for a pretty long time. I think that a lot of people go through mental health struggles wether they realize it or not. Sometimes it can be really severe, or it can be something that comes and goes. My anxiety and depression became pretty debilitating between 2015-2018. I wasn’t treating my body right, I got really down on myself and the stimulants and poor nutrition choices I was consuming made everything worse. I am someone who gets in my head and stays there. My inner dialogue was pretty brutal back then, and I would constantly beat myself up on the inside.

The mirror has been my best and worst friend. When I look into it I can either be my best or worst critic. I know that a lot of people struggle with that aspect. I have always battled with this. Since I was little, my mom was always talking about her weight. She got married and weighed less than 100 pounds, not because she had an unhealthy relationship with food, but because she had always been thin throughout her life. It was genetic. I think our generation grew up with an unhealthy lifestyle, mentally and physically. The convenience of fast food, restaurants every where, and the ideal body image that has been forced down our throats equates to our diminishing self confidence as a society. Especially for young women and men.

Ever since I can remember my mom was always talking about her weight. Once she had children she wasn’t the same 100 pound thin woman, she was curvy. Her life started to revolve around dieting, and she was vocal about it. As a young girl this became embedded into my mind that I had to think about the food I was eating and I turned to hating my body that resembled my father. My dad is stout and I have that same build. Growing up, I started to hate my body because I was jealous of how thin she would get from her Weight Watchers involvement. I love my mom to death but I don’t think she realized how constantly being vocal about her weight would leave an impression on me.

Going shopping was our thing on the weekends. My mom has always branded herself the bargain queen. Our go-to Saturday shopping sprees would be a trip to Kohl’s and when I got older it turned into going to the mall. I vividly remember being in Kohl’s as a young middle schooler, where body image is already hard on pre-teen girls, breaking down in our shared dressing room. My mom would be fitting into anywhere from a size 0-2, and I on the other hand would be a consistent 4-6. This crushed me. All. The. Time. I hated that she, as my mom, was smaller than me. This exacerbated my body image issues because none of my friends had moms who were smaller than them. And that was constantly in my head.

Because of all of that I was a huge jackass to my mom when I was going through middle school. This is one of my biggest regrets in my life. My mom is my rock, and she didn’t deserve how I treated her during my pubescent age. A mother and daughter relationship is always strained once the daughter starts to go through puberty, and the hormone shift can cause complete havoc. I will admit that I could have treated her better because she is nothing but an angel to our family. She has always been my biggest supporter and the greatest influence on my life. If I ever wanted to do something she was always there to fund it and make it happen. If I ever needed a shoulder to cry one, she was always there to be on my side and talk me through it.

Two years ago she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer which rocked my family’s world pretty hard. Thankfully thyroid cancer is pretty easy to survive, she had to have surgery to remove it and from there was diagnosed with Graves Disease. Graves Disease has stuck with and it is constantly depleting her energy because of how it effects her hormone distribution. Last August, a year later, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. A complete shock to our family. After the diagnosis she had to have half of her lung removed in order to take the tumor out, and then once that small tumor was out she had to go through eight weeks of chemotherapy treatment. I had never seen my mom so sick during that time.

Thankfully she is healthy now, almost a year after her final chemotherapy treatment. My mom never complained through her diagnoses, surgeries, and treatments. She is the strongest person in my life, with the most vibrant and upbeat attitude. My mom is the light of our family, and has never once questioned wether she should put me and my brother before herself. Without question she has sacrificed everything for us. I thank God for making her my mom. One thing I always come back to if I ever get discouraged in my fitness journey is that whenever I want to give up or take a day off, I just think back to how privileged I am for my health and for my support system. There’s nothing in this world that can shake me if I just keep that in the back of my head.

I keep my mental health at bay by keeping my family close to me.

To the person who has given me everything I could have imagined in my life and more, I owe everything to you, mom.