Morning Coffee and Mental Health

  Hey-ey-ey-ey! Let's go Buffalo!   If you know me, even a little bit, you can actually hear what you just read. You might have even sung it in your head. In case you don't know, this song is the theme song of the Buffalo Bills fan base. It is played every time the Bills score and when they win the game. You ever wanna see a large group of people immediately react and go nuts? Just play, what we all call it, "The Shout Song." In fact, if two Buffalonians get married and this song isn't played, it might not actually be an official wedding.  Anyway, why am I talking about this? Well, since the Bills season ended just short of the Super Bowl, and they did FAR better than anyone expected them to, I started to think about just how intensely I felt different emotions throughout this past season. That led me to wondering why I care that much and why I put myself through some of the stress and aggravation that I do to co-run the Bills Backers Orlando group that I found s

Hi, it's me! Yeah, I know, it's been a while and that hasn't entirely been by choice. As some of you know or could imagine, work gets super busy around the holidays and that leaves all of us with very little time for ourselves. It was full speed ahead for most of November and December and let me tell you, I was exhausted! I didn't have much time for any self-care or to work on my personal development courses so in turn, I also didn't have time to work on this blog or even come up with my next topic. I still didn't know what I wanted to talk about until I thought about why I haven't been able to update this in the first place. Burnout. Overworking. Fatigue. Exhaustion.  Not too long ago I read a book that really resonated with me called "The Gifts of Imperfection" by Brené Brown. I fully plan on writing a whole post dedicated to some of the amazing things that stood out to me, but she did touch on one thing that really hits home with what I've e

I've been trying to figure out what I wanted my next blog post to be about. It took a while for a thought to pop in my head that inspired me enough to write this post. I won't lie, I've still been battling different thoughts and emotions a little bit here and there. Let's call it residual feelings. In some of the thoughts I've had, I've also been working on digging deeper into the meanings behind the thoughts. Then that led to some more analyzation of what happened and where there might have been issues that were overlooked. It finally occurred to me that there were, in fact, red flags in my last relationship that I never picked up on. I swore up and down for months that there was nothing  I could point to - no red flags - that would help explain why it didn't work. But I was wrong, I just didn't know what I should have been paying attention to. So, let's talk about it. This year has left me heartbroken. I truly didn't think I'd be here. I ha

Ok so maybe I don't have anyone slipping under, but I couldn't pass up the chance to rearrange a Britney lyric from one of her best songs!  Anyway, yes. I'm toxic, but definitely not in that sexy stewardess Britney way. Before you all rise up in unison to tell me you don't think that I am like that at all, let me reassure you, I certainly have been. Everything about this journey has been about me being open and honest and I made a promise to myself to dive into topics that might be a little uncomfortable or expose some of the not so nice inner-workings of myself. If I'm gonna really do this, and try to show everyone that we all have more going on inside than we'd like to admit, then I can't exclude this part of it. Of course, you know that I'm also gonna explain it in terms of core wounds and what actually drives that toxicity, because when we have toxic traits, it means we have parts of ourselves we don't like or don't feel fulfilled.  So guess

 Something's wrong, this is gonna shock them... For those of you who grew up around the same time as I did, you *might* recognize those lyrics. If you don't, it's an old Blink-182 song. Ya know, back before Tom left and the group basically fell apart. But I digress.  Anyway, in thinking about abandonment, that was the first thing that popped into my head mostly because it was the first song I remembered with the word "abandon" in it, but strangely those lyrics also tie into yet another thing that has been subconsciously going on in my brain for God knows how many years. Yes I know that abandonment and reckless abandon are actually different things, but I think both of those things have been at play in the way I decide to do things or situations I have stayed in for too long.  Ok, so let's keep going with this journey I've been having in therapy. I've gone through this heart-wrenching breakup, the world is going crazy, I was furloughed from my job, and

You're probably asking yourself why in the world I'd be glad about not being good enough. Before you shake your head and stop reading, let's back up, first.  Coming off my last post, I had just made realizations about the breakup, what attachment theory is, and how it showed itself in what I was going through. Naturally, the first thoughts I had after learning everything were along the lines of how I could use this new knowledge to fix everything. That's what I do, I have to fix things. You know what that is? Control. If I can fix it, that means I can control it. Surprise! Anxious people need to feel like they're in control. Story of my life.  At that point, I knew that my anxious attachment style didn't just happen or come out of nowhere. There were patterns that existed. I had acted like this before. But why? What could be causing me to be clingy and needy? Why do I need so much reassurance and validation all the time from everyone? I had to start figuring out

Now that we've gotten an intro out of the way, let's dive in, shall we? Buckle up.  (Another disclosure: Anything that I mention, recommend, link to, etc. is solely because it's something that has worked well for me, something I strongly believe in, or something that I really believe might help others. I have no affiliations with literally anything or anyone, so it's all just my preferences and resources that I've found over the past few months.) As I mentioned, I started therapy at the beginning of May. In full transparency, the main reason I got the push to finally do it was the harsh reality of the possibility of my relationship not working out. I was desperate to do whatever I could to figure out what happened, especially because I was blindsided by the things he was telling me he was feeling. I wanted answers and tangible things that I could use to "prove" that there was still hope. I went into therapy thinking "I'll explain what happened an