Overcoming Mommy Madness

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Have you ever heard of it? I am inflicted with it. I have recently found a small amount of relief for it but have also found that it’s still really easy to give into the disease. Mommy madness (to me) is defined as a mom (me) who gets mad either easily or often. When I PMS I am consumed by mommy madness. It is embarrassing and frustrating to me and my entire family. It is not pretty.

I try to make light of my “Mommy Madness” but trust me, it is nothing to make light of. If you have never experienced it before, yeehaw! I am so excited for you and I encourage you to keep it up! If you have experienced the madness of yelling, crying, apologizing and repeating more than you care to admit… well… can I just offer you a hug? A completely non-judgmental hug. We all have our baggage to deal with and I understand that. Let’s support each other and find ways to help each other around that baggage!

I knew I needed to work on things but a major warning bell for me was when my kids were helping me pick out my sessions for the amazing homeschool conference I was able to attend. Several of the sessions they picked while looking over the list had to do with being overwhelmed. What really impressed me though was how lovingly my own children presented it to me. I was brought to tears because they wanted to help me and realizing that they couldn’t/didn’t fully understand how to help me they prompted me to seek help with someone else. Blew my mind. Broke my heart.

How did I start? Before the this conference I had already started by openly discussing my feelings with my kids. I was careful on some details of my feelings because it may have involved their father, grandparents, etc and they didn’t need the gory details. A simple, “Mommy is frustrated with someone else but that gives me no right to take it out on you.” Was all they needed to relate. I soon began to hear my kids say these words! They were recognizing that they were angry but it was at a situation and not the person in front of them. Baby steps….

1. I want MY TIME, to do MY THING, to BE ME. Now, don’t get me wrong “me time” has it’s place but not in the selfish manner I was hunting it down. Constantly hunting for my time made me resent my children. If I resent them, than of course their “interruptions” will make me mad. I seem to struggle with this concept a lot or at least once a year. I need to remember this from my Standing Up Straight post.

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2. I need to accept who I am and where I am going. Sounds simple enough but I’ve been fighting my purpose a lot lately. I have chosen a purpose of homeschooling my kids and I need to respect that, not fight it. Homeschooling has been moved up in my priority list. I have always had it pretty high on my list but now it’s even more so. Attending this conference made me see how I’ve let other things take over and how school was creeping into the back seat. I even let myself slide into the idea that I could “send my kids to school” and be okay with that. Wow… I heard the statistic that kids in schools spend 14,000 hours away from there families between kindergarten to high school. I don’t want to miss that much time with my kids. Personally, I didn’t like spending that much time behind a desk as a kid either. Don’t some of us get enough time behind a desk as adults?

3. Sleep! Oh my… I need more sleep! I no longer let myself take my laptop upstairs (except on weekends). I can have my phone and/or tablet but no more laptop. This makes me go to bed earlier and I get more sleep. More sleep equals a much more peaceful momma! This works for me.

4. Family devotions! This is another priority I have let slip away and I am picking it up again and running with it. The kids are enjoying devotions and I am learning a lot about them and myself. Silly to me that I did not do this every day before. Very silly.

5. Turning around being overwhelmed to productive. I attended a session at the GHC conference that was recommended by my kids. They only chose it for the title and at first I thought it would just be basic information that I already knew but it really made a difference! I will write more about it later though with my letter O post in the #atozchallenge. I see the clock and my phone alarm has gone off, I need to get to bed.

I  hope something in this post may have helped you along the way or at least encouraged you in some way!

I don’t have to a mad mommy.

None of us do really.

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This is Letter M for my #atozchallenge
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