About Me

Hello world! My name is ashley and as you could probably guess from the .com, I am a nurse & mother, and yes, you got it right, I suffer with mental illness.

• I have a neurotypical and quite high functioning, extroverted, social butterfly husband: Travis
• A beautiful daughter with a compassionate and kind soul: Kylie
• I have worked as a labor & delivery nurse for 13 years, with my certification for inpatient OB care
• Up to date my medical diagnosis are: Generalized anxiety disorder, situational depression, sero-negative Rheumatoid Arthritis (or as I say, mystery auto-immune disorder), unexplained female infertility, and go ahead and sprinkle a little ADHD in the mix!

Mental Health. Motherhood. Registered Nurse.

All these key aspects of my life seem to impact each other greatly and can turn into a vicious cycle of when one aspect is extra stressful or gets out of whack, it effects the others. Then the others seem to get harder and harder, which then creates a tornado of stress, torment, and cortisol if you will. It might seem like a bit random. I’ve read that it is too broad a “niche”, or seemingly too different and broad of topics to blog about. But each of these parts of me are so important, and if I can just figure out how to balance the three, I might be able to finally get my shit together.

So Why a Blog?

My goal for this site is a to have a productive way to get my feelings and experiences out. Hopefully, my experiences and life history will resonate with someone and make them feel like they are not alone. I have had many moments where I felt like I had no one to call when I was having an anxiety attack because I felt like no one could understand. I wanted to share some of my more vulnerable stories and feelings, as well as things I have learned from therapy and what I am working on just incase it could be helpful. Hopefully, helpful to others. And to be honest, helpful for myself.

Writing out experiences and feelings I have had, maybe I will see them in a different light, with a fresh perspective. Oftentimes, when I say my more difficult thoughts and feelings out loud and hear the words I am saying, I know they are not logical. Kind of like when you try to tell someone what happened in the dream you just had, it sounds like nonsense, but it was just so real and sensical in your head. That’s still how I feel, but at least I know it’s mostly likely an irrational fear and in my head. But like a wise wizard once said,

 

I am Scared to Make This Actually Public…

But if it’s not public, how can I help anyone? Certainly, no one can read and relate if they can’t find it to read it. Being of service to others always brings me joy and warmth to my heart. These days I often feel inadequate, but when I can accomplish something that brings happiness and appreciation to someone else who is in need, it gives me a little sliver of hope that maybe I am a good person after all. 

But, I am still scared. 

Why??

I am scared of judgement. Scared of the comments and feedback I may receive. I am scared of rejection.

I have been this way my entire life. In middle school, I didn’t want friends from school to come over to my house. That’s because we lived in a ratchet apartment with furniture that looked like we got it from a yard sale. I’m sure we did. I had a lot of friends and acquaintances in middle & high school, a fair amount that I stayed very close to until adulthood. But I was always the third wheel or the outsider, the secondary or tertiary friend. At least, that is how my mind interpreted any scenario that gave me a sense of rejection or not feeling “good enough”. When you have feelings like that swirling around in your developing brain and body you can choose to cope in a few different ways. The ways I can think of are becoming a lone wolf and isolate or putting on a mask. Back then, I mastered masking. 

Is Fitting in & Being Accepted the Same Thing?

Masking is like camouflage, desperately trying to blend or fit in. For example, trying to be the class clown. Make them laugh with you because you think otherwise, they would be laughing at you, and when a joke falls flat…the clown is crying inside. I wore a loud, tough, and extroverted mask. And I was silly and mostly fun to be around, but I was also a fighter and argumentative…so people wouldn’t know the sad sensitive girl inside that was longing for acceptance. I don’t think I even knew that was the girl was inside.

Also, I was a bit of a perfectionist and worked really hard in school…well worked hard to get the grades, but I did not work hard to learn material. I perfected shortcuts and cheating; but oddly, I didn’t want people to know I had good grades. My goal was to be one of the “cool kids” who were complaining about the class and making fun of the students sad because they got a B. But now looking back, I think I wanted those good grades to garner approval and attention from my teachers. I truly have no clue what the real me even actually wanted.

This practice and faulty coping mechanism carried on into adulthood. At work, I join in on the gossip, I laugh when the girls are judging another persons instagram post, and I complain all the time. The mask starts to get really stuck on your face after wearing it for a while; soaking in and becoming apart of you. Just saying these things out loud and writing them down makes me cry. What a miserable way to go through life. Thinking about yourself as so worthless that you try to be multiple different types of people to fit in. At that young age, fitting in is mistaken for true acceptance and its hard to reconcile the two, even in adulthood. 

Multiple Personalities or Masking?

Something happened a few years ago. All my masks must have cracked and I’ve been unable to piece them back together. So what was my choice then? Become the lone wolf. I couldn’t handle trying to be extroverted, I literally felt like I would die if I didn’t recharge my battery, preferably in my bed alone watching Bravo. Now I have a hard time censoring my real thoughts and feelings, even when it’s not very appropriate or polite to say them. I cannot even pretend to like the people my husband makes me meet and hang out with most of the time. My resting bitch face is real strong. Sometimes at work I am still silly and loud, soon thereafter, I am beyond annoyed by my co-workers laughing and distracting me when I have to work. I just want to put my AirPods in and tune out. 

Zero Ducks Given

I’m currently working really hard on accepting myself as I am, understanding that my highly sensitive nature and heart are not weaknesses, & trying to adopt that “zero ducks given” attitude. Ok, wait, zero is an impractical goal, but I want to try to give less ducks. It’s hard. I’m not doing a great job at it, as evidenced by my absolute fear of people I know in real life finding out I made this blog. I made an instagram page, without my picture or any posts. Just to have the name and save it for when/if/maybe I get the courage to share my posts. Instagram is so damn smart. It knew who I was and who I was friends with on my real instagram page. Then my Mental Mommy Nurse account must have shown up on peoples “suggested to follow” because I had people I knew in real life following the page. Ahhhh! I did put the name as Ashley, RN… it wouldn’t be hard to guess my identity. I should have binge watched Gossip Girl a third time and took notes… you know I love her, XOXO. 

OK that was quite the description. If you got this far, you know a lot more “about me” than I knew about myself quite recently. Oh, also I love wine and reality TV. Now, you know it all.

So, cheers to neurodivergency! Cheers to motherhood no matter how much we fucking suck at it! And cheers to healthcare heroes! …. Wait, that last part, are we still heroes or did that end in or around May of 2020?

*Disclaimer: That family photo was from at least 3 years ago when I was hyper focused on a vegan diet. I got pretty slim by happy accident. But if you look at me today and do a head tilt & squint, I pretty much look the same*