Don't sweat the small stuff.

When you have anxiety and depression, the smallest things can send you flying into a rage and thinking the world is going to end. For example, I went grocery shopping tonight. It's bubba's night with his dad, so it's just more convenient to go shopping when I don't have him. I wanted to get a sauce to cook some chicken in, and bubba's almost out of cereal. He can only have certain types of cereal due to his allergies, so it's sometimes difficult to find something that he can have. So, I went to the aisle with the salad dressings and couldn't find the one I needed. Not the biggest deal, I can get it somewhere else later. Then I went to the cereal aisle. Nope, nothing he could have. I wandered aimlessly, and ended up frustrated. I had a simple list of five things, and this store did not have three of those five things. Instead of remaining calm like a normal human being, I got so angry that I left without buying anything and was just pissed off. Then when I got home, it had been way too long since I laid out the chicken for my dinner (like, twelve hours, yikes.) and I couldn't use it anymore. Instead of making something else, I got even angrier and decided to just go to bed. I was giving up on the day.

In came my mom. She convinced me to go get free pie, because it's free pie Wednesday and I like pie. I also got french fries because my paycheck was a little bigger than usual and I got a little child support, so I actually have enough money to pay my bills, put gas in my car, buy groceries and still have a little left. And I deserve french fries. Then she convinced me to go back to the store. She helped me look for things, still couldn't find them, concluded the store was dumb, and convinced me to go to Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-Mart. I don't want to stand in line for an hour to buy five things. But the one by me isn't actually crowded at all and we didn't wait in line longer than five minutes. And I spent less than $100, got everything on my list plus a few other things we needed, and some rare treats for us.

My mom understands my anxiety and depression more than anyone else. Probably because she's also struggled with it and knows how it is. Even then, she sometimes tells me to "just calm down" even though I literally can't. She copes how she can, but she can almost always calm me down and bring me back to Earth.

She also bought me a tiny crockpot because I was complaining about how big mine is. (I DON'T NEED A TEN QUART CROCKPOT. WE ARE A TWO PERSON FAMILY. THE ONLY WAY WE CAN PUT AWAY FOOD IS IN THE FRIDGE BECAUSE MOMMY MADE TOO MUCH AGAIN). To be fair, I was not single when I got my crockpot for Christmas last year, and J demanded the biggest one we could get because he loved to eat.

Also, slice two chicken breasts into strips and throw them in your crockpot with a can of sliced carrots (don't drain the water), one bottle of sun dried tomato salad dressing and some frozen peas, cook on low for 4-6 hours. Trust me and thank me later.