On being single (and being a single mom)

I'm back, maybe. Since I moved into my new place, I didn't have internet until Monday, and it's way too hard to write everything out on my phone. I could promise to be better about blogging all the time, but we all know that's not going to happen. However, I've had thoughts recently, on being single and being a single mom.

The longest period of time I've been single is... well, now. And between my son's father and my recent ex. It's the exact same amount of time. Five months. You see, I've always had this obsession with love. I always believed in "happily ever after", that there was someone out there for everyone. I've also always believed that if you love someone, you fight to make it work. That's how relationships are. It's not all fluff and sunshine, it's hard work. So when I met J, I wasn't looking for anything. I had a newborn that consumed my life, and that was that. But J made me believe that he was my ticket to happily ever after. That, as long as we worked hard and loved each other, things would work out. I was better to him than I've been to anyone that I dated, but it wasn't enough. Because I was better to my son. When he walked away this last time, I didn't even care. I told him to keep his reasons and shove them where the sun doesn't shine. I was done being played with, and that was my road to recovery.
I haven't had a single anxiety attack since then. I've come close, but I've been able to talk myself down. I've moved out, on my own, and created a beautiful life for my son and myself. I haven't received a drop of child support since August, and I've still done it. My house is constantly messy, I have a toddler and I hate doing dishes. It's not full of the nicest, newest things. But you know what it is full of? Love. And laughter. And pure, unbridled joy.

I'm happy being single. To be totally honest, I'd rather not put up with someone else's crap. And I'm thrilled to be a single mom. I get this beautiful, tiny boy all to myself. It's difficult, don't get me wrong, but it's the best thing in the entire world.

A little bit of everything.

I know my posts are sporadic and I've been MIA for like a week and a half but I have good reason. That reason is a little bit of everything.

Bubba's allergist appointment was supposed to be tomorrow morning. I've been equal parts exhilarated and apprehensive. While I want to know every last thing he's allergic to, I also know that the procedure is painful and would be confusing and traumatic for him. I reasoned that it's better to do it while he's too young to remember, and that was that. Bubba also had his 18 month check up on Monday (can you believe he's so big?) where I was informed that Medicaid was saying he is no longer covered. I assured them he was, and we went on our merry way. Then I got home and called Medicaid and yep, they terminated his coverage. So I spent the week trying to get it sorted out and get him reinstated so he could have his appointment, but I was told today by a person in their office to just cancel the appointment. So I had to. Seriously, cannot wait for my insurance to kick in. I finally got that sorted out so it's not causing me stress any more.

Did I mention that I'm moving? Yeah, I get my keys on Monday so I'm just feeling very overwhelmed by everything that I need to pack and buy and make and it's making me crazy. Plus I'm terrified that I can't actually do it. That after all my careful budgeting and planning, it won't be enough.

Oh and I think I have bronchitis.

Other than that, everything has been peachy. Well, except my depression coming back full swing. See, I was finally able to get my anxiety under some semblance of control and have been able to talk myself out of anxiety attacks. Since that was out of the way, my depression decided to pop in and say hello. At this point I can barely get out of bed, I'm convinced that all my friends don't want to be my friends anymore (not helped by no one responding to my texts) and therefore have cut everyone off. All I want to do, all the time, is cry. I don't want to get out of bed or shower or eat or drink or speak or anything. Bubba keeps me going. I have to be strong for him. So I get out of bed every morning. I force myself to eat and to shower and to laugh and smile and talk. Eventually, doing all those things will become real instead of forced. Eventually, I'll get out of this depressive episode and be able to be happy again.

I can't believe I've being that honest about my depression, but there it is. Judge me for it or don't. It's not your cross to bear.

But I would like to end this on a happy note. I don't want to focus on the stress of moving and bubba's health (or mine). I don't want to focus on the dark times. So just remember, as I try to every day, that "most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine."
Ralph Waldo Emerson/

Hello again, dear enemy.

Anyone want to guess what bubba got a hold of today? If you said nutmeg, you'd be correct. He has this obsession lately with taking things out of the garbage and if it's a drink he tries to drink it. I turned my back for half a second at school today, and he grabbed a Coke out of the trashcan that still had a bit in it. And he drank from it.

It was a split second, I took it from him immediately. But he still got some. He then proceeded to break out in hives and started having trouble breathing. I was terrified. I wanted to give him his epipen, but then my brain decided to chime in: you're overreacting. He didn't get any. Those aren't hives, one of his little friends accidentally grabbed him or something. He just had to cough. Then struggle to take a breath. If you give him his epipen, you'll be doing more harm than good. You don't know what that thing will do if this isn't an allergic reaction.

So I left work early, obviously. I put him in his car seat and didn't give him his pacifier so that I could listen to him scream the entire drive, all the while just thinking "thank God I know he's breathing."

At that point, he wasn't having trouble breathing anymore, but he kept grabbing his belly and saying :owie". When we got to the doctor, his belly was still covered in hives, as was his back, but the ones on his face and arms were fading. They gave him some benadryl and said we were okay this time. I didn't take him to the ER because I figured if he was breathing okay then he maybe didn't need the emergency room, but a doctor's visit was still a good idea.

He's okay now, thankfully. This is going to be something I don't ever forget. The sheer terror I felt was incomparable. I just kept thinking "I should've just given him the epipen. I should've called 911. My child is going to die, and it's my fault."

But he's okay. He's breathing and kicking and being crazy. And you can bet that I'm going to fight to keep him that way.

When will it stop?

Bubba had another allergic reaction tonight. I have no idea what he reacted to as I made sure he wasn't exposed to nutmeg at all, but there it was. I was giving him a bath and all over his tiny little body was a rash. I don't know what caused it. I scoured ingredient lists, I tried to think of anything environmental that it could be.

I don't know.

And I feel like the shittiest parent because of it.

You know what's hard about food allergies? You know that until you're able to get your child into an allergist, you should make sure they avoid anything that could be an allergen. He should have fresh, organic fruits, veggies and meats. But that's not always achievable. For instance, I'm super broke and can't afford to buy him fresh, organic fruits and veggies and meat. Instead, we eat the boxed crap in the house, keep his epipen close by, and hope that we don't have to use it.

People whose kids don't have food allergies don't understand what this is like. It's been a month since I discovered bubba's food allergy and at least once a day I hear at least one of the following:

"Aren't you being a bit dramatic?"

"You're being kind of crazy about this."

"You're overreacting."

"You should be glad he doesn't have, like, a REAL allergy."

"I think it's fine if he eats (something, without checking labels)"

"Hasn't he had this before with no reaction?"

"Are you sure he's really allergic?"

And I just want to cry. These are real things that have really been said to me. No, I'm not being crazy or dramatic or overreacting. It is a real allergy. No, he's not okay to eat something unless I've made sure it's okay. Maybe he has had it before, food allergies can take multiple exposures to develop. But he probably hasn't. And yes, I'm sure he's really allergic. His doctor didn't prescribe him an epipen for no reason.

So it's been another great week. My kid had pink eye in both eyes, a double ear infection, he threw up, and then he had another allergic reaction. And it's only Tuesday. Excuse me while I go cry in to a lot of ice cream.

I hate you, nutmeg.

Today while I was on my lunch break I decided to search, again, for any information on nutmeg allergies. After sifting through the pages of results for tree nut allergies, which come up because nutmeg has the word "nut" in it, I finally found a very brief blog post about it. Someone basically just put that their son was allergic to nutmeg, on top of other food allergies, and that was it.

But the comments were wonderful.

The comments were full of responses from people who had nutmeg allergies. They listed other things that nutmeg is in that I hadn't even thought of. Did you know that nutmeg can be used to make oil and butter? Did you know that nutmeg is used in cosmetics, in medicines, in drinks, in food, in basically everything? NUTMEG IS IN COCA COLA! Nutmeg is in everything.

This allergy has me terrified. My son is so allergic that if he ingests it, he breaks out in hives in less than five minutes. And that was just the first reaction. It's said to get worse every time. Right now, it's not severe enough that he'll break out if he comes into contact with it, or with someone who has come into contact with it. But what if it gets that bad?

I'm already scouring ingredient lists on everything, but now I have to look out for makeup and medicines too? Any time he has a medicine, I'll have to ask. I'm going to contact the companies whose makeup I use and ask if nutmeg is in their products. I'm freaked out because companies don't have to label it in anything.

Let's change that. I need help, I need support, I need voices. I need people to stand up with me and say that just because the allergies that affect us are rare doesn't make them any less important. My son isn't old enough to have a voice for this. I need to be his voice. I need others who loves someone with allergies to stand with me. Let's make a change.

(here are the links to the only things I've found about nutmeg allergies: http://www.phadia.com/ko/3/11/ImmunoCAP-Allergens/Food-of-Plant-Origin/Spices/Nutmeg/

http://www.livestrong.com/article/411019-what-are-allergy-symptoms-from-nutmeg/

http://multiplefoodallergyhelp.com/less-common-allergens/nutmeg-allergy/

end blog)

Oh, fall.

I've always loved fall. Fall is my favorite season. It's not too hot, or too cold, but I can still wear big floppy sweaters and hats and eat everything in sight. This year though... This year I'm nervous about fall. Why be nervous about a season? I know, it sounds stupid.

But who wants to guess how many things have nutmeg in them? Anyone? I'll give you a hint. It's basically everything, at least in fall. Anything pumpkin flavored, everything at Thanksgiving... Too much stuff to name. I love all of this stuff. Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies may literally be my favorite thing in the food world. I can eat my weight in food at Thanksgiving. Except not this year. This year, I can't eat anything that could've come close to nutmeg. Why?

My kid is allergic. My one year old is so allergic to nutmeg that after one reaction, his pediatrician prescribed him an epipen that I have to have with me at all times. My child could come into contact with nutmeg, go into anaphylactic shock, and possibly die. Isn't that terrifying?

The season I used to so love has become a season of terror. Did you know that companies don't even have to list nutmeg as an ingredient? It's just written as "spices" in the ingredient list because it's generally a smorgasbord of different spices. But it's always nutmeg. It's such a small amount that it's inconsequential to everyone else. Not to me though. That small amount makes the difference between breathing and not. Literally between life and death.

It's been about a month since I discovered the allergy. I decided to make bubba a breakfast that I saw on Pinterest. You fry bananas on the stove and sprinkle a mixture of sugar, cinnamon, and a pinch of nutmeg on top. Within seconds of him eating it, he had a rash everywhere it had touched. I figured it was just a contact allergy, that he would outgrow it. That happened with garlic when he was little. But no. I continued our day as normal, but by the time we got to school, my son was covered in hives. I was terrified. I have no experience with food allergies. I just wanted to cry. I still want to cry every time I think about it.

So now I have to be vigilant. I can't let him eat anything at all that has not been thoroughly inspected by me personally. I've learned how to read labels. I've tried to do research on nutmeg allergies but everything I can find just says "an allergy to nutmeg is extremely rare". Well, that doesn't help me at all. That doesn't help anyone. So I've decided to.

This blog is an outlet for many things. I will always preach support for sufferers of mental illness, of eating disorders. I will always support single parents. And now, I hope to show people who have, or whose children have, rare food allergies that they are not alone. We all deserve support. We all deserve to be taken seriously. And damn it, we deserve for food to have to be labeled with EVERY ingredient. That's what I'm here for.

Let me know in the comments if you or someone you know has a "weird" allergy. I would love to hear about it and learn more about it.

I think I'm ready to talk.

When you have depression and anxiety, it's hard to talk about the things going on in your life. You worry that people will think you're making it up for attention, or that they won't care after you open yourself up because they have their own things going on. At least, that's how it is for me, and I've pushed things down for far too long. I think I'm ready to talk. You can listen if you want to. I don't really care. I just need to get out the things that have been trapped inside me for too damn long.

My anxiety isn't a secret, but maybe the fact that I can have an anxiety attack over literally nothing is. I have anxiety attacks because of fake conversations played in my head, because of worries of how other people will react to something I say. I have anxiety attacks over absolutely nothing. My mom told me she was cleaning the house yesterday and told me the upstairs hallway was a mess and I felt that too-familiar tightness in my chest. I wasn't even there. We were on the phone. I was in my car. I felt that too-familiar tightness whilst switching lanes in rush hour traffic today. Anxiety attacks can literally be triggered by anything for me.

Would any of you have guessed that my depression is currently hitting me so hard that I almost don't make it out of bed every morning? The only reason I get up is because I have to provide for bubba. I am the person who keeps him clothed and fed. If I give up, it means he doesn't get what he needs, and that is unacceptable. My child has been my saving grace.

I have an eating disorder. There, I said it. I've struggled with eating disorders for as long as I can remember. Anorexia first, then bulimia. Now? Binge-eating. I've just started owning up to it and realizing that, yes, I have a problem. I go through phases of it where I eat everything in sight, all the time, for a week or so. Then I won't eat for another week or so. Enough to survive, maybe. But no more than that. My body is so well trained for this, it's been happening so long, that because I ate more than once by mid-day, my body figured that we are binging now and I feel hungry all the time. I've eaten three meals and a small snack today, and I'm keeping a food diary to hold myself accountable. I'm putting an end to this. It's been at least ten years, and that is too long.

Last but never least, I was sexually abused as a child. I was six years old. This is something that still affects my every day life and even as I'm typing this, my brain is replaying the memory of him winking at me as I left my daycare center. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. I am thankful for that every day. But it was enough.

These are all things that are a part of me, that have made me who I am. But you'd better believe that they do not define me. It's been 16 years since I was molested. I've struggled with depression and anxiety for 14 years, including 9 years of self-harm (3+ years clean, woot woot!). I've struggled with eating disorders about as long as I've struggled with depression. But I'm done. No more. I'm getting better, for me.

And it's about damn time.