The past couple of months have been difficult. If they would have asked me what motherhood was like before Achilles turned 4 months, I would have said it was a breeze. Mainly because I slept. Something happened at 4 months that changed that, and I went into a pretty bad spiral. No sleep, anxiety about sleep, no sleep some more, anxiety some more. At about 6 months, I was averaging 3 hours of sleep a night. That. Was. A. Killer!!!!!

I thought (very rightly so) that I was going to die.

Then, things got better. He slept a few days, and I got used to sleeping less. I was getting the hang of this mother thing. Working out was helping with my anxiety, and my life was starting to go back to normal. That’s around the time I decided to get into the plus size modeling to help retain my sanity. So far, so good, right?

Then, I started taking Achilles to therapy because he had a slight delay in his gross motor skills. He wasn’t sitting on his own by the 6th month mark (I’ll get into this more in another story—worth the read, btw), which was also contributing to my anxiety. He improved significantly with the therapy, but he was now exposed to an environment with other kids (kids much older than he was) that got sick and came to therapy sick and—you guessed it— got Achilles sick. It’s been a month of on and off. For example, he got his first small cold and got over it, which was tough but manageable—in other words, Dad and I survived. But then, on Father’s Day, he got a rash on his thigh.

The rash spread to his genitals and then his feet and his hands. He had gotten Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. The horror. That night Achilles did not sleep (and I’m not exaggerating), he whimpered all night like a puppy. I didn’t sleep either. There were two nights of this, and I was alone. Daddy had gone on a business trip. I was so upset that he was feeling ill that I barely had time to think about me. He got better in about a week, but the no sleep cycle had begun.

Back to the days of insomnia, of lying in bed wondering if I would ever sleep again, of being literally afraid of night time.

I don’t know about you, but lack of sleep makes me extremely irritable and moody. I can’t concentrate; heck, I can barely formulate sentences (this piece is currently a miracle). I’m simply not me.

Again, I stopped working out and had little to no feelings of doing anything. I was so annoying that I could barely stand myself. Then, I snapped at my husband one too many times, and he noticed something was wrong (he’s my unofficial therapist). We talked about a lot of things, and I expressed my frustration from lack of sleep. So we decided to work on it. He started helping me out more: and while I’m still not sleeping great, it has gotten better. He motivated me to start working out again and gave me the little push I needed to get back on track.

Being a parent can be so difficult at times. And it’s so easy to be caught off guard by life and just lose track of ourselves. Spiraling out of control can happen even to the best of us, so it’s important to recognize it and ask for help if needed.

I’m writing this on my walk.

I’m pushing myself again because I don’t want to be stuck in the twilight zone of feeling sorry for myself and being consumed by nothingness as life passes me by.

I had my moment, and I am moving on. And that’s ok. It is important that I admit that to myself.

I am human.

I sometimes have ridiculous expectations of myself that I won’t meet, I need to reconsider and adjust. So what if I don’t sleep for a while. That’s fine. When I was younger I used to think sleep was for the birds… I just need to tap into the 21 year old mindset again and realize that I’ve got the baddest party animal as a son, the one who literally needs no sleep and can survive on cat naps. I thought I was tough, but he’s the real mvp. Maybe what I’m going through is the realization that I’ve been dethroned. Go on, laugh a little. That’s right. Sometimes it’s the only way to get through the day.