My Complicated Parentage

What's new in my life:

I started working at a local coffee shop chain this week.  I'm an opener so I have to be to work at 4:15 am.  I have to get up at 3:15 am to get to work on time.  I'm a zombie ha ha.  It's only part-time so I'm managing OK.  I haven't worked outside the home since I was a week away from delivering my 4 year old!  I've worked from home for the last two years and honestly being out in the world again is nice.  I feel like a functioning adult again 😃

My life is never simple.  My parentage is, of course, complicated.  My mother was in an abusive relationship as a teenager which resulted in ME lol.  I was born with bruises in a home for unwed mothers.  Those places don't even exist anymore!  I was around 2 years old when my mother left this abusive partner and started a new life with my adopted father.  I was legally adopted me and raised by this man.  He is also the man who sexually abused me as young girl but I digress.  To make things more complicated my biological father was adopted as an infant and it was a closed adoption.  He and his immediate adopted family are all deceased.  I have no adoption records and no way to obtain his records. Since he is not listed on my birth certificate (and never was as he was not present at my birth and did not sign my birth certificate) I am not able to legally access his adoption records.  I have found relatives of my biological father's adopted family and they are wonderful.  I have now done the Ancestry DNA kit and I'm hoping to find biological relatives from my bio father's side.  It's my last ditch effort to hopefully find some of my relatives and maybe form a relationship with them.  One half of my DNA is a complete mystery to me and it's always been a question is the back of my mind.  Hopefully this will give me at least some of the answers I crave.

I am concerned with finding my biological family though and explaining that my biological father was not a good person and that he died alone of AIDS in 1992.  He was in and out of jail, he was an addict, and he was an abuser.  He did love and cherish me though; that's his one redeeming quality.  How do I tell his biological family all of this?  I'm open to advice on this if you have some!

I'm also worried that I'm going to find people that won't want a relationship with me or that will try and take advantage of me somehow.

This could be my anxiety running rampant and filling me with unnecessary worry.  Sometimes it's really difficult to distinguish what's my anxiety and what is a valid concern.  Oh the joys of mental illness: not knowing if your mind is playing tricks on you or not,

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month I'm linking the Massachusetts Association of Mental Health donation page:  Donate to MAMH

Alright, back to reality.  Thank you for visiting my blog ❤❤

Who Am I? What's Wrong With Me And Why Am I Babbling On About Stuff?

Where should I start?

I guess I should introduce myself and give some background info, right?  I don't know what I'm doing here, if you can't tell.  My name is Nicki; I'm a 34 year old wife and mother of 4 beautiful children.  I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, rape, miscarriage, homelessness and domestic violence.  I live with PTSD, post-partum depression and anxiety and regular depression and anxiety; most likely as a result from the traumas in my life but honestly, who knows, genetics are a possibility too.  I've contracted Lyme Disease twice and as a result I now have chronic Lyme Disease.  I have endometriosis and a hormone imbalance.  I'm the mother of a child with ADHD, ODD anxiety and conduct disorder.  I'm the wife of a USMC veteran who has a TBI and PTSD.  As a result of all this craziness I'm a fighter and I want to use what little voice I have to bring attention to some overlooked issues, help de-stigmatize some of these issues and start conversations about these topics.

So, that brings us to May being Mental Health Awareness Month so I think I will focus on this cause for the time being.  Unfortunately, this is something I know a lot about since I live with it.  I juggle a husband and FOUR kids while still trying to actually stay sane, for real.  It's a challenge for not just me but my entire family and I suffer a lot of guilt over this.  My husband chose me but my children didn't and I frequently struggle with the burden I am to them.  I worry that I'm destroying them in some irreparable way.  I constantly think that they deserve a better mother than me.  Then I remind myself that I can teach them life lessons that they wouldn't learn from anyone else.  I can empathize with them in ways others cannot and as a result I'm uniquely qualified to be their mother.  I'm a fighter and I fight for them even harder than I fight for myself.  My anxiety will lie to me and tell me that I'm not enough and that I do more harm than good.  Then I take my meds and step out of the fog of lies into the clear light of a healthy mind and I remember all the strengths I possess.

Speaking of medication; can we please stop making people feel shameful for needing medication to treat their illness?  Would we shame a diabetic for taking insulin? No because that would be heartless and unreasonable, right?  Well that's exactly what we (society as a whole) are doing to people who suffer from mental illness!  Medications have literally saved my life TWICE so far.  I am so grateful for modern medicine because I have access to proper treatment for my illness.  This is a wonderful thing that needs to be celebrated not shamed.  Can we all just agree that treating mental illness is actually a really great and necessary for our society to function normally?  Wonderful, I'm so glad you agree!

On that note, I need to start thinking about feeding my rugrats dinner.

Have a fantastic day and stay golden Pony Boy or whatever.