🥷 Fighting to stepparent vs. stepping back

Pushing yourself to overachieve at stepparenting isn't necessarily the answer.

When life feels overwhelming, my natural instinct has always been to fight against the overwhelm. Shove my way past whatever challenge of the moment I'm facing till I bust my way through to the other side. Smash that discomfort down!! Do whatever it takes to return as quickly as possible to my regularly scheduled life!

Never did this attitude backfire on me more than in my early stepparenting days, when my life suddenly started looking like dysfunctional Cirque du Soleil — crazy heights combined with dizzying acrobatics and no safety net in sight.

In the years that have passed since then, I’ve learned the fine art of not fighting. How to show up with a white flag already unfurled: ready to pace myself, remain calm, and stay hydrated before all else.

Back when Dan & I ate, slept, and breathed chaos and conflict with no end in sight, I left my mental and physical health completely unprotected. I guess I figured I’d deal with that stuff once the drama was behind us. Once things settled down.

Even as my unhappiness increased, my anxiety worsened, I ignored those red flags and kept fighting to move forward, telling myself surely we were almost there. Just a little further.

And indeed, I did push through… so effectively that I shot way past normal stepparenting burnout and landed myself a diagnosis of major panic disorder combined with c-PTSD. (0/10 do not recommend.)

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It’s like I forgot I needed to be a normal human first before being a stepparent. Or a parent to my own kid. Or a partner to Dan. I lost my center completely; finding myself again took years.