“I’m an introvert. I like my alone space. But you don’t have alone space anymore when you’re a mom. With two kids, that’s something I had to navigate. Especially with my first child. Two months after he was born, I developed postpartum depression. I got severe anxiety. Like leaving the house with him was a lot. Like he had to eat all the time. Everything felt overwhelming.

“I recognized what was happening. But I kind of didn’t want to deal with it. My mother-in-law asked my husband to talk to me. She saw that I was not OK. And he was like, ‘I notice you’re different. What’s going on?’ So I told him. And at that point I stopped breastfeeding, which helped. I didn’t have to be there every three hours. It gave me a little freedom. I also went on antidepressant medication for a while, which made things a little less dark.

“When I got pregnant with my daughter, my son was only 10 months old. And I was terrified. I ended up going to therapy. It helped, to know that how I was feeling was OK. That I’m not the only one who goes through it. Because there is a lot of postpartum depression with moms. We don’t really talk about it. For a lot of people, it’s hard to ask for help. I was in that position with my first child. But with my daughter, it ended up being a lot easier. Everything wasn’t new. I kind of knew what to do. And I joined MOMS Club. That was a big help. It pushed me to get out, to be around other people, to start conversations. It provided me with support. It helped me instantly.

“When we moved here from California, I didn’t know anyone. It’s always been hard for me to start friendships. But I knew if I wanted to build a life here, I needed to find other people to be around. That’s why I started a MOMS Club chapter. We’re all stay-at-home moms, or moms who work part-time. We meet up during the day. We go to the park. We have a monthly moms’ night out without kids. But most of all, it’s support. An adult to talk to during the day instead being alone with your kids.

“Now I feel like I’m better able to help other moms, especially those with younger kids. My advice to them is to take care of yourself. As long as you take care of yourself, you can take care of your kids.”

— Annemarie Padilla

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The post New moms need to take care of themselves first appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“Disney was such a happy experience, and it was so exciting to be in Florida. I was loving what I was doing, loving the people I was with and the community I had created. I had found a church there. There were just all sorts of aspects that fell into place.

“Within a matter of days, all of that was ripped away because of COVID. After I got back home it was like, OK, now what am I going to do? I spent the next three months struggling with my anxiety and depression. I spent what felt like hours upon hours in my mom’s arms, crying to the point where I had no more tears left.

“The job market didn’t help. I applied to company after company and received no more than a generic ‘sorry, we’re not hiring during this unprecedented time’ email. My program ending early felt like a stab wound through the heart, and every email was the twisting of the knife of rejection and failure.

“Finally, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and said, all right, what am I going to do next? I settled on getting my master’s in social media and marketing. I began researching programs and started those applications. It’s something that I’ve always been super passionate about and have enjoyed doing. To get to study that and hone my craft is really exciting. A lot of it has to do with my time at Disney. Just figuring out that I really love the creative side of things, and the whole start to finish of a creative project.

“As hard as it’s been, I’ve learned a lot about myself and others, and a lot about patience and enjoying life where I’m at right now. It’s not just me. The whole world has paused. Millions of others are going through something similar or have it far worse. I still have my family. I still have my friends. I still have my health. So, yeah, it’s tough right now, but this is only temporary. There’s so much more out there. I’m excited to see what happens next.”

— Kenzie Lackey

As she finalizes plans for her master’s studies, Kenzie enjoys helping prepare meals and social media posts for The Mustard Seed Tea Room in Baytown.

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The post ‘It’s tough right now, but this is only temporary’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“My dad was a Southern Baptist minister and a doomsday prepper. I was raised in Palestine, up in East Texas. We lived in the parsonage next to the church where my dad preached. But he also built a little cabin in the woods, just outside the town of Rusk. It didn’t have plumbing, but it did have electricity. That was sort of a weekend getaway/ultimate destination if the grid ever went down and things got really bad.

“My dad was always a little mistrustful of the government. So I think he was just worried that something might happen and his family wouldn’t be safe. I guess in his mind it was really important to make sure that no matter what, we would be fine. In a way, that was very sweet. But in a way, it was kind of like, OK dad, please stop.

“I was homeschooled, and I had very little contact with anybody outside my parents’ social circle. So I just sort of thought it was normal. It was actually kind of terrifying as a little kid. I would have problems sometimes, thinking about the world ending. It was a big source of anxiety for me. Then, as I got a little older, and the world was supposed to have ended a whole lot of times but it hadn’t, it made me a bit cynical about conspiracy theories and that sort of thing. Like, yeah, I’ve heard it all before.

“Then when COVID hit, it felt like something I’ve almost been waiting for my whole life. Obviously, I’m not happy about it. But it was like, OK, I can do this. I feel like I’m ready for this. It would have been a big source of anxiety for me as a child. But now, as an adult, I’m not panicking. I have my bad days like everybody else, where I’m worried. But, you know, I sleep at night. It’s going to be OK.”

— Rebecca Barker

A former Baytown resident, Rebecca lives in Michigan with her husband and their daughter.

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The post Doomsday prepper dad prepares her for COVID-19 appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I need people to be OK with talking about their mental health. It’s so stigmatized. People are so terrified of appearing weak. Because it’s a mental thing and not a broken foot, some people feel like they should be able to just power through it. Well, sometimes there is a type of disconnect, something going on, that you can’t just get over it. I need people to be OK with talking about that.

“I’m very open about my mental health. But there are so many people who are suffering in silence. They really do think that they’re the only ones who feel that way. They’re terrified of telling anyone about it. I understand that, but they really do need to get it out.

“To me, your tribe is so important. It’s that whole ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ thing. I exist because of my tribe. I know that when I’m freaking out, I can call on one of like 20 people. And I’m so open about everything I’m going through, I don’t have to be scared that I’m going to say something, because they already know.

“My biggest thing is that I really need people to be OK in discovering that they’re not OK.”

— Sheena Gordon

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The post Talking about your mental health is key appeared first on The Baytown Project.

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The post Music comes to her aid when she needs it most appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I knew it would be stressful to come to college. In my late teens I had a lot of anxiety. I had some depression issues, some health issues that were going on. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a long time. I felt like if I didn’t have a clear purpose, I wasn’t going to do very well in college. So I just waited and waited, and the wait got longer. But finally I just decided I wanted to do it. I wanted to expand my horizons.

“Through Lee College’s Honors Program, I’ve been able to take a lot of my papers to academic conferences and present them. It was a challenge. It was a big challenge. When I was first doing presentations, the biggest thing was that I had to speak up. They said I’m not loud enough, they can’t hear me, I seem too nervous. I would just get horribly, horribly nervous. But it’s such a great opportunity to be able to present your work, that I kept doing it. My work was good enough that they always wanted me to go to these conferences. So I’ve kept it up, and it’s gotten easier over time.

“I think it’s easier now for me to talk to people. It’s never super easy, but I feel a lot less nervous than I used to. And I’ve gotten a lot better about ignoring the nervousness that I do feel. It doesn’t mean that it’s gone away. But it doesn’t impede my life the way it might have in the past.”

— Emily Blumentritt, 25

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The post Student works to overcome nervousness, anxiety appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I went to Texas State University for three years. But I wasn’t really decisive on what I was going to do, what major to stick with. I was in business, changed to psychology, and then I was going back to business when I decided to just drop out.

“College gave me a lot of anxiety that I don’t miss. Especially in the classroom. So I didn’t go to my classes a lot. I remember in one class, there was a girl I sat next to who was real ugly to me. I stopped going because I didn’t want to sit next to her anymore.

“When I was at home I’d get my work done and I’d study, but I just didn’t make it to class. That was a big problem because for a lot of classes, attendance affected your grade.

“But now that I have a job where I’m dealing with people so much, I’ve gotten over a lot of my anxiety. And this little pupper helps, too. She’s a good therapy dog. She’s excited every time she sees you. You get to come home to her every day, and she goes crazy for you. She gets so excited that sometimes she pees herself a little. It’s cute in a way, but it’s mostly annoying.”

— Michael Roosa

The post Anxiety issues improve after college experiment appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I have severe anxiety and depression. I’ve had anxiety for most of my life, and then I had this really bad breakup. I also was feeling a lot of stress about finishing in the top 10 of my class.

“I was part of the IMPACT (Early College High School) program, and I was in seven classes. Out of the classes I was taking here (at Lee College), I ended up dropping all but two. In one of those I managed a C, and I got an incomplete in the other. It was just way too stressful. For some reason, the classroom setting really messed me up. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t do anything.

“Then the start of this semester was really, really difficult for me. But after I was prescribed a psychiatric service dog and Violet started coming to school with me, it’s made a big difference.

“We’ve had Violet for 10 years, so she’s seen me when I start getting anxious. When I take her to class, if there’s an extra chair, I pull it close and have her sit next to me. She just lies there and chills. Whenever she senses that I’m about to have an anxiety attack or start panicking, she’ll get my attention. She’ll nose my arm or put her paws up on the table. That helps pause me and bring me back.

“She’s still a service dog in training. We’re still working on her leash manners and getting her to settle down at times. But I don’t know what I’d do without her right now.”

— Therynn Ibert

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