Music has always been the primary way to make sense of my feelings and emotions. The Cyrkle's "Red Rubber Ball" has been my go-to song this year, as I am recently divorced and a single mother to three children. The final verse that says, "The roller coaster ride we took is nearly at an end; I bought my ticket with my tears, that's all I'm going to spend," perfectly explains how traumatic the last year has been for my family. All of the lyrics are poignant and true, but that last verse was especially significant to me. The verses recount the drama and lessons learned surrounding a relationship gone awry. However, the chorus is more upbeat and positive and predicts better times ahead. I believe the song is a beautiful balance of validating hurt feelings, but also giving emotional permission to forge ahead. It's an off-the-beaten-path choice to impart an important message, but it is the perfect choice for me. I was raised listening to the music of my parent's generation, and no other song hits directly like this one. The balance of past versus current emotions is a peek into what I believe is a storyteller with a firm and eloquent grasp of his mental health. I listen to this song and it's as if I am being permitted to close one painful chapter and confidently go forward. The chorus says, "I think it's gonna be alright; yeah, the worst is over now," and now I am moving on to brighter horizons as "the morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball." If anyone has been through a terrible break-up, this song gives the message of affirmation and encouragement to continue moving forward and live one's life.

Dealing with mental health, be it my own or that of someone close to me, has been an overarching theme running throughout my life. My paternal grandfather took his own life, which severely impacted my mother, and in turn how she parented me. I also am a recent divorcee and now single mother of three children, each with varying degrees of special needs. Between their father's extreme struggle with mental health, and continually keeping my mental health in check, I am no stranger to this issue. I would say that my beliefs have influenced my mental health. Religion is a large and important part of who I am, and the keystone for every other facet of my life. In my most stressful moments (when my son was in the midst of a lengthy NICU stay, and when I realized my marriage was dissolving in front of me), I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had to focus on taking care of myself and my children. Isaiah 38:16-17 says, "You restored me to health and let me live. Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back." Both the Book of Psalms and Isaiah have brought me immense peace with their numerous references about resting in the Lord when one is so weary and worn out. Between my daily scripture study and the unwavering support of the church that I am a member of, I knew that season of my life had to be dedicated to keeping my children and myself mentally afloat. Because I followed the promptings to seek out professional counseling for myself, adjust the level of extracurricular activities for all of us, and seek out further professional help for each of my children, I was able to make it through the majority of this year and not completely lose myself in the surrounding emotional turmoil. Mental health can be so tricky and complicated when it comes to relationships, especially if one's counterpart does not understand or simply refuses to learn about the importance of it. As I stated earlier, my mother parented me with a lot of misplaced guilt and intense grief for which she never sought help. We had a very rocky relationship in my younger years until I moved away and started to mentally separate myself from her very deep issues. She is now amid early-onset Parkinson's dementia, and I see the toll that is taking on my father having to be her constant caretaker. I stressed to him the importance of taking care of himself and helped him in hiring help for my mother so that he has the time and ability to focus on his needs. Along with my parents, mental health played a huge part in my recent divorce. I have been in and out of professional therapy for half my life, while my former husband all but refused any sort of counseling, be it marital or for himself. After several incidents involving my safety and that of the children, I tried my best to assist in seeking out professional help for him through the Employee Assistance Program. I had everything set up and arranged, and he flat-out refused any piece of it. With his mental health circling the drain and pulling the rest of us down with it, I had to make the incredibly painful choice to get myself and the children away. Circling back to the relationship between mental health and beliefs, I knew that I was going to be solely responsible for the emotional well-being of the children; not only does he rarely see them, but I have professionals from all over (social worker, Early Intervention therapists, and so on) focusing on helping me to identify their needs. It boils down to this - I could not in good conscience continue to raise the children in an environment that saw such constant emotional destruction, and for them to grow up thinking it was the norm. When someone so totally refuses any sort of intervention concerning a highly destructive issue, I've learned one has to stop making excuses and break ties to protect themselves. In that regard, destructive mental health issues are, in my opinion, no different than a rampant drug addiction. I have learned many things about myself this year, and one thing was the idea of turning my every day and vocation into a career. My children all have different degrees of special needs, and I have been a parent in the Early Intervention system for eight years. I have had therapists from every specialty possible in and out of my house every week, and have grown close to several of them. At times, they would arrive for a therapy session and end up talking to me about my mental health during whatever tasks my children were working on. They always went the extra mile to offer support. They've also all encouraged me to seek out some additional early childhood education to round out my extensive experience, and believe I would be an excellent Special Instructor provider. I am eager to take the steps to study Early Childhood Education, work toward my goal of working with EI, and ultimately be able to not only provide for myself and my children, but make the full-circle connection by helping other parents who may need help, support, and encouragement just like I did. Mental health support can have ripple effects, and I would be humbled to be able to be a part of another's mental health success story.