Falling Down the Rabbit Hole of My Mind: From Struggling to Impulse Buying

Do you ever get those thoughts in your head… the ones that send you down the rabbit hole?

I had that happen to me today at our local Wal*Mart. I ventured there today to pick up laundry detergent, because we ran out… go figure. While walking through the aisles, I thought to myself…

“You know, I have a bit of extra cash, I should pick up some cold and flu medicine for the kids. It’s getting cold outside and I’m sure they’re going to need it soon enough.”

After that thought, I started to think about the situation our family was in just a short time ago.

Almost two months ago, I created a piece on Medium.com asking for assistance on a GoFundMe I created to get groceries for our children. Our food stamps had been discontinued, we were not making enough to make ends meet and we were in danger of losing everything.

Even through all of that, we pushed through. Derrek found a job, I start a job on Monday the 10th, I started college and we have gone through the process of regaining our food stamps.

The other day, I was able to purchase medicine for our children that we don’t immediately need to get ahead of the situation. We had extra funds. It may not have been a lot but that’s not the point. We weren’t robbing Peter to pay Paul to get medicine for our children. Which is what we would have done just a few short months ago.

This situation got me deeper into that rabbit hole I spoke of earlier. My thoughts began to go on and on as if I were writing to you all at that moment.

Here’s where the rabbit hole goes….

Isn’t it amazing how we can be scared and starving one minute, and buying frivolous things (or things we don’t immediately need) on a whim the next? Isn’t it miraculous that we can forget about our hardships so easily and act as if we’ve always been doing well financially or mentally?

When times are hard, they’re so hard we feel like we may fall apart at any moment. When times are good, we act as if our hard times never existed. And why is that?

Are we manufactured to only focus on the good things so much that our trials and tribulations escape our minds?

This is a good thing on the surface, isn’t it? Focusing on the good and not the bad is something we learn at an early age. However, I feel that if we do not remember the hardships we’ve been through when we are doing well… we may fall back into the same hardships.

We could make the same bad decisions or mistakes we made before because those problems we just went through have escaped our minds when we started back on a better path.

After saying all that… I’d like to say this.

Doing better is great. Getting yourself out of situations that were hindering you mentally, physically or otherwise is such an amazing thing. You should be proud.

Just don’t forget the path that got you there. Don’t forget the situations that led you into the dark place you crawled out of. This will help you for future situations to come.

Today, our family is in a better place. As long as we remember where we were, how we got there and how to keep from going back to that point… we will continue to push forward.

🧡Shine Bright, Kayla

Originally published on Medium.com October 2022

Copyright © 2022 Kayla Tackett