Hello, ya’ll! My name is Angelica Grace Gilbert and I am going to strive to write this blog how I treat others– with a little bit of GRACE!
At the end of the day, we are all just trying to survive this crazy world and I think we all deserve to be given just a little bit of grace. I don’t think this apathetic world gives enough of that. People are so quick to judge, or hate, or simply not care about their fellow humans. Tearing down others has become the norm. Let’s try building them back up– one post at a time!!
I will eventually focus on concepts such as:
- Parenthood/Motherhood
- child development
- Developmental, Adolescent, Cognitive, and Behavioral Psychology
- Early Education
- Interpersonal Relationships
There may be some posts here early on that fall outside of that range, but please overlook these discordances– they will not last! But with all journeys in life, the first steps are typically small and inconsistent as you get your feet wet.
So you know a little about me as a person, I’m going to give you a rundown on who I am and why I do what I do. After all, I hope to be close pals with ya’ll.
Let’s start at the beginning, a very good place to start (according to Julie Andrews).
I was born in L.A. (that’s Lower Alabama) to a mama who is a saint and a daddy who had demons living in his mind thanks to undiagnosed Paranoid Schizophrenia he inherited from his mother. My early childhood was tumultuous at best. My mama tried keeping us all together but as my father’s psychological disorder slowly began to emerge and began causing him to hear voices, things spiraled out of control. He tried self-medicating with alcohol and eventually drugs to quiet the voices because counselors disregarded his reported symptoms and claimed he was just an addict and his use caused his auditory hallucinations.
I won’t go into all of the highs and lows, but there were murder/suicide attempts. My life and that of my mom and older sister were spared only because of the protection of God and a mama who would do ANYTHING for her children. I watched her break a shotgun over her knee one night—I mean, BREAK that thing—to protect us.
She no longer knew the man she had given her heart to in grade school. She divorced him and hid us away before he eventually committed suicide when I was 5 years old. I don’t blame either of my parents for the poor hand we had all been dealt. No one falls in love with someone and foresee a severe psychiatric disorder that doesn’t develop until the 20’s.
Due to this part of my life, I grew up with a knowledge of the world that many kids do not. I saw a lot of scary things and had my life in the balance more times than my mama ever wanted for her children. That woman is everything a mother should be and more.
I am grateful for things in life many others take for granted. This spurred me to pursue psychology in college. I have always been drawn to the enigma of the human brain and how it works. I absorbed everything about my degree with hunger and graduated at the top of my class due to this. I went on to work 5 years in the mental health field as a Mental Health Technician (MHT). I first worked with adolescents in a residential behavioral facility. I worked on the Male B Unit (boys age 10-16) and learned how to perform all the requirements of a MHT, including “Handle With Care” Physical Restraints.
This job was both difficult and extremely rewarding. There was danger in being attacked, or injured during a restraint, and some restraints could last for more than an hour due to the processing-out policies. Due to a heart defect I was born with, my cardiologist eventually ordered me to quit the job due to the extreme physical strain and long hours causing fluid to build up around my heart.
I then moved on to becoming a MHT with a 28-day addiction recovery facility. I worked 40 hours crammed into every weekend (3pm Friday-to 12am Monday morning). I worked my way up as the lead weekend MHT thanks to my degree, previous experience, and great work ethic. Administration was off on the weekends, so that left me in charge with one other MHT and a cook. Our nurse was on-call if there were any medical issues. I’m a natural introvert, but I thrived at that job. I ran the front desk, the phones, visitations, AA/NA meetings, church services, and all medical interventions including medicine administrations, drug screenings, ER runs, and medical emergencies (seizures, blood sugar drops, hallucinations/suicidal ideation, etc).
After 4+ years, I became burned out due to coworker issues and health decline (onset of hypothyroidism and heart complications) so as I prepared for my upcoming wedding, I left this job and focused on my health and mental wellbeing. My fiancée was amazingly supportive of me.
After we married, I took a job as a preschool teacher, where I further excelled due to my experience as a Sunday School teacher, Youth Leader, and VBS Co-Director. I love children and found the atmosphere was great for me personally but more rewarding as I had support from all of my coworkers and especially my bosses.
I encountered infertility in my marriage and that job helped ease that bleak pain. My health problems were a toxic mix that affected my everyday health and fertility. I was coping with hypothyroidism, pulmonary valve stenosis and mitral valve prolapse, tachycardia, deteriorating disc disease, hypertension and asthma. My body was against me in my greatest desire to be a mother. By the grace of God, with fertility treatments we were eventually able to conceive. We had a threatened miscarriage at 11 weeks and a high-risk pregnancy but eventually went on to have a healthy and perfect baby boy.
He is about to turn 3 and the past three years have been the most amazing blessing. I helped my mother raise my special needs nephew, worked multiple years in the preschool/daycare, and had a history working with children of all ages, so motherhood was nothing new for me. My husband, on the other hand, had never been around a lot of children so watching him enter fatherhood was both funny and eye-opening. The poor guy is a pro now, but teaching him about being a parent and caring for a child showed me how so many out there need a little extra help.
As I say, there are no manuals for raising children. There are manuals to operate cars and hardware, but none for keeping a kid alive and well. My husband is not a reader, so books I bought or showed him went unused or ignored. He clung to short snips of advice and explanations I gave him. I should have written down every questions he ever asked me because some of them were so funny and so unique I often had to laugh first—then answer.
Thanks to my childhood around mental issues, my degree, and my work experience, I have an interesting mixture of knowledge for other parents to utilize and its my hope that I can answer those questions that some are afraid to ask, like my husband.
They say it takes a village to raise a child and there is nothing more true than that. I am still learning every single day as a parent. If you think you know everything about being a parent and have nothing more to learn, you need to reevaluate your beliefs. Children have a way of throwing you for a loop sometimes.
Please, be kind and patient as we start this journey together!
