Before becoming a mom, I was a teacher at a middle school. I worked my entire life to become a teacher. That was all I ever wanted to do since I was little. I would play school with my sister all the time, and I always had to be the teacher. My life was spent doing whatever I could to get myself to becoming a teacher. I ended up getting a Master’s Degree is Elementary Education and a certification in grades 5-9 social studies. My goal was to be an elementary school teacher, but my first job was at a middle school in social studies.

I LOVED my job at first. I was teaching US history, which was my favorite. I also was really good at my job, and I knew I was making a difference in the lives of the kids I was teaching. The problem with teaching was never the kids. After my first year, we lost our principal, and I had a difficult time with the changes the administration was making. It’s hard being a teacher with basically no power, but I knew the decisions being made were not what was best for the kids. I basically had to do what I could with what I was given. I worked so hard for my whole life to be a teacher only to find out I had no ability to make decisions for what I taught or how I taught my curriculum.

My last year that I was at my job, I had finally had enough. We had been through COVID, which was hard enough, and I couldn’t take the stress anymore of dealing with poor decisions being made. I was pregnant with Caia, and I knew I would be taking time off to stay with her. I had a lot of time to think when she was first born. Dealing with postpartum OCD also changed my whole perspective on life. I was so unhappy at my job, and I hadn’t even realized it until I was removed from the situation. I decided I no longer wanted to work for someone else. I want to be my own boss. Leaving the kids was a really hard choice though. Like I said, they were never the problem. The problem for me was that I thought I was stuck since I was only ever trained how to be a teacher. I felt stuck.

The decision I made about my teaching career is what led me to my creation of my blog. I want to help other moms who have been through what I have without having someone tell me how to do it. What I have learned through this experience is if you have something you believe in so strongly, don’t let the opinions of others get in the way of you trying to reach your goals. It is also important to never give up. Writing a blog is challenging, but I have been doing this for a year, and it makes me happy. I am not going to give up on my dreams because I feel like postpartum OCD happened to me for a reason. Never give up on what you believe in and always follow your dreams.