I'm sure I've said this before, but my life can be a bit hectic. I juggle a variety of different things in my day to day life and for the first time, it really caught up with me.

Now this is not the first time where I broke down mentally because of life situations. I've dealt with that before. I was accustomed to working through tough situations in life. But this was different.

I juggle being a full time student, working on campus, being active and holding positions in a sorority, attending church regularly and being in the chior and commuting from home and being part of the dynamic at home again. And I thought I could handle it. Actually there was no doubt in my mind that I could. But this wasn't like all the other times I could just push through.

By the 5th week of my fall quarter, I was breaking down. I felt I wasn't doing a good job at anything and I felt like I was the only one putting in the work. I was carrying so much stress that I would get in my car and cry about things that didn't go my way. Failure is never an option for me because you can always remedy something. But at this point, failure seemed to just follow me. And it wasn't getting better. A couple more weeks of being incredibly busy and stressed, I finally was able to wind down. And I made some hard decisions about shifting priorities and learning to make time for everything and not let it bleed into other aspects of my life.

It was around this time or a bit after when Selena Gomez came back into the public eye. She accepted an award and her speech about mental health moved not only me but I'm sure it moved others. That was my reminder to take care of myself. It took a good eight weeks for me to step back. But it was what I needed. I also am working on a box of things for self care.

I became a big self care advocate sometime during my winter and spring quarter in 2016. But I was never consistent with it. So going into this new year, I had nothing to really keep me grounded. And that made it hard. So I've been looking into what a balanced self care plan should have so that the next time I feel overwhelmed or just to recharge for the week ahead, I am prepared.