From one macrumors reader to another, good luck. I think you are great. If this is your first kid, being a parent is awesome (I have six kids). If it's not your first great for adding a sibling! And the fact that you are seeing a therapist is a sign that you are taking care of your mental health for your own benefit and those around you. you got this. And if a breathing app helps. Use it!
Thanks. It's our second and final kid unless there is some mishap. Had our first a couple years ago. I do freaking love being a parent. It's much better than I thought it would be, and our daughter is growing up to be quite the polite and even surprisingly witty 2.5 year old. Kids can be amazing sometimes. We had to move so my wife could expand her daycare business (she decided to stay home after having our kid).
Another reason we're moving, and what has been a big stressor in my life, is that I have a neighbor who is absolutely insane. Her mom won a small jackpot lottery of a few million and bought her the house, and she's crazy and uses meth, pot, k-2 and some kind of rage-inducing drug (probably crack?). She's also been accused of doing prostitution in her home in front of her children, threatened to kill people on the street while sitting on her porch with her .22, and understandably our daycare moms aren't happy. From August to November last year the police were at her house about two times per week on average, including a climax on Thanksgiving day where four cruisers pulled up and cops circled her house and busted down the door while I had my family over eating dinner. No idea how she's not in prison yet. We live in a nice but smaller ~10 year old house across the street from a decent park on a sleepy cul-de-sac. Or at least it used to be sleepy. She admittedly has a lot of drug dealer friends, and they often hang out in her front yard doing drugs, and honk their horn loudly at random times (usually while we're sleeping). But all that will be changing in a few weeks when we move!
Yeah, my work has some great resources to get therapy for free. It's too bad most places don't have that as I'm not sure if I would have started in the first place if there was a lot of cost involved. Yeah, the app feature is just a small thing, but it sounds nice. So many people around the world are dealing with way more stress than I am. Honestly, my work isn't super stressful. And I don't have to worry about feeding my kid. And I have a work that's nice enough to pay for most of my Apple Watch as a health incentive to meet certain goals so that I can even use a feature like this. And my boss is really chill and gives me stress days off when something blows up with my extended family (usually a suicide attempt or worse). But I like that Apple cares enough to build in small things like this that can help people cope with stress. It's a huge problem in our society. It's just one of many things I can add to my anti-stress toolkit, and for that I'm grateful. Free updates are free updates, IDK why everyone feels the need to complain.
