It's Going to Be OK, right?

I have anxiety. Recently they started saying it was PTSD. Drs love putting labels on things. Then they can be fixed, only then they can be corrected. I have many nervous ticks. The sudden clash as my kids drop a toy, or a co-worker brushes against me walking by too closely, I flinch. I sleep curled up in a ball and far too often hold my breath and find comfort at the constant picking at my finger tips, but maybe it’s a distraction, just taking emotional pain from one place, any putting it somewhere else, somewhere physical.

My baby girl knows 3 words. one of them being Momma, and when she kisses me on the cheek in the morning to wake me up, I know this is another day worth living.

Have you ever had a moment that changed your life forever?

One second you’re dancing in the living room after your first crush slips you a note after gym class, and the next second you find yourself alone in an alley frozen in your tracks wondering why your feet won’t move.

One moment you are hiding in the bathroom during lunch period because again mom and dad didn’t have any lunch money, and the next moment you are walking along a shiny row of Acura’s deciding if you really need the all wheel drive and splurge for the full entertainment package.

There is no recipe for life. We don’t all start from the same cul-de-sac colonial, yet some of us get to peruse college brochures with our parents around the kitchen table. Some of us don’t make it home safely after a seemingly innocent high school party.

This random chaos of our world forms us, embodies us, shapes us. And the shape we take is up to us, and sometimes it’s what the universe decides for us. This is why I find human nature so damn intriguing.

This started my journey of documentaries. Here I am, baking cupcakes for the second grade class, and organizing a diaper drop off for the expecting church mom, and no one around me would have any idea that the bandaid on my thumb was the result of my obsessive running thoughts when I should have been long asleep last night. I needed a distraction, and I needed to know who else was out there, faking a smile on their face the days they had enough courage to get out of the car at school drop off and still weren't in their pajamas, hair unwashed.

Maybe the woman in front of me in line at Trader Joes said goodbye to her sister yesterday just when it was supposed to be her last radiation treatment. I pretend I didn’t hear the head of the PTA whispering to another mom asking if she has anything that can help her sleep tonight.

Surprised? How could you be? Think about the people we interact with every day. At a stop light, in Staples, the guy that seems totally erratic that his McDonalds order is wrong. Is he? Or is it more?

For me it started with “Intervention” which I highly recommend. Let’s begin with that first stigma. How judgmental are we of the addicts, and the over doses we read on our Facebook Timelines. Then I listen to their stories. Some came from that beautiful colonial, and we wonder, what went wrong? Some were the hungry ones at school, and it’s easy to see what brings comfort when you weren’t tucked in at night.

Night after night I slip my earbuds in and tune into their lives, into their pain. Watching their young smiles on the swing set and the injuries that took them out of college football forever. Most nights staying up far too late, knowing I have lunches to pack in the morning, and my son just reminded me at 10 freaking p.m that his Latin poster is due tomorrow. But I’m fixated, I’ll wake up early and get the glue and colored pencils out. Tonight I need to see this person’s life, the best that can be summed up in a simple hour.

Once the binge is over I’m left looking for more.

If you liked Intervention, there are plenty of other hidden lives all around us for you to discover...

It is estimated that between 5-14 million Americans are compulsive hoarders. That means that guy at McDonalds already has 76 empty Big Mac boxes on the floor of (what used to be) a bedroom. But today, he needs number 77 to fall asleep tonight. Some escaped death, some held it’s hand and watched it unfold in front of them. And now they shift around bags, boxes and piles of clothing seeking the comfort of burying themselves alive in a protective hoard in Hulu’s depiction of “Hoarders.”

This is my process for finding the next story. I escape my OC suburban house wife lifestyle to discover the lives all around me. Real people, real pain, true love, true disaster. Some end in the grave and some still standing in line at the Staples. Today’s reality television has gotten it all wrong.

I quickly found the truth of human nature can be led down some of the most mysterious of roads. These stories don't have families coming together embracing in their happy ending, yet leaving them in their beds at night as sleep escapes them questions reeling in their minds in a never ending loop. Leaving us outsiders picking apart the facts, questioning and second guessing ourselves. Calling my sister and asking, "Did you see the next episode? There is just no way that really happened..." But did it?

So if you liked Intervention and Hoarders, yet you're looking for a more bizarre mystery, start binge watching the re-telling of "The disappearance of Madeleine McCann." First we are led one way, sure we know the answer is clear. Then the evidence turns. We back track, analyzing further, and end up more confused than before. All the while we are picking apart the facts or rumors of a real family. A family still out there today, wondering if their daughter is alive somewhere, or do they already know the answer? Tomorrow we may walk right past them on the sidewalk and never know it.

If this left you looking for more mystery, Netflix's "Making a Murderer" hits every satisfaction. This documentary spread through headlines and our social media like a California brush fire, and for good reason. Was there planted evidence? Was a child coerced into a confession? Was the life of a young woman used as a pawn in grand scale set up, or is this family still walking around Manitowac Wisconsin, with the clock just ticking until their next strike leading to the next bonfire and unearthing of the mysteries beneath. Either way this story unfolds, you have to wonder is this evil really walking among us?

If you liked the mystery of Madeleline McCann and Making a Murderer and were still scrolling, wondering what else could be really out there? Then you may enjoy a few more recommendations, if your stomach can hold it...

“Forensic Files” quickly turned my interest into the minds of serial killers. Which you must understand these are not recommendations if you're looking into the story of the freak accident, or mysterious death in a city nearby you. These stories are people that strive to kill. As if their every breath relies on the possibility and search of their next victim. Fantasized, obsessed. Most recently “The Night Stalker.” This documentary spared no weak stomach to depict his violent horror, but at the end there was no satisfaction of his re-telling. Why? What was he seeking, escaping, reveling in what satisfaction? I had to know. Maybe it's a concept that we are raised with, that everything has to have an explanation or an answer, but out in the real world, you may find there is no formula to understand the madness. “Conversations with a Killer, the Ted Bundy Tapes” spelled it all out. He wanted his 15 minutes of fame when it finally came time to face his reality. We could see inside his mind, his thoughts, understand his cunning and elusive cruelty that the average person would find bizarre, so sickly bizarre.

After seeing some of the most gruesome, horrifying depictions of human nature that walk this earth, there is not much that can de-rail me from a good night’s sleep. I finished "American Murder” and turned over next to my loving, yet annoyingly snoring husband knowing this would never be my fate.

But one documentary got to me.

It haunted me for months. I researched it endlessly for days after. Every article, every interview I could get my hands on. I read hundreds of comments on every Facebook thread. A depiction of young lives ruined, wrongfully taken away spanning decades.

If you enjoyed any of the documentaries above, I plead you to open your Netflix and put this on the top of your binge list. Start it today.

Netflix’s “When they see us.”

Was it their innocence, betrayal of those we are taught protect us, the blatant disregard for basic human decency? There was so much to this story that caught me. Captured me, reminding myself several times to keep breathing, swallowed into their story at midnight. Because it was all true. Here I am peering behind a screen tucked in my silk sheets, and yet these children sat in those cold chairs tearfully staring into the eyes of their parents, starving in a dark cell, waiting and praying for someone to help them, yet everyone failed. I called my mother in law, who lived in Manhattan at the time this took place, and she said "of course I remember that case, it was in every paper." I simply asked that she watch it. Her return call was that of awe. Yes we read the headlines, yes we walked central park hundred of times. But never, did we see this story through the eyes of those children. After nearly a lifetime gone, we cried their sadness, and our hearts pierced with their pain. We lost sleep recounting of their days, their years of fear and despair.

And I have anxiety- HA!

Watching these depictions of the world around us has taught me so much. It has changed my life in more ways than can be described in a word counted article. I speak softer, I buy the car behind me Starbucks, and let the lady with 4 things in her basket jump in front of my full cart of groceries even with 3 clinging kids on my legs begging for candy.

As stigmas begin to fade about the challenges real people face today, the more I see their stories pop up on the streaming services. I will always strive to know more. I want to know about disease, anorexia, homelessness, racism, the list could go on forever. I want to truly see them when maybe they have felt alone for so long. As the world opens their eyes to those we used to easily walk past and pretend we didn’t see, the more these stories may end in the healing of our mankind as I keep searching for the next documentary and keep calling my friends and relatives to put aside Parks and Rec and discover our world's truth.

If you strive to place yourself in someone else’s shoes, and take a break from Romantic Comedies where the guy always catches the last flight to make it in time for his one true love. I recommend searching documentaries, and see where it leads you.

Some may not speak to you, some may be too difficult to swallow. Do they provoke anger inside you? Sadness that lingers for days? Questions that reel on an endless loop in your mind? A success story that gives you hope and inspires your life story?

These are the emotional burdens and celebrations humanity carries with them each morning they wake to face another day. You and Me included.

Maybe someday someone’s story is going to encourage me to talk about my PTSD, anxiety, or whatever it is today they want to call it. And let the mom on the playground next to me know that I don’t have it all together. Things aren’t always what they seem, in fact its usually quite the opposite.

So don’t be surprised.