I am sharing my story in hopes of helping some of the other young moms who visist the site as regularly as I do. Let me start by saying, I am a married mother of 2 (soon to be 3). I graduated in 2005 with my BA in Criminal Justice. At the moment I am pursuing my RN. So, I am far from uneducated, and have quite a bit of life under my belt.
My first encounter with 2012 was in January of 2009. I was having a belated Christmas dinner with my parents when my mom mentions in conversation about a family friend believing in 2012. The idea sat in the back of my mind and would creep up here and there, but I generally paid no attention to it. Late one evening I was sitting in bed on my laptop when an ad for the IHC popped up. I felt as if my whole worl stopped. I could hear my heart pounding through my chest and each breath I took. My whole body began to shake and I was completely terrified. How was I going to protect my kids? As some of the other moms said I could just picture my kids screaming out to me and there was nothing I could do. I just stared at the ad for a minute and then did exactly what the IHC suggested. Google. Once on Google I got bombarded with tons of sites. I could believe how many 2012 sites there were. Millions! One by one I began clicking, and minute my minute I felt my world crumble a little bit more. I was up all night terrified. The following day I talked to my husband who brushed me off as being crazy. I talked to my mom who's response was, "If it does, there's nothing you can do." About a week later there was nothing I could do but take care of my kids. I wasn't eating, going outside, nothing. I went to the Dr. who believed I was suffereing from post-partum depression. My daughter was been just 8 weeks prior. I was put on anti-depressants and within about 2 weeks I felt better, but definitely not whole again. Instead of seaching phrases like 2012 doomsday, I re-phrased my seach to 2012 hoax, 2012 debunking, and so on. I was able to find a few of Dr. O'Neils articles and a CNN article that I printed out and vowed not to search anymore. If I felt bogged down by 2012, I would pull them out and read. I was moving on with my life, even though I was not totally healed of my 2012 fear. It wasn't until this past January that I found 2012hoax. Earlier in the day I was having lunch with a friend who brought up her fear up 2012 and my fear came storming back. We talked a bit, but I went home feeling very anxious. Low and behold I found 2012hoax. I spent the next 3 days reading. I went from topic to topic, comment to comment. It all started to fall into place and I felt my world opening back up again. The things that scared me now made sense and what I eventually realized was my fear was just ignorance. I was (and pretty much still am) oblivious to astronomy and the physics that accompany it. I was also oblivious of the Maya and realized I was taking things at face value instead of truly understanding. This site has helped me gain so much knowledge that without it I could still be stuck in my depression. I read all the comments everyday and see some many other young moms where I was a year ago and feel so badly for them. One thing I have come to realize is a lot of my fear stems from children. As mom's we have duty to protect our children at any cost. We take them for vaccinations, we hold there hand across the street, we teach them about strangers, we bathe them, read, to them, and feed them. We do whatever it takes to keep them safe and happy. When it comes to 2012, I believe it is more of an emotion of feeling like we are out of controll and can't protect our babies. Nothing is worse for a mother than her inability to protect a child she put on this Earth.