To All the Moms Who Are Worriers – You Are Not Alone

My experience with anxiety has been life-changing over the past 17 years. One day it just hit me like a ton of bricks and boom it’s been here to stay ever since. If you were anything like me and already a natural-born worrier, the ton of bricks might have felt more like a brick house that just landed on you.

You might feel like you are going to either break or breakdown under this huge weight.

You might be saying things to yourself like “Am I crazy?”, “Why can’t I just let this go?”, and “Why is this bothering me so much?”.

You may even know it is silly to feel so much worry over something so trivial and yet, you cannot, for the life of yourself, calm down that inner voice in your head and that feeling in your gut.

On any given day you may feel like screaming or crying or doing both at the same time. After all, second-guessing every decision you make during the day is bound to put any reasonable person on edge. Your temper may feel short, especially with your children or spouse. Why don’t they just understand that you need to not be touched for a minute? That you feel the walls closing in and every sound is one sound closer to the chaos pushing you over the edge to a panic attack?

You. Feel. Like. You. Just. Can’t. Breathe.

You might feel like it will never ever possibly get better because you have tried therapy and medications and they aren’t taming the wild beast of anxiety within you. You fear that nothing will ever make it go truly away.

Every day I too battle with my anxiety. Every damn day for the last 17 years. Sometimes it is better and I will go most of the day feeling relatively “normal” and sometimes my whole day feels like one battle after another dodging every second-guess, every worry, every nay-sayer within just to function and make one fucking decision that I feel confident in.

Today I had a day like that. Where it’s hard just to be a mom to two tiny little people while my stomach is in knots and my head feels like my own personal hell.

But I get through it like I always do and you will get through this too. For every time you feel like your anxiety might cripple you, you keep on going. For every time where you feel like your anxiety will suffocate you in a panic attack, remember it cannot kill you. For every time your anxiety feels like it is taking control of your life, fight to regain control. You don’t give up because you know this is just one day. One day.

There are millions of things in this life worth fighting for. And you pick those things every day. You choose not to let the anxiety win.

Not every day will be like this.

So to all the moms who are worriers, you are also warriors. And you are not alone.