It's been a while but I am back! This one has been sitting half done for a while. Hope you enjoy!
I am a Mom of a baby. I have a general anxiety disorder. Some days I feel like I am being ruled by my “mom brain” when I can’t remember what day of the week it is or what those things you use to cut paper are called. Some days I feel like I am being ruled by anxiety brain when I am spending the whole day running over every impossible scenario that could go wrong, that I am doing wrong and how i can micromanage every minute of this day.
Motherhood is hard. Being with a mom with anxiety is a whole other bag of worms that I was not prepared for. This is the tip of the iceberg.
I have a much quicker temper
I never thought I would be, well I never wanted to be, a mom who yells. I wanted to be the mom who has it together, is all calm in the face of the storm and can talk in an even tone and doesn’t ever raise her voice. I am that… sometimes. And sometimes I yell and I HATE it. I don’t mean in the Italian “we aren’t yelling. This is just how we talk” way. I mean my anger gets the best of me and I yell. I don’t even know if I can say it is anger as much as it is actually more like the anxiety monster gets the best of me. I feel so overwhelmed, I am starting to feel like I am having an anxiety attack and I just need a second. I need to walk away and breathe. The baby is just screaming and screaming and I feel like I have tried everything. My back is getting sore from rocking, walking, bending over the crib. It is 3 am and I am so tired. This has been going on for hours. I just need a second. I just need to walk away and breath. Anxiety monster is yelling in my ear “You can’t! You need to fix this! You are failing! You are an awful mother! She hates you! What are you doing?” when I yell out “Just stop!” who am I actually yelling at? Her or my own brain?
It took me some hrd talks with myself to realize that, yes, I can walk away. Take a minute. Go to the other room. Breathe. She will be fine for a minute and will be better off in the long run. My anxiety is becoming her anxiety and that’s not helpful nor is it fair. And lo and behold 9/10 times when I come back and I am calmer she calms down too. I am not saying I have mastered it yet. But I am trying!
I obsess over milestones
Why do they tell us what our kid is supposed to be doing at every month? Ok I know why but whyyyy. She is 3 months today why isn’t she doing this and that yet? They make it sound like they turn an age and BOOM they can do stuff. Guess what? I doesn’t work that way! Not only is a month, you know, a month long which is a very long time when you are a baby but some kids do one thing when they are 3 months and the other does it when they are 8 months old. Most things you read don’t bother telling you that! Blame it on having brother’s with autism or my educational background or the types of jobs I have had but I am perhaps too aware of delays and skill deficits and all that. I am too aware and too anxious and it makes me crazy! Poor kid. When I go to the doctors and they tell me she is doing fine that is the only short lived moment when I feel better. The only thing I can do about it is to stop reading stuff. But you know… Google
I try and control the uncontrollable
When she was old enough to eat solids she didn’t really want to at first. She is supposed to eat! What if she starves because she won’t eat? She would put whatever I gave her into her mouth and spit it right back out. Drove me crazy. What am I doing wrong why won’t she eat?? She eats just fine now. She just didn’t want to yet and it was fine!
She doesn’t sleep through the night. Like not even for 5 hours straight. She still nurses 2-3 times a night. She is not supposed to be waking up or nursing! Blackout curtains, white noise, special bath soaps, strictest of strict routines. I have done everything I can and that the internet tells me to do. She still doesn’t sleep for more than 4 hours on a good day. I say I have given up and accepted that this is just how she is. That I know that she will sleep one day. That it’s fine! I can manage on little sleep anyways! I say that.
Anxiety does not mix with lack of control. They are not compatible.
In that respect no sleep and anxiety reeeeally don’t mix. But that’s a whole other thing all together.
I compare everything to everything else
I compare myself to other moms, I compare her to other kids. I compare what toys we have to what other kids have. I know that all moms do this. I know all people in general do this. I just feel like I do this to insanity. Comes back to the milestones and the control thing.
It also comes down to that I am terrified that I am failing. That I am not doing good enough. That she needs this or she won’t be happy. I just want her to be happy.
In the end I am always hyper aware of what other people think of me. What is they think the same things about me as I think about myself? I can convince myself that it is just the anxiety talking and that I am doing just fine but it becomes a lot harder when I start seeing evidence (that if we are honest I am probably fabricating) that other people might be thinking that too. So I got to keep up!
I am trying not to do this anymore.
I need to be taken care of more
I give a lot of myself every day. Taking care of another person’s every want and whim is exhausting. At the end of the day sometimes I find I have very little left to take care of myself, and believe me, it takes a lot to take care of me. I need reassurance, I need someone to tell me I am doing ok, I need someone to get the anxiety monster out of my ear. I have always been good (most of the time. Ok some of the time) doing that for myself. Taking time at the end of the day and saying “It’s not that bad. Everything is fine. Tomorrow is tomorrow.” More and more these days I just don’t have whatever it is in me that I need to take care of me. I used it all up taking care of the baby, the house, the errands and whoever else came and went today. And it’s ok, I like taking care of people I really do. At the end of the day though now I need to be taken care of. I seek out more validation from other people. I need more empathy from other people. I need people more than I want to need other people. I don’t like it. And when I don’t get it I get cranky and my feelings get hurt. Sorry about that
So there you have it. A very small example of what being an anxiety mom is like for me. Or maybe it is just what it is like being a mom for most people. I don’t know. I am trying not to compare anymore remember?
Thanks for reading and if it makes absolutely no sense I am sorry. I am very tired.