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I’ve mentioned before some of the troubles that haunted me in the early part of the new millennium.
My first child was less than two years old, and I hadn’t handled the whole new child thing very well at all. I thought I was prepared. You are never prepared. Her presence in the house brought me great joy and also great suffering. That’s a story for another day. For now we’ll leave it that I was overwhelmed with her.
There were troubles with a friend of mine. There were troubles with my parents. There were troubles with my husband. My doctor straight-out told me that I was “living in a hotbed of dysfunction,” and there’s really nothing like having your doctor confirm your worst fears about the people you call family.
In short, I was stressed out big time, and eventually the wall of impenetrable calm with which I like to surround myself began to crack.
I denied it for months. I soldiered on, getting more and more exhausted in the process.
Almost every day I was crying, crying for hours. I’d cry while I cooked dinner, while the child played in the next room. I’d cry while I wrote in my journal–a paper journal, how quaint is that? I’d cry myself to sleep at night; if the tears were too stormy and I worried about waking the husband, I’d retreat downstairs and weep on the couch.
On top of the crying was the anxiety, and really, the anxiety gnawed at my mind in a way the tears did not. Constantly, everlastingly, without ceasing, I spun my mind around increasingly implausible scenarios which would result in the death or destruction of someone in my family–usually the child.
If I was folding laundry on the floor with her “help,” my mind would worry about leaving a stocking within her reach when the phone rang. I’d come back and find her dead, having strangled herself with it. If we were driving, I’d flip through a gruesome book of mental images of car wrecks. The logs on the flatbed in front of us could come loose, smashing through the window and directly into her car seat. She could put her arm out the window and have it ripped from the socket by a passing vehicle. She could somehow become tangled in the spinning axle of an 18-wheeler. If I brought a hot casserole out of the oven, I’d imagine tripping and spilling it over her, even if she was in the next room.
I’d worry if the husband went on a trip, picturing every possible iteration of plane crash, car wreck, mugging or slip-in-the-shower. When my parents came to visit, I’d imagine carjackings gone awry, guardrails bent asunder, blow-outs of tires tracking directly into oncoming traffic.
When I left the house, I’d watch my back as if I were a being stalked. Getting into my car–even when it was in the locked garage!–was an exercise in caution. Getting back into the house was the same. I was ready for attack, every moment, every situation, all day long.
The world was simply too dangerous. Far too dangerous.
I know the examples I’ve listed are impossible, or nearly impossible. I knew it then. But my mind would start in on a scenario–even while rationally I thought how very impossible it was–and an hour later, I’d realize that I was still churning away at it, still picturing my daughter’s small body mangled, laid out on the coroner’s slab, or myself fending off imaginary attackers. I’d tell myself how very foolish I was being–and yet another hour later, I’d realize that I’d been at a funeral in my mind all along.
Can you imagine how exhausting this was? Can you imagine having that surge of adrenaline through your system several times a day? I’m certain that some of you can.
…continued here…
