Psychotherapy was my first attempt to free myself from anxiety and depression.
So once my second child Evan was in the picture, I think I really operated on pure adrenalin in a robotic manner. I would never let anything happen to my babies. They now became the reason for waking up each day. I focussed on them completely. If I had any other life before, it no longer existed. I felt like a juggler. I can’t imagine how mothers of twins manage. After all, my kids were 3 1/2 years apart. That should not have been so difficult. But it was. I was not able to cope like a normal mother. I …
Becoming a mother made my anxiety worse. Or was it vice versa?
Why is there no real preparation for motherhood? No one can ever tell you how it feels to have your own child. Mothers, you know what I am talking about. Fathers, some of you know what I mean, too.
Now for the relatively normal woman, being a mother is indeed a challenge. It changes your life. You no longer come first. You suddenly (even though you had 9 months to think about it) find yourself responsible for keeping a tiny, helpless baby alive and well. On the other hand, for an anxiety driven woman like me, becoming a mother is a …
I suffered from anxiety as far back as I can remember.
Looking back, I realize that I was nervous even as a kid. I am 58 years old, by the way. It is a very sad irony that my mother (may she rest in peace) passed away suddenly when I was 12 years old. This might make you think that trauma caused me to have severe anxiety. Well it did, and certainly the course of my life was horribly altered, but I know that I was an anxiety sufferer before she died. I was one of those children that almost literally hung onto mom’s apron strings. (Women wore aprons all day long in those days). I can remember …
The Results of My Visit to the Psychiatrist
Dr. G listened patiently to my “life story”. I talked and I cried. There was alot to tell him. When I was done, he sat back and said, in Psychiatry, we call people like you, who suffer from anxiety and depression, the “walking wounded“. No one knows what is going on inside you as you go about your daily life. To the onlooker, you seem perfectly fine, but all the while you are suffering silently. You don’t have to suffer any longer. I will help you to feel better. This is caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain. Anxiety …
Anxiety controlled my life. Therapy was not helping.
If you are reading this blog, chances are you are a worrier. Chances are you have a child, sibling and/or a parent who is also a worrier. Furthermore, if you are reading this blog, chances are that you have not found relief from this often paralyzing condition. I’ve been there. I am still there some of the time. I want to tell you about the help I found for my debilitating anxiety.
I am 58 years old and I have been in psychotherapy for about 30 years! Without this, I know that I would have fallen apart a long time ago. …