At times, as Still Mothers, it can feel like we’re just waiting around for the next terrible thing to happen. Like we’re constantly on edge because we know exactly what can and does happen all the time to people. (In a word: anything). We’ve realized that we don’t have control over our lives, and that’s a scary and stressful place to be.
Yesterday, our lovely contributor Emily wrote about how a seemingly inconsequential event like a fender-bender can leave mothers like us feeling jumpy, on-edge, and hyper-vigilant. Our grief reactions become the fore-front of our thinking.
She writes, “A simple rear-ending. Someone got distracted and hit me from behind…not really a big deal. An annoyance. A hassle. An inconvenience.
Except my anxiety kicked into high gear for days afterwards. I jolted awake in the middle of the night in a panic for a week following this, relatively speaking, non-eventful event. A terrible feeling of unexplained fear lingers for days.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t simply move on with life and be done with it.”
Many Still Mothers can relate to those feelings of anxiety that seem all-consuming.
Today is Tuesday, and so we want to hear from you.
How does anxiety affect you as a Still Mother?
Do you notice it more or less certain times?
How do you handle it?
Please comment below and let us know what it’s like for you.
She is the creator, co-founder, and Editor of Still Mothers.She is the founding owner of All That Love Can Do, a resource for families who continue pregnancy after a fatal diagnosis. She is a contributing author of Still Standing Magazine, and All That Love Can Do, and her own blog, The Love We Carry.Her story is featured in Still Standing: Because They Lived and "Invisible Mothers".
She is married to her faithful husband, Bryan.
She speaks openly about life and loss, the joy of carrying her son, and the heartache of living without him. She believes no one should have to face a life of loss alone.
- Still Mothering - May 5, 2017
- The Mothering Project - April 9, 2017
- At Least - November 28, 2016
I never get the chance to cry… I had to quickly “move on” because life threw at me LIFE.
I had to move on and work, I had to move on and interact with people as normal as I could but everyday it feels gloomy…
everyday it feels like I want to run away from my own life just go somewhere to heal
and no one understands it, not even someone I thought new me way more than anyone else.
i feel like im about to break down but i would not say im at a point where i can be diagnosed as “depressed” because for that to happen
apparently you have to not eat, not drink, not interact… but what im feeling is way much more than it could ever be shown on the surface…
I suffered from mild anxiety before my loss from a health problem i have to deal with every day. Since loosing Chloe that anxiety has increased dramatically the biggest fears of course is loosing another baby which even comes up in many of my dreams to haunt me. The anxiety of fearing i will have to go through that pain again, will i do something wrong and cause it. Anxiety comes up when trying to be social with others that have babies especially baby girls is a trigger. Even trying to shop for toys for others i suddenly realised i was having trouble breathing properly. Sound so stupid! And then the anxiety of the reality of death, i fear every day that my husband will be taken away from me and pray like crazy he isn’t. I feel so stupid thinking like this all the time but this experience shows me that bad things do happen and i have no control over them, but knowing i have no control still doesn’t ease that anxiety.
Anxiety after loss is SO common! Most (all?) mothers I know suffer from it after loss. It can feel crippling and suffocating, and can come up at anytime, dor seemingly any reason. Thank you for sharing ♡
I completely relate to the overwhelming feeling that something bad is just around every corner. For me it seems that the world has “failed” me. We were not suppose to lose our babies! So our thoughts and feelings combine with this reality create an unsafe, unjust truth of our world. Thank you for sharing! You definitely are not alone.
I’ve always battled anxiety; it just seems now after our loss to be maginfied ten fold. The littlest things can turn me into a panic, trapped within my mind. I notice when people start taking about hopeful events or planning the future, my anxiety spikes. I know I have trouble thinking about anything positive my future could hold. Like others I live by my cycle. The hopefulness of my fertile week is quickly mixed with the anxiety of timing everything perfectly to enhance my chances. As I near the end of my cycle I feel my anxiety pick back up again as a month ends in disppointment. DH says I’m overly morbid. My thoughts quickly turn into if I am pregnant agai how long will that really last until my body fails me again and I lose another child. I’m overwhelmed by the thought of never getting to hold a child in my arms. I don’t know what scares me more, conceiving again or it never happening.
It doesn’t take much for anxiety to rear it’s head. Even little things can set our imaginations off, thinking of every possible way something can go wrong. It’s all part of our new normal as mothers who have lived through the unthinkable. Thank you for sharing ♡.
I worry anything I want will fail, just because I’m involved. I worry we’ll be matched to adopt and the mom will change her mind, or that baby will die too.
Once you know how little control you have over life, it’s hard not to expect the worst. Thank you for sharing ♡
I think I’d been living with stress and anxiety long before my losses began, but going through the losses took those feelings and magnified them more than I ever imagined possible. It wasn’t until beginning therapy that I received a diagnosis of PTSD and began working through it all. I often find myself in the middle of a panic attack and most times I’m not even sure what started it, but at least I’m learning more and more how to bring myself out of it. Of course my anxiety is tied to my cycle, and from a week before AF to a week after it’s much more easy to get set off, especially if anything makes me think I might have conceived again. I don’t handle it very well at all.
I really think that’s all you can do: be aware, and take steps to work towards managing it. There is no magic pill that fixes it, like people would hope. We learn by facing it heard on, and finding what works to calm ourselves. Thank you for sharing <3