A Learning Curve

I have always mildly dealt with anxiety in my life - who hasn't? I have a way I like things done, a way that I feel comfortable, and an order to my life that I really need to have to function optimally. Since having a baby, just about all of those things has gone out the window. It's been really hard for me to not be able to have a clean living room all the time, to have little tiny baby things around all the time; to have clean laundry sitting in baskets and not getting folded; to watch Cecelia squirm and squawk and not really know what to do to help her. I've really had to do some adjusting in the way my brain works and copes. I'm okay with that, it's to be expected. But there is more than that - anxiety I was not expecting.
Before Cecelia was born I met with a social worker at the hospital, as a routine visit that they have set up for all moms. In the visit we talked a little bit about postpartum depression - something that has always been talked about around my house, and has been on my radar since getting ready to have our baby. Something she told me about that was new to me though was postpartum anxiety - the worrying too much and the stressing too much, as opposed to the distance and inability to manage that I was familiar with. I am so grateful she mentioned this to me.
As a mother, and especially a first time mother, we worry about our children. We wish it was possible for them to go throughout life never feeling pain or sadness or stress of any kind. We wish they could just stay as the perfect little being that were sent to us to start. You hope you can be the best they need, and that you will never be the cause for any pain or hurt to come to them. As you go on, even in the first couple of days and weeks, you quickly realise this is not possible. Still, you always want the very best for them and hope you're doing what they need to get that. This is normal. It's hard though to find and draw the line between this and the anxiety. When these thoughts and concerns consume you and frustrate your daily activities and other relationships, it's too much.
The conversation I had with that social worker before Cecelia was born has stuck with me, and I am so grateful it has. I have recently been toying with that line of what is reasonable motherly worry, and what is too much, and it's not a fun or easy place to be.
A week or so ago I was carrying Cecelia in her car seat and saw her head rocking a little bit, and suddenly out of no where found myself skipping from one scenario to another that could come of this, and before I knew it I was legitimately worried I was going to give my baby syndrome. Even now as I'm typing these things I know it's ridiculous, but the worry and the fear is still there. Lately I have found myself noticing something small and then going step by step from that to something catastrophic and horrific in my mind. This is not normal. I sit with Cecelia and hold her, and there are times when I cannot even enjoy her because I've convinced myself that it will hurt to much when (as if it is inevitable) something bad happens. I would watch Eric with Cecelia, when he has always always been a great father and care giver to her, and think that there's no way he can take care of her the way I can - that no one is capable of taking care of her as well I am. These things are not normal and they are not easy thoughts to conquer.
I am so grateful I was able to recognize all of this now, before it gets too hard to see. Eric and I had a good talk about it, and he had already started to recognize it as well. We've been working together on a bit of a system for him to be able to tell me, without me getting hurt or offended, "this is going to be okay, and you don't need to worry anymore about it." This is only a temporary fix. I know that I will need more help than this to get through this, and plan to visit with my doctor soon to address it, but it is amazing what family support and encouragement can do for your mental strength and health. My husband is amazing. My mom and my mother-in-law are fabulous. Even the men in my extended family have helped me to be strong and to cope. I am so grateful I have all of them, and that I know that this is manageable. Anxiety can be crippling, but it doesn't have to be. It does not have to be the end of the world.
So by default I have been absent from most all areas of the outside world. I have been working on a special project that I am really excited about - mostly in an effort to distract my mind and keep it from wondering, and also to give me something I can do for me while Cecelia doesn't need my immediate attention. I have ignored blogging, and have completely disappeared from Instagram. Hopefully I am back for a while now though, because I need those outlets and I need to have the social interaction I've felt like I cannot have lately.