Breaking Down Anxiety Triggers – My Path to Self-Discovery

I made a bit of a breakthrough this week when I figured out why I get so anxious when I go to the office. I think it is because I am carpooling and I feel if I get sick (like pain and diarrhea from ischemic colitis) or mentally have uncontrollable thoughts, that I won’t be able to get to my safe point right away, which is home. I haven’t been physically ill in a long time, well in little ways but not in major episodes for a year now, however it is like PTSD where you act out in your head what you are going to do if or when it happens again. My first thought is I have to get out of the office before I am laying on the bathroom floor physically or that my mental thoughts have taken a dark hold on me and for some reason I won’t make it home. It leaves me feeling trapped and scared and my body starts reacting by anxiously rubbing my hands together, rubbing my leg, my inside of my body starts to quiver. It makes me so exhausted I count the minutes until I can get home.

Figuring this out brings me a bit of comfort thinking that if I don’t carpool anymore, I will always have my vehicle there to leave when I need or at least if I could do a half a day and then slowly work my way up once I can trust myself again to hold it together. Real or imagined I don’t trust myself.

The other night when we were having some family time and trying to roast hot dogs over an open fire, I started to get agitated by regular bantering that goes on between my kids or with Kevin. For some reason, their unhappiness with each other or picking on one another, gets under my skin. I thought I was holding it together until Brant was crying about wanting to play a game and no one was agreeing on what we should do.

I found the ball gloves to play catch as that was one of the options and I handed them out and went back to put on some music to make it a fun event in the yard. Brant and Ava started bickering, Brant feeling belittled and crying threw a hard ball right at Ava’s shin and she was yelling at him. I have moments where my brain just seems to throw out my emotion as forcefully as vomiting. I used to be able to hold my emotions in better and carry on politely and sort out their arguments. Instead, I threw my ball glove in the dirt and yelled something that had an f bomb in it and that they needed to play nice as I couldn’t take it. Not a shining moment of mine and Kevin seeing it from the window of the house actually thought I was just pretending to show them how silly a tantrum looks. I wasn’t acting though. I was having a full-blown tantrum with f bombs included to my children. I am not proud of it, but I can say that likely I would have just bottled it in and been angry all evening. This time, because of my outburst everyone played nice, and we had an excellent evening of bike riding, canoeing, and back roads cruising. So not that I am pleased with myself but letting emotions go (in an appropriate manner) would be a good thing to do to get everyone re-set and having fun again. Next time, possibly pulling them each aside and having an adult conversation about behavior while we are playing together would have been a more appropriate choice.

Back to the theory when we know better, we do better. Well, I know better, but I guess there is always work to be done on the do better. I think we all would do better if we told each other our thoughts and emotions before we either blow them sky high or hide them and make others guess what is wrong with us. I do not wish making others guess what is wrong on my worst enemy.

There is nothing worse than walking around knowing someone is upset by something you have done but won’t tell you to your face. It makes you constantly guess what you did wrong and maybe it wasn’t even you who did wrong. So please try not to do this to others, walking around others on eggshells is so hard on our self-esteem and worth as it feels like you constantly have to berate yourself to figure out the puzzle of what you did wrong. The other person maybe thinks they are being better to you by not telling you that you made them mad but honestly it is so hurtful living in the what if and what did I do. I hope not to do this to my children, even if it comes up in my blow-up adult tantrum, I would prefer they knew out loud how their behavior affected me. That way we can all say we are sorry and start again.

Chat again soon,

Michelle