Anxiety

A long time ago, when I was a freshly graduated Early Childhood Educator, it was no big deal for me to be the only teacher of 8 preschoolers in my program. It was also not a big deal for me to have 30 after-school children with one other ECE. In fact, that was my job, I did it every day, and I excelled in it. Yep, I’m tooting my own horn.

A lot happened between then and when I met my husband:

• I lost a boyfriend to suicide
• I left my job and took a year off to heal and work doing other things
• I moved an hour away to work in child care again and have a fresh start
• then switched to being a live out nanny, which I did for 6 years for four different families (one family the entire 6 years, the other three in conjunction with that family).

I was always kind of a “go with the flow” kind of girl. My bosses would ask me to do things above my regular duties and it was a running joke that I always said “Yeah, NO PROBLEM!”

Not much bothered me. Everything was adaptable, fluid, easy breezy.

Then I met my husband and moved a third of the way across the country (check out a little about us in A Leap of Faith) and started our family.

It was hard.

My life changed completely and I had a whole slew of new things to deal with and worry about.

• I had to find a job to work at
• I needed to find friends and support
• I needed to learn the area
• And, most of all, I needed to learn how to live with a man (or anyone, for that matter) after living alone for 7 years.

It was all very new and a little scary and not at all easy.

And then…

Just as I found ‘my people’, just as I felt settled and our family started to grow, just weeks after finally getting a positive pregnancy test for our second child (after nearly two years of trying), we were posted to move to Quebec.

That’s when anxiety started to creep in.

I was worried about finding a midwife in Quebec.
I know a lot of people prefer to have doctors, I strongly preferred to have midwives and the idea of not having one made me very anxious.

Then I moved there and I tried to use my rural Nova Scotia public school French from grades 2-12… and consistently got told to “just speak English”.
So I did, but then sometimes while speaking English, people would be extremely rude because I wasn’t even trying to speak French.
Making phone calls was a nightmare because I couldn’t even understand enough to know what number to press to get to a person.

This is my experience alone,
it may not be anyone else’s,
but it was mine and it was hard.

I also had some pretty debilitating postpartum anxiety and depression… I think. I was too deep into it and too scared to get help that I didn’t talk to anyone to get a formal diagnosis. My husband told me flat out that I needed help and I remember screaming at him that “Nobody here speaks English, there IS NO help for me!” (And yes, we are still married.)
I am in tears now thinking of how awful it was at that time.
I felt so alone and lost and didn’t think there was any way out of it.

We stayed in Quebec for four years (even though we were supposed to leave after three) and it did get better.
I found some great people and a small network of support.
We had our third child and my husband took a full 9 months of parental leave to help me out, and boy that made ALL the difference.

But still, I hated going into public without my husband (who does understand and speak French). In fact, I hated it so much that for the last year or more, I didn’t go for groceries; my husband always went. I only ordered coffee at the same Tim Hortons because I knew that specific one had English speaking employees. And if I had to make a call, I got someone else to do it, or it didn’t happen at all.

When we finally got posted back to Ontario, I was so relieved.

Not only was it an English speaking place, but we had lived there before we moved to Quebec so I knew the area, the resources, and some of the people. I didn’t have to worry about unschooling and homeschooling anymore, it was completely legal and unnecessary to keep records for. There were tons of programs and activities for the kids to do, not only on weekends and evenings but throughout the day, and many programs offered specifically to homeschooling families.

But one thing that came with me was the heat rising in my chest when I felt judged or overwhelmed. That is something Quebec gave me and I couldn’t leave behind when I left. (What a parting gift, eh?)

It has gotten better, for sure. It doesn’t happen every day anymore during meal times when I ask the kids what they want for breakfast and I get three different, never ending orders at the exact same time. It takes more Momma, Momma, Momma‘s for me to react and feel that fiery ball rising in my chest. And I can take all three in and out of car seats (multiple times in a short amount of time) for activities without feeling like I can’t catch my breath… finally.

But taking them into stores and having them go in three different directions, each touching all the things and asking a million questions at the same time… BIG TRIGGER! I get them out of the store and into the car and, more times than not, I’m lecturing them about how awful the experience was. Ok, I admit, I yell during the lecture. I’m not proud of it but I am real about it.

We go over expectations every single time. “We need to be respectful of other people. We need to walk in the store. We need to stay close together and we need to keep our hands off of things. We can look but we do not need to touch.” And almost every single time…. they do the opposite of all of those things.

And then yesterday… yesterday I had my very first anxiety attack.

I had to take them into the local programming place to sign up for gymnastics because their website is down.
We talked before we went in, as we always do, and I felt good about it.
We got inside and there were about four people behind the counter and four people waiting, which is busy for there, but understandable since the system is down online.
Waiting just ahead of us was a mom of some kids we know through a friend, and so she started chatting with Middle Born. Last Born wandered off behind the counter (she is my wanderer and always has been). I spoke to her and she came back to stand with me.
It was my turn just as we realized our neighbor was one of the staff. She started chatting excitedly with the kids about flowers and gardens and apple trees. Middle Born loves all of those things so while I was trying to register them for gymnastics, she was constantly interrupting to tell me the things the neighbor was also saying. Last Born disappeared again, around the corner of the front desk. The staff helping me would not register Middle Born for the programming her coach has been recommending her for (for over a year now) without a written letter from the gymnastics staff, which I didn’t have, which meant I was going to have to come back again to register just her after contacting the coaching staff… meanwhile Last Born was gone, for the third time, around the corner of the desk.

We left, we walked out to the car, and I expressed my disappointment in the behavior.
I got everyone buckled in and then I got in the car and it happened: I couldn’t catch my breath, my voice unintentionally deepened, tears flowed down my face although I didn’t feel like I was crying. My mind was swimming and I couldn’t settle on any thoughts. It was so beyond any emotion I’d ever felt.

I have practiced with slow, counted, deep breaths before for labor and pain, and I have friends who have had panic or anxiety attacks, but this was all new to me.
I couldn’t focus to drive so we just sat in the parking lot for a few minutes.
I needed quiet so the sound of the kids moving or whispering or even breathing loudly made me need to speak to them to stop and my voice scared even me. I’ve never heard it so low before.
It took quite a few minutes for me to be calm enough to drive. It took another 30 for my voice to return to normal.
And even the slightest thought could bring out the tears for the next few hours.

It was scary. It was anxiety. I’ve still not been formally diagnosed but my goodness, if that’s not what it was, I don’t know what else it could have been.

The week has been filled with quite a bit of anxious feelings. I’m not sure what is going on in my body, maybe it’s subconsciously the worry of Covid-19 infecting my family, or the full moon, or my 40 year old hormones changing while I have my period… I don’t know but I am not a fan.

So I will look into natural ways to deal with anxiety for now.
I may contact a doctor or two, I’m not sure.