“Hmm, it feels kind of weird when I swallow. Kind of like a swollen lymph node or something, but I’m not fighting a cold. I’ll just Google it. Crap. I think I have THROAT CANCER.”
(Cue frantic mental flash-forwards of videotaping myself giving messages to our girls so they can remember me when I’m gone.)
“My neck is feeling kind of sore. Well, not really just sore. It’s kind of stiff. Let’s see what the internet has to say about that…MENINGITIS IT IS.”
(Cut to my bedtime prayers including a heartfelt plea that I don’t die in my sleep. Even though I had no other symptoms, I was wholly convinced I was going to wake up on the other side.)
These are two examples from the past two weeks where I started panicking about my health for no good reason. This is new for me. Since having kids I have definitely become more afraid of death and dying, since the thought of losing them, or them losing me, is unfathomable, yet I realize just how much is out of my hands and also just how much there is to lose.
I am also a far more nervous flyer than I was before I had kids. I used to love taking off and hurtling through the sky, but now I just try not to think about how we will all SURELY DIE.
(Screen shot from “Bridesmaids”, the best comedy of all time.)
It kind of puts a damper on things.
Has having kids ramped up your anxiety level about health and travel and life in general? How do you cope with the tendency to worry?
I know how you feel.
My doctor actually wants me on anxiety pills, but I refuse.
sometimes I think when I choose carpool option instead of driving them that because I did not go the distance …..
ok I cannot say it out loud
but I am sure you catch my drift
and I will be hating/blaming myself for the rest of my life because I did not do the extra bit.
But it would be ok because I would be dead from sadness and heartbreak anyway.
Also when I leave my home for weekend I feel like my legs have been cut off and left behind
weird for sure. No wonder I clench my teeth at night.
I remember being freaked out flying with my daughters, but the longer I live with this whole motherhood thing, the less I freak out. But then again, maybe I’m just so overly busy and under-rested that I don’t have the time or psychic energy to worry as much!
More worry and more guilt were a couple of the downers that came with the 4 little blessings in my life. I used to be able to laugh when my husband would try to scare me with fast driving, now I close my eyes and hyperventilate and sometimes cry. I don’t worry about sickness as much as y’all have described, but jeepers, maybe I should! What kind of mom am I taking my health for granted?! I can’t watch movies over a PG rating because gosh darn it, even the bad guys that get what they deserve in the action flicks are some poor woman’s children! I do not watch the news or documentaries, and I have been known to do the ugly cry at church over someone’s moving testimony. It’s like I think I’m every person’s mom now. Ugh, that is to much to carry around. I try to regularly drop my wish to control/keep safe everyone in the world at the cross and remember who’s really in control after all.
Having a child made me much more aware of my mortality. Not because I am fearful of death, but because I don’t want my son to struggle without me. I don’t want my death to cause him pain. So I remember my seatbelt and I don’t ride a motorcycle or drive in bad weather. I am not reckless in a sense. Even though I can’t control all, I have faith that I will be safe. And stay away from Google!
OMG 🙂
Since my third son was born, all I think about is death and dying and horrible diseases. I am anxious beyond no end, and somedays, I can barely function because I am so anxious. I have horrible thoughts of dreadful cancers, neurological disorders, and everything under the sun that can take me away from my children. It is horrible to feel this way when you are constantly thinking about death just around the corner.
I drive my husband crazy because he does not own such thoughts.
I am constantly feeling my neck for evidence of throat cancer, or thyroid cancer.
I get odd symptoms since my third son was born 10 months ago. I get headaches, eyestrain, eye floaters (which I am wondering if it is actually eye floaters). I went to eye doctor, everything was fine on that level. So now I am sure it is a neurological issue. MS? A tumor? I can’t stand this anxiety.
I don’t even know if its normal anymore to constantly feel this way.
Thank you so much for your article. I am happy to see I am not alone 🙂
funny, you don’t look like my husband! he’s had “brain tumors” “butt cancer” “arthritis” “MS”….you name it. turns out the butt cancer was just red icing 🙂
i figure if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. if it does i know i’ve told my family i love them and that would be the last they remember. maybe i’m too laid back! 🙂
I probably should be on some type of anti anxiety (I’m not even kidding)
When my kids get a fever I think leukemia.
Eva’s little legs were covered in tomboy bruises and I thought “Oh god I think I read somewhere that’s a symptom of some type of cancer or something”
When I see one of them limping I think osteosarcoma.
My dr think my anxiety comes from the trauma of Cuyler’s birth coupled with watching Eva bleed out several times. We’ve been witness to “worse case scenario” more times than I like to remember as far as my kids are concerned.
As far as me – totally the same way as you. I’ve had this pain behind my right eye for ages now. I’m sure it’s a tumor. My family dr, eye dr and dentist say everything’s fine. But the pain remains.
Last week I was certain I had tongue cancer. Then I remembered that I had eaten a super sized sleeve of sweet tarts the day before, likely irritating my tongue. It’s fine now 🙂
Glad its not just me!
YES! I was a fearful person before having kids (and marrying Corey for that matter) but now, it’s almost retarded. It’s not uncommon for me to hiccup sob myself to sleep at least twice a month at the prospect of death, illness, dismemberment, end of the world…you name it. I’ve joked more than once I should move us all into a padded round room and eat nothing but carrots (because everything else seems to have lysteria these days).
It’s when God slams me in the face. He gave the girls to me, He gave me to them, He is in control now and He’ll still be in control tomorrow. It’s me who’s control is slipping, and there’s nothing greater than a human losing control to an all mighty God!
This is a verse that I have hung onto so tightly!
“For I know the plans I have for you” Declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
It’s because of that and the verse that surround it that I get up each day.