Anxiety & Managing My Family

I am a mother of three very well rounded, active, and successful children. They are now 25, 22, & 19. Two beautiful girls and a handsome son. Getting my children to where they are now took work! A lot of hard work and at times I felt like I was working alone and going to be a failure to my children. Three of them, and one of me. Through the journey of raising my children I was married twice (word porn), which I will cover in another post. I can honestly say the majority of the heavy lifting was up to me. Three children, three different schools, multiple activities, cooking, cleaning, bathing, and let me not forget about the dreaded homework and chores. Oh one more thing, I worked 40+ hours aweek making barely enough money to survive. A common story, right? Not so much.

My life was my children. I wanted to be the best mother I could but I began to crack under pressure and started to physically feel bad, out of control. When I felt unorganized or overwhelmed I began to experience moments of rapid breathing and chest pains. I would experience a heaviness in my chest. The first time this happened I thought I was going to die! After multiple episodes of this new phenomena I was experiencing I decided to visit my nurse practitioner  and was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and panic attacks and placed on medication to help manage the symptoms. Taking medication to manage the symptoms was one thing, but trying to stop the anxiety and panic attacks from happen in the first place was the challenge.

After months of frustration I discovered something that made a difference in the severity and frequency of my anxiety and panic attacks. Organization and planning. I discovered that as long as I had a solid plan and my daily routine was established, I could limit the anxiety and panic attacks. I always kept a planner by my side or a note book to write down all of the tasks that needed to be completed and when the task needed to be completed. I never left the house without the planner. The planner became my life line. I checked the children’s school activities, noted doctors appointments, who was taking which child where, and tons of other useful items in the planner. The planner was and still is my Holy Grail even now that my children are grown.

Now, we have our tablets and smart phones. Use your tools! Mom’s create a family calendar. Give access to the calendar to your spouse and your children. Teach your children how to add activities to the calendar and hold them responsible for putting their events on the family calendar. Once my children were old enough to have a mobile device they were responsible for adding their events such as wrestling matches, practices, and cheerleading competitions to the calendar. If they failed to add their events they ran the risk of not having transportation, or attending their event. This helps the children learn responsibility and it will help you reduce anxiety and panic by being organized and aware. If technology is not your thing, use a paper planner! Place the planner in a neutral location in your house where everyone will have access to write down their activities.

This is just one example of things you can do to organize your life and reduce anxiety and panic. I will share more tips in post to come on this very important topic!