Anxiety is a broad spectrum diagnosis. Everyone deals with anxiety differently. My anxiety presents as obsessive organizational tendencies. I don't know if that's a thing but it's going to be for this post.
When I start feeling overwhelmed I become hyper-orderly and as a byproduct, I begin ordering around my little mentions to become more orderly. Don't get me wrong, organization, simplicity, and minimalism have been Proven to lower levels of depression and anxiety. My problem is, when our life is already orderly, mostly simple, and minimal I still seek for ways to make it more so.
Friends, family, well-meaning-strangers-who-want-throat-punched would simply tell me, "just let it go". Sure sure. This seems like a reasonable response to the crazy woman yelling about the water bottles left on the floor and the craft supplies that should be clearly put away by this time of night so that the robo-vac doesn't eat everything but it's just not that easy.
My heart races, I play out all the possibilities, and I've even tried to "just let it go" but then my "irrational fears" became very rational when those possibilities actually played out.
Let the kids leave their mess, just for tonight. --> toys broken, pieces lost, money wasted, tears cried, robot jammed.
Leave those dishes, they'll be there tomorrow tired mamma. --> Glued on food taking twice as long to clean, ants and roaches are now BFFs and enjoying our leftovers in a sink full of filth.
Stop yelling at them, they'll get in the bed/go to sleep eventually. --> Overtired baby screaming For E Ver, children making a habit of going to bed later and later because no one is going to Make them go on time, children won't get out of bed in the morning because they're so tired, everyone's grouchy, we are all late for all the things.
Can I get an Amen!?
Being the OOT mom aint pretty but I am not sure how to not loose my cool, get to be the fun parents occasionally, and still get the things done. Any other OOT people out there?
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