My brain is in chaos today. There is no reason that I can understand. I cannot figure out what I should be doing. Writing this is a chore, I have to contemplate each word whereas normally words flow from my fingers faster than my brain. Not today, today my fingers are prying away at the shell that is anxiety that has my brain in a choke hold. I keep opening a browser and closing it, opening and closing. I finally decided that maybe I should open a word document and try to spell this out on paper—since this my friends, this is what anxiety looks like when it affects your work.  As I write my brain is becoming more and more coherent and words are flowing easier. I will not edit this document as I believe it to be evidence of the chaos that is anxiety. Sentences start short, that is all I am able to put out before my mind decides to think about something else.

Why today? There are quite a few things that remain open ended in my life. Job prospects, meetings, interviews. Yesterday my body was sick. I felt dizzy, my head hurt, I was shaking. Today my mind is in a frenzy. I’m angry, sad, anxious, and fearful—but I cannot pinpoint why. Irritability. My foe. Irritability changes my sparkly personality into one that I am not proud of. I took my medication—that I am sure of. This just goes to show that even medicated anxiety has a way of creeping up on you at the most inopportune moments of life. Maybe I’m subconsciously dreading all of the news that I am expecting.

So I’ve returned from a meeting that was obviously the cause of this morning’s anxiety.  What can I say, I am a momma bear and anything concerning my children gets me all worked up. I coached myself all the way there, “I am an advocate for my daughter, I am an advocate for my daughter” See I have to do things like this because I have an adaptable personality, this means that often times if I’m in a room full of people that behave or believe one way my mind adjusts and temporarily agrees. This is only true in situations that I am unsure of.  Needless to say I was delighted to walk into a room full of people that were on my daughter’s side and it was a breath of fresh air. My legs started shaking a little less until eventually they weren’t shaking at all. My fingers no longer traced the lip of my coffee cup, my mind no longer feared the environment. It was at ease. The meeting itself was very insightful, the social worker attended this time and we went over some tests that they did. The test showed textbook symptoms of not ADHD as I had suspected, but anxiety.

Duh. How could I, a person who lives to share about my own struggles with anxiety miss the signs? Her anxiety doesn’t present like mine but the symptoms and results are the same. Inability to focus, difficulty starting things, looking like a deer in the headlights when called on unexpectedly, and lack of friends due to the fear that they won’t like her. Most people would say that my relief is odd, but those people wouldn’t understand the feeling of knowing something is wrong in your child and not being able to pinpoint what it is.