When my infant daughter cries I can’t help but tense up and cringe today. Most days I’m able to push through without missing a beat, but days like today just fill me with anxiety and anger. Leaving me feeling defeated and unworthy of my role as a mother.

My days are so routine anymore and I’m slowly reverting back to an anxious state I’d thought I left in the past. I sit, constantly checking my phone for the time. Helplessly waiting for it to be time to retrieve my oldest from the bus stop, or the time I know my husband should be returning home from work. The clock is my lifeline…reminding me if I can wait just wait a little bit longer I’ll get the reprieve I’m in need of.

You may wonder “why don’t you just go do something?” And my answer would likely be “I wish I could.”

When you suffer from anxiety it effects you in some of the silliest of ways. You yearn to be out and about with others, yet when given the chance you cower and hide within your own personal prison. You long to be wanted and physically touched by the one you love most only to recoil in disgust when they actually do. You wish for one thing, then react in the complete opposite way you should when getting what you’ve asked for. You can’t help but feel crazy, useless, and broken.

Today is just one of those days for me. Tomorrow likely won’t go like this. Or the day after that. I’m re-learning my triggers, and figuring out each ones coping method is proving to be a challenge.

They say slow and steady always wins the race, but what happens when that race is being run on the quicksands of anxiety?

It becomes a race for your life.