Eva Lind : Anxiety #%"#"%

I never had anxiety in my life until about a year and a half ago. Those who know me can probably understand what caused this anxiety.
After my first panic attack I decided to see a psychiatrist and he prescribed a magic pill which helped a lot. It removed those 5 elephants sitting on my chest and the dagger stuck in my back (that's how I felt on my worst days).
When I got pregnant last year I had to stop taking this magic pill and things were OK for a while.

Until Eva Lind was born and holding this little precious life in my hands I started seeing danger in every corner!

Seriously... every corner \(O.O)/

It wasn't a constant feeling, but out of the blue it'd hit me. I'd be walking around with her in our living room for example and get close to the window (we live on the 8th floor). All of a sudden I'd get the feeling that we could somehow fall out the window or somehow she'd slip out of my arms and fall.

Michael did obviously NOT suffer from anxiety!

Some days are worse than others and I'll admit that after getting robbed around 2 moths after having her did NOT help. I was THANK GOD alone with our doggie, Penny, who didn't even growl at the punk - that's how quickly this happened. I was almost coming home from a walk at the beach in the afternoon and I'd seen this suspicious guy on a bike staring at this woman trying to cross the street really close by. She was wearing a fancy bag and I knew he wanted to snitch it. He passed by me and I felt relieved but a second later I felt someone tapping me on my shoulder. As I looked back he had a huge steel kitchen knife in my face and told me to hand him what I was holding, which wasn't even anything as fancy as the bag that woman was carrying! I was holding a tiny blue plastic bag (that's my strategy btw to NOT get robbed - not carry anything fancy hrmpf). Inside the bag there was Penny's brush and a little coconut wallet with my credit card, my CPF card (social security - it will be a nightmare getting a new one) and some money (50 reais). All I could think at the moment was "I hope he doesn't get pissed at me for having so little to give and decides to stab me!" You see, they do kill people here for having old cell phones and they do tell people to take off their shoes and clothes if they don't have anything else to "offer". I ran home looking angrily at the empty streets thinking where in the hell the cops were.
So getting robbed did NOT help my anxiety.
It took me almost 2 months to feel safe walking with her again even with Penny and Filipe with us. Sucks :(

The fear of dropping her still pops up now and again but thankfully it's getting better! (anyone else had this awful feeling??)

I see danger everywhere and I know that this is somewhat "normal" for a first time parent and that, yes, she will fall one day and there will be blood and she will cry and that no, it won´t be the end of the world. (hopefully!)

But the thought of seeing my little one bleeding is not something I'm looking forward to! It is of course inevitable, although I'll do my best to make sure she doesn't get into too much of a trouble! The fact that she´s in such a hurry to do things (already sitting and standing) tells me we are in for some action!

My anxiety comes from my life changing so drastically in a blink of an eye. Which it did when I lost Davi. It made me see how unpredictable life is and yes, sometimes extremely cruel, and you never know what tomorrow (or even today) will bring. You know how people say "Don't worry, nothing bad will happen"? Well, I just can't say that anymore and really mean it.. Unfortunately.

So when I finally had Eva Lind in my arms, this beautiful and fragile little baby, I just felt so helpless. And I´ll admit that I am still a bit overprotective (just ask poor Filipe).

Luckily I'm very much aware of my condition and I am seeing a psychologist to help me deal with this. I know Eva Lind can pick up on my mood and feelings so I try my best to keep calm and focused and not let her feel this anxiety.

Today I got an email from Parents Daily talking about "Separation Anxiety" and of course I thought they were giving us mothers advice on how to cope with leaving our baby at home with someone else. Nobb.. The article is about how to calm the baby (the REAL baby haha) down during this separation!

I hope you don't think I´m a lost case here after reading this post or that I spend my days biting my fingernails and avoiding the outside world. I promise you that we spend most our days playing and laughing and having fun and we really enjoy going for walks, singing music, listening to pabbi play the guitar and dancing.