By Kate Abbott
Last night, my son came home in a foul mood. I tried protein and suggested a hot shower, thinking perhaps he was hungry and exhausted from school and track practice. Nothing worked. I flashed back to a story my boys loved when they were babies, called Felix Feels Better, where the mom tries all sorts of things, from a favorite treat to a romp in the yard, to perk little Felix up. At one point, she tells him, “Don’t be afraid, my little moonbeam.” And, after a brief visit to the doctor, who is a duck, Felix, who appears to be a cross between a cat and a guinea pig, does indeed feel better.
If only it was that simple. My son finally whispered to me that he is feeling irritated with little things. This is the same child who hates going to new places, tells me his hands sweat when he has to talk to strangers. This is something I know. And I can’t tell him not to be afraid. Because I am afraid. For me, and even more, for him.
When I was a child, I worried. About everything. It made me physically ill. This thing that gripped me had no name. It was always there. An ache in the gut, a thread of concern running along the edge of my brain, separating me from the pure joy that I imagine most children experience at some point. The dread that slipped into every day events.
This thing, which is like a piece of green slime that I cannot pull off my soul, would go unacknowledged for nearly half a century. It attached itself to me, made me jumpy and restless and out of sorts. It made me feel like I needed to crawl out of my own skin.
Now I see this thing in my child, adhering itself to him. It makes me want to weep. I could tell him the word for the thing, but I fear that will make it worse. Because discovering the word didn’t make me feel better. And it certainly didn’t make me feel perkier. If only it were as simple as a lemon drop for an overindulgence in spice and a good night’s sleep.
If he learns what the thing is, will he fall prey to its grip? Will I make the thing a foregone conclusion in his life?
That’s not to say that discovering the source of the thing didn’t bring a measure of relief, a belated insight of sorts. But insight doesn’t make the thing go away.
A boyfriend from decades ago once told me that he was going to put Quaaludes in my Wheaties. I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or an insult. He was referring to the whirlwind of activity that follows me around, like the dust from Pig Pen or the trail from the Roadrunner. Sometimes, I could quiet the thing with movement, dance, yoga, running mile upon mile. But it was always there, peeking out from under the exhaustion.
I see the fatigue from the thing in my son. It makes me numb with grief, paralyzed with the commonality of our psyches. The self-doubt is palpable, like a vibe from an old lover. The self-motivation, while admirable, that sets unattainable goals for us.
It’s the push to do one more activity, one more thing, in this treadmill of an existence. Only to bump up against the certainty that what we do is never enough, never perfect enough. It’s the snare that holds back simple pleasure.
Surely, everyone but me knew what the thing was, must have known in all along. After all, I’d been trying to handle it, doing the recommended exercise and journaling and meditating. But I still had trouble sleeping. And I was always so edgy.
My son has trouble sleeping. I try lying next to him and telling him stories from when he was little. Maybe if I whisper, “Don’t be afraid, my little moonbeam,” as he falls asleep, it will protect him, shield him from this thing that his mother, who loves him beyond measure, has somehow infected him with. Maybe it’s in our shared genes or maybe he learned by watching.
What I’ve only recently begun to grasp is this thing is what makes us surly, irritable, jumpy. It makes the tone of our voices discordant. It makes us flinch. And, it seems I was the last to accept, that this thing, a vile beast really, is anxiety.
Clinically, anxiety is flight or fight response on overdrive. It’s constant butterflies in the stomach, a hum like the sound of the tuning fork when the pediatrician held it up to your ear. It’s that prickling sensation that sometimes warns of actual danger but mostly becomes a persistent flinching of the nerve endings.
It doesn’t seem to be a fixable thing, at least not in a permanent fashion. The thing is held at bay at best, crippling at worst. Most of the time, it’s just sitting on your shoulder.
Though I have yet to name the thing to my son, I know he knows what it is. He’s smart, after all, and introspective. I know that I need to be explicit, to give voice to the thing, not to have a reason or an explanation for what the thing can do, but to assure him that the thing doesn’t define him, that there are ways to manage the thing, wrestle it down. And that the presence of the thing does not mean that there is something wrong with him, or wrong with the world. I wish I could believe the same of myself. I have to believe it. He needs me to show him how.
“Don’t be afraid, my little moonbeam.”
This post was originally published on The Good Mother Project.
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About the Author
I am a mother, runner, yoga instructor and recovering attorney who delights in writing from the dark and bright sides of the heart. I have written two novels: Running Through the Wormhole (Black Rose Writing 2015) and Asana of Malevolence (Mascot Books 2016). My writing has appeared in Mamalode, Screamin Mamas (where I also blog as Kate From the Heart Abbott), Sammiches and Psych Meds,The Good Mother Project, Manifest Station and Kudzu House.