Anxious in August
Why I'm 5 layers deep with worry this month
It’s the first of August, and as expected, I have an anxious knot in the pit of my stomach as we are officially in the month when we must attempt preschool again. It’s a knot that’s always there, to be honest - ever since I became a parent - as I go through life with my gorgeous boy, trying to show him and reassure him that he is safe. That he can stand a few feet away from me and be safe. That I can run into the next room to grab something and come back and still, he will be safe. Before I had him, I would have considered all babies to be like a blank canvas; they come into the world neutral and trusting, and as life unfolds, they learn there are certain things to fear. It’s no bad thing. With my son, however, it feels like he’s come into the world with his threat response set way too high - he sees fear in almost everything - and it’s my job to help him turn down the dial.
Another thing I’ve learned, though, is that just because you overcome something - a fear of the bath, for example - doesn’t mean that it’s boxed off now, never to be revisited. Sensitivity peaks and troughs can take the tiniest malfunction to bring a fear back to life. So while we came so far with his reluctance to go on anything in a playground, for example - climbing things and being adventurous at his own pace - his newfound fear of dogs seemed to knock us right off the progress ladder. The playground went back to being somewhere he associated with feeling afraid. I try to take the wins when they come, and I’m always beaming with pride when it feels like we’ve turned a corner, but we can - and so often do - seem to wind up feeling back at square one.