Dear Lynda:

It is very difficult to do but it will help you a whole lot if you go this route: no matter what you feel, no matter how anxious, depressed, and whatnot, focus on your behavior, particularly with your son. Focus on appearing as calm as possible. Focus on your movements, whatever it is you are doing, and do them slowly and deliberately. Don’t rush with anything, whenever possible.

The more you practice this (a term for it is Mindfulness), the more in control you will feel, the more confident you will feel that… no matter how you feel, you are in reasonable control of your behavior.

And of course, more than anything, your son needs a calm mother.

An anxious, depressed mother in a beautiful home with lots of money is damaging to a child. On the other hand, moving a lot, not having much money etc., is not damaging to a child if the mother is calm and supportive, attentive to the child.

Anxiety is a condition that persists through different life circumstances. People think (as I have thought) that if only my life circumstances will change then I will be calm. Didn’t happen. Temporarily, perhaps but the anxiety is there in the brain and you can’t leave it behind when you have your own home and make more money, when you are finally … supposed to be calm. Doesn’t work that way.

And so, practice now mindfully living, from morning to night, be slow, deliberate in your movements, in your talk, in what you say and do, including filling in those forms. I do hope you find a good enough accommodation until July, for now.

anita