I hate you anxiety. You sneak up on me so quietly I never see you coming and with what seems like no warning at all, I find myself plummeting into a spiral of irritability and dispair. I know we co-exist – but you are not a part of me. I hate the way you inflitrate my thoughts and make me believe your worries and irrational fears are my own. The rage I feel towards you when you cause my heart to race, my skin to prinkle with adrenaline, or my hands to grow moist with sweat can barely be contained. I don\'t want to spend my mornings fearing the neighbors who walk their dog in front of my house. I don\'t want to obsess about what they may be thinking or saying to each other about my landscaping or the weeds that have sprung up in the cracks in my driveway. I don\'t want to feel like everyone\'s eyes are on me when I am grocery shopping – judging each item I place inside my basket. Noticing that my coat is beginning to show it\'s age, or that i didn\'t have a chance to put my make up on.

I want to be a happy wife and a good mother. How DARE you infiltrate my relationship with my husband. I hate you for causing me to feel inhibited when we are making love. I hate you for the saddness I see on my husband\'s face when he asks me how I could possible not feel safe and comfortable when we are alone together. But most of all I hate you for the way you affect my children. They deserve a mother who is calm, nurturing, reassuring, supportive and understanging. They do not deserve a mother who becomes frazzeled on a regular basis or one who is quick to send them to their rooms in order to prevent her own social embarrasment.

I may not have the power to remove you from my life – but I swear to you I am going to fight you every single day and I am going to steadily build a wall between you and the thoughts that are truely mine. I will not allow you to influence my behavoir in a way that will teach my young children to be debilitated by the fear of being judged by others.

Today you may have won, but tomorrow it\'s my turn.