Anxiety

Over the past year, it has become clear that my middle son, C., is carrying around a family heirloom of sorts: anxiety. Anxiety runs on both sides of the family and is something that both Husband and I have faced, to varying degrees and frequency, in our lives, so this is not surprising at all, really.

It just kind of breaks my heart.

I have written before about how we have worried about C. He is a dear, sweet, tenderhearted child. He is the one who wants to please us, mediate, make people okay. His letter to Santa this year listed the toys he wanted Santa to bring his big brother, with just an afterthought mention of what he wanted for himself, and it was signed, "Your little friend, C." My heart nearly exploded out of my chest with a mixture of pride, love, and an aching, searing jolt of pain at his vulnerability.

In so many ways, he is the child I worry about the most. He is the closet introvert who hides his social anxiety with jokes and class clownery. He is the artist who thinks his drawing stinks, the 100-pound second grader who wears a size 10-12 in boys' clothes and still needs a Pull-Up at night. He is the one who treasures little things like baking cookies with me and absolutely must be read to every single night or he cannot fall asleep.

And he is the one with the anxiety.

At the beginning of the school year, C.'s well-intentioned teacher crowded us both a little with her concern for C., who did not seem to be engaged in class and outright admitted he didn't enjoy school. She was convinced he was depressed. Not depressed, I tried to explain to her. Anxious. She did not seem to understand, listing his class clown status and his outgoing nature and how smart he is. Yes, he is smart, I confirmed, and yes, he is outgoing, but it is a mask to hide his social anxiety in a class where he knew only one child at the beginning of the school year. He just needed time to settle in, I explained.

After some rough starts, he did, and he is doing better. But he still struggles. He blows up at me if I ask him to do something he should have done already. He gets nervous if he thinks we will be late to a practice or a game. He dwells and works himself up before he starts something new -- a team or a class -- in which he might not know anyone or have an anchor.

I know a little about anxiety, but I know more about how it has affected people in my family. I have a gut feeling that my little guy is going to be dealing with anxiety his whole life. Unlike his cocky, self-assured brothers, he doubts. He worries. He isn't sure. And I can't fix it. I can get him help -- we plan on eventually starting him with someone to receive some cognitive behavioral therapy to learn better coping mechanisms, and we are trying to find ways to support him otherwise. But my feeling is, this is part of who he is, and it might always be part of who he is.

More than anything, I want to tell him all the reasons he should be just as cocky as his brothers. He's tall. He's smart. He works hard. He loves. He's a fabulous little artist. He has an amazing imagination. People like him. He's a playground leader and he uses his powers for good. He brings people together and builds other people up. He's such a good little guy. He's going to be such a wonderful big guy someday. He deserves to believe and know how wonderful he really is. And I just wish I could fix that. I wish that was in my toolbox of Mommy Powers. But it's not, really. I can do my best, and I can tell him and show him and support him and love him and give him everything I've got. But it's no guarantee of anything.

And that makes me anxious.