To The Mom Burdened By Anxiety

When anxiety becomes a part of your story, it changes everything.

You watch the person you once knew yourself to be, completely change. You can feel like a stranger in your own body and often find yourself having no understanding why situations that used to be okay, just aren’t anymore. It’s hard. It’s hard to feel like who you’ve been your entire life is no longer existent. It’s hard to embrace this new version of yourself. Everything just feels debilitating. Then, there is motherhood. In the midst of losing yourself and experiencing a complete identity crisis, you still have to be a mom. You can’t help but feel like anxiety makes you a bad mom. You can’t help but feel like a mom burdened by anxiety.

You see, we put this pressure on ourselves.

We hold being a mom up to the highest standard of perfection. We look at moms as having it all together, we expect ourselves to have all the answers. We leave little room for life to throw what it has at us and still be successful in this mom gig. We put this unnecessary standard on our lives that we have to handle everything handed to us with such grace or we can’t be a good mom. But what if we looked at ourselves just like any other person? What if we allowed ourselves to feel, to have a bad day, to cry, and to admit when life is a little hard? What if we released the pressure on ourselves to be everything and just allow us to be? What if anxiety didn’t define our lives? What if anxiety was part of our story, but not our story?

Anxiety doesn’t get to define you as a mom.

Anxiety is a part of your story, but it isn’t the end of your story. There may be days that you cry more than you laugh. There may be days that your kids see you cry. There may be days that you have to turn down an outing because you just can’t handle it. There may be days that your kids see you at your lowest. There may be days that you just can’t figure out how to keep the two world’s separate and life might look a little messy. But anxiety can never define your value as a mom.

You are a good mom.

You’re a good mom, because you love your kids. You’re a good mom, because you’re trying. You’re a good mom, because you get back up and do what you do every day because even when it’s exhausting, you wouldn’t trade it for anything in this world. You’re a good mom because even when life has dealt you a hard season, you love your kids right through it.

I know you’re a mom burdened by anxiety.

I know you’re exhausted and I know it feels like your life won’t ever be the same. It feels like this weight that you’re carrying around forever. I know it feels like you’re losing strength to just keep mothering through it all. I know it feels like you’re already failing your kids, but let me tell you this, anxiety isn’t your story. Anxiety isn’t who you are. You are more than your anxiety. Your motherhood isn’t defined by your anxiety. You don’t have to be a mom burdened by anxiety. And even when it hurts to mother through it all, you are a good mom.

Let me tell you something else sweet friend, He sees you.

I know it hurts. I know it hurts to look in the mirror and see someone staring back at you that you no longer know. I know it hurts to not measure up to the mom you dreamed you would be. When you’re looking at your life before you and seeing where you’ve fallen apart, He’s never left you. God sees you, my friend. Your story, He wrote it, and it isn’t finished. Just hang on, anxiety doesn’t make you a bad mom. There is hope. There is freedom. There is more.