Every morning I wake up and still I have to talk myself down out of my anxiety and into getting out of bed. How do you start a day with fear? I fear that I won’t be able to make it through the day the way I want to…without disappointing myself, my son, my husband. I want so much to be the same person. The openhearted, loving, smiling person that I am in my mind. But, my reality is different right now. I can’t seem to keep my heart open each day. Somewhere along the line, no matter how good my intentions are and how much I pray when I feel it starting, I sink back into this black hole of loneliness and despair. Sometimes I can make it all the way until my son is in bed. Some days my progress ends before it begins. When I wake up, I am usually hot with anxiety so I close my eyes tightly and remember what has happened to me, the progress that I have made and remind myself that there is life around me and people who need me. I look at my son and watch him sleep next to my husband. Both of them in their own way have gone back into a life where nothing has changed. Something happened, but nothing has changed. They can just look at the future, and so can I. I see the future too, clearly sometimes and I’m full of hope and joy and I can put the past in its place. But only for a time. And then, it’s hard to explain, but it just comes back up. Fear. Fear of everything. Fear of what I have already gone through. Fear of having that overwhelming loneliness of not having my baby to hold grab me and not let me go. I think it’s basically a fear that I will never completely be the woman that I know… five weeks ago, I could tell you that I loved every single part of my life and I want to be able to say that again. My biggest fear is that I will never be able to say that again.