Anxiety After Trauma
By: Ashleigh Underwood
I heard the first cough through the baby monitor as I was going to bed. I had my book in my hands, ready to get lost in fiction for a little bit. I couldn’t open my book, not yet. My eyes were on the baby monitor, waiting to see if the cough continued. It was quiet for a few seconds. Those seconds turned into a minute and I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. The screen of the monitor went black, meaning no sounds or movement was detected. I opened my book, starting my own bedtime routine. The entire night though, I had one ear trained on that baby monitor just in case another cough came through.
It’s a cycle I’m familiar with. My son coughs. I see retractions (which is where you use too many muscles to breathe. It looks like when you’re trying to suck it in as much as you can, except it’s your normal breathing and you’re not trying to suck anything in). Then, we go to the ER. Retractions are a sign of distressed breathing. We get admitted. After being admitted, there was a multitude of scenarios that would play out and each visit was different in terms of how long we spent in the hospital. I know which doctors have seen my son in the ER. I know which nurses have tried to get IVs into my son’s arm. I know which nurses have successfully gotten the IV in (it’s hard so that list is smaller than the other one). I know the doctors on the pediatric floor. I know and understand the differences between the regular peds floor and the peds ICU. I also know how to get around the maze that is the hospital and my general landmark is the Subway. As long as I can find the subway, I can figure out how to get anywhere else.
I had a go bag. I had a bag that would get me through the ER deal and being admitted until someone could bring me the bigger bag with more clothes and my shower kit. There was even a formula for the hospital bag that I didn’t even need to tell my husband what to grab for it. He already knew.
By the time I woke up the next morning, I was already planning how to stop the day and get to the hospital if my son started having retractions at school. I was hopeful though, he hadn’t coughed more the rest of the night.
By the end of the day, my son couldn’t stop coughing and I saw those retractions that make my anxiety shoot straight to the sky. I started a breathing treatment as I dialed the number for the pulmonologist. While I was physically doing that, my mind was already planning out my go-bag. It had been a while since the last hospitalization so I had put my go-bag and supplies away in their proper place. I was coming up with plans for what to do with my oldest son. I was through four different options based on who may or may not be home and available by the time I got to talk to somebody.
My anxiety was in control. My dependency on what I was used to, what I was familiar with was in control. The fact that I thought I knew all the next steps was ruling out the knowledge to run to God. The past was in control over what was happening in front of me. Before I had even been told what my next steps were, my head was already in the hospital, my son attached to machines and me trying to figure out life from a hospital room.
This is my anxiety after everything I had been through with my son. Most of you reading this probably wouldn’t blame me for my reaction. There is comfort in knowing what happened in the past and the fact that you’ve survived it once, you can do it again.
“When I stopped looking ahead and trusting in what I knew from the past and started looking up and trusting God, all the fears started to slip away.”
That’s relying on your own strength, though. The Bible doesn’t tell us to rely on our own strength. Paul writes in Philippians I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Paul didn’t get the strength to be persecuted and to spread the gospel through himself. In fact, in Paul’s human nature, he was the one who was persecuting Christians. It was Jesus who transformed him. It was God who gave him the strength to keep going.
That night ended with strict instructions regarding my son’s steroid and breathing treatments. A few days later, my son would be doing well, and it would end up being the first time he wasn’t hospitalized for a cough.
When I stopped looking ahead and trusting in what I knew from the past and started looking up and trusting God, all the fears started to slip away. It took some work to remind myself where to look. But it was worth it to let go of what I knew. All that stress about what I thought the path was going to be didn’t help. In fact, it made the anxiety worse. Once I focused on what was right in front of me, the situation was easier to handle.
Meet the Author
Ashleigh is a loud girl living in a bright city. She was born and raised in Las Vegas, which she still calls home. She is the wife of a strong, quiet man and momma to two boys full of energy. She gets to share her love of sports with all of them. Ashleigh writes whatever is on her heart but hopes she shares God’s unfailing love as she has experienced it through her own story. She loves sharing her writing with other women who want to dig deeper into God’s word and can relate to trials and hardships while trying to figure out life day by day. Ashleigh is a member of COMPEL Training (Proverbs 31) and has self-published three books, And Jesus, Chasing Normal, and The Hunt for Christmas. She also runs a blog called Letting Go. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. You can follow Ashleigh on Instagram or her website.
