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I spent the first 34 years of my life dealing, in some way, with anxiety. As a kid, I didn’t know that I even had it – or that what I was feeling was called “anxiety.” I was always nervous about getting everything done, and doing it well. When homework and extracurricular activities piled up, I went into turbo mode. Even at the young age of twelve.

Over the years I became all too familiar with the heart-racing, manic feeling of needing to stay on top of everything. I learned to channel my anxiety into productiveness. People would witness me in turbo, and would say things like “Calm down, it’ll get done.” Nothing would irk me more than these words, because to me, I couldn’t just “calm down.” And I knew full-well that everything would get done. It would get done because I would make sure it would. I had lists upon lists. I was hyper-organized. And when I did something, there was no room for error in my mind.

And then I had children.

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