I spent last night at home alone with the kids. My in-laws were out of town for some personal reasons and my husband left yesterday afternoon to go out of town for the week for work. While basically having the house to myself yesterday during the day was heaven, at night....not so much.
I have a terribly irrational fear of being alone home with the kids at night. Even more specifically, I am scared of being asleep alone with the kids at night. When there are no adults in the house, my mind starts to race with all of the different scenarios that could happen. Someone breaking into the house. Someone breaking into the house with a gun. Someone breaking through the girls' window and snatching them while I sleep. Someone breaking in and hurting the girls. Someone breaking in and hurting me and then taking the girls. And the list goes on and on and on.
I stayed up watching TV until midnight. Before laying down, I locked both doors, knobs and deadbolts and I checked all the windows to make sure they were locked. I finally laid down and stayed up reading a while longer. When I put the book down and turned the light off, my chest got tight and my heart began to race. I don't know how long I laid there debating as to whether I should go and get Daphnie and bring her to sleep in my room (Aubrey was already there). I again agonized over the fact that despite the numerous times we'd talked about it, Chaz hadn't shown me how to use the small revolver that stays within close reach in our bedroom--though out of reach of the girls. I prayed, and then prayed some more. I tried deep breathing. I tried visualizing. In the end, it took reciting lines from The Lion King (which I can recite, line for line, from beginning to end from memory) until the point of exhaustion for me to finally fall asleep.
I'm not sure what to do about this. We live in a fairly safe neighborhood. While the cops might get called occasionally for the random domestic dispute, I don't know that I've ever heard of a break-in in the four years I've lived here. My next door neighbor knows pretty much everybody on the street and is kind of known as the unofficial law enforcement. It's not like I'm living in Chicago or New York or Los Angelos--bad things don't happen regularly here. There's not a nightly news story about a shooting on Goulding Street. But when I'm home by myself, all I see are those non-existent headlines.
I know that I'm fairly safe in my home. I have locked doors. I have a firearm. I have a long history with martial arts training. Most importantly, I know that God is watching over me and the girls. But knowing all of that doesn't stop the anxiety from hitting hardcore whenever I'm alone at night with my girls. I am terrified that something will happen to them. It's not even about me. I am so scared that I will sleep through something happening to them--which is ridiculous, because I'm a light sleeper anyway, even before the crazy maternal instinct kicks on. But there it is.
I really don't know what to do about this. I don't know if it might be considered some sort of phobia. I don't know if talking to someone about it would help, or what I could do to feel better prepared for nights like this. Part of me feels like I should just try really hard to make sure I don't end up by myself. Beyond that, all I know is it scares me, and I don't like being scared. Having a history of panic attacks, the anxiety is a trigger and the last thing I need to do is have an attack in front of the girls with no one there to bring me down.
I'm not scared by a lot of things. Ok, spiders yes, but I'd put that in a whole different category. I don't fear for my life or the life of my girls in the presence of a spider. I just jump, squeal and then kill it if I can. But this, this I'm scared of and it's beyond rational and it's not okay.
I just don't know what to do about it....
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