How can I go back to being "normal"?
Spartan,
I totally get where you are coming from. Every new life experience/change fills me with dread. I can barely see the positive. I do think that some things you might do are:
1) Try only allowing yourself to "worry" at a certain time each day. So each time one of those thoughts pops into your head (the scary ones), tell yourself "I get to worry about this at 5:30" or whatever time works for you. Then, do set aside time each day to let yourself worry - like 30 min if you can. What I found when I tried this was that the worries had mostly disappeared by that time.
2) Talk to a counselor. Find someone you are comfortable with, and just spill out all the badness to them. My husband never really understands this, because he doesn't have the negative filter.
3) Accept yourself. You are who you are. You are also at a certain point in your life, and you may change and go back to "normal" or become some kind of new normal. This is a stage, and it will pass.
4) Make a list of all the worries - everything that could be bad. Then go through and counter each of those things with how you could handle it, how it might be good. This is very hard because you won't believe it. But it does help you feel like you have some sort of a plan.
I had a very panicky time when I got pregnant with my 2nd child. I was terrified of having a 2nd kid. I knew I wanted one someday, but not when it wasn't on my timeline. Every day for the first part of my pregnancy I sobbed, worrying about EVERYTHING. How would I parent this child and my first? How would my first child deal with it? Would my first child even be a baby anymore? Blahblahblah. It all seems very surreal to me now, because it's over. Someday this stress will be over for you too. You'll make it through, and you might even have a good time. I can't imagine my life without my 2nd baby now - I was crazy to worry like I did. But you know how that is...
