One of the things I struggled a lot with during marriage was anxiety. It was a feeling I hated because prior to marriage, I had never dealt with it. It was a word I had no ties to. I had nothing against it, no judgment, just no personal dealings. In my late 20’s, I was once told that I was intense in an easygoing way. This was a perfect description of me. I was passionate about a lot of things, went after them, and had an easy-breezy way about myself in the process. I had high expectations but understood that life happened and that the road would be…well, a road: with turns, potholes, and the occasional freshly paved stretch.

When my marriage began, the anxiety came. That easygoing part of me went into hiding and out came Anxious Abby. And Abby didn’t come out to play. She needed everything to turn out well – the road couldn’t be a regular road – it needed to be pristine. Abby perpetually exhausted me because with a temperamental husband, pregnancies, newborn kids, and then 2 kids in tow in a foreign country, there was a lot to manage. For years I thought that easygoing part of me died – that she was a part of a bygone era. And it grieved me because this anxiety felt so foreign to me. I didn’t know who I was.

Recently, however, I noticed I haven’t been anxious in a while. In fact, some of that easy-breezy way about me has been returning. Last minute errands, car issues, health things, are taken in stride. My gait has slowed. My heart is filling. I’m feeling…familiar. I’m feeling like myself – the one I thought I had lost – the one I thought had died.

And that’s when it hit me. I’m NOT an anxious person – I was just unsafe.

I was unsafe.

I lived with a man who would punish me when things did not go his way. A man who would overreact at the potholes of life, judge the people with broken down cars on the side, need to take things out on me through blame, rage, or dismissal. I was responsible for the imperfections of his life and also the inconveniences my life imposed on him. If I veered off his pre-set schedule for something last minute, it was my fault for being such a disorganized, unreliable person that I didn’t plan ahead. If only I could be more like him who was on top of everything. And the kicker he loved to say: I really am not taking motherhood seriously.

Who wouldn’t be distressed by that? My anxiety was my body’s signal saying: “YOU’RE NOT SAFE”. And instead of seeing that I needed to get the distresser out of my metaphorical car, I kept trying to fix the damn road.

I wasn’t anxious. I was unsafe.

And now I’m free. I’m safe. I am more at ease than I ever have been in 10 years.