Would you class this as anxiety? Bit scared.

[Northernlurker]

I just want to write this all out and maybe get some feedback on how it sounds to other people.
I've just read an obituary in the paper and it reduced mt to a crying mess. It was for a filmaker called Polly Renton who died in Kenya in a car accident with her 4 year old daughter. Obviously this is a terrible tragedy for her family, her one year old son survived the crash. The thing that bothers me about my reaction is what I thought when I saw the photo that was published with it. Really nice picture of her and the little girl and i thought' Oh no there's another mum had to leave her children'
In the last year a woman down the road from us has died leaving four children, a mum at school died leaving two, I lost a good friend to cancer after a prolonged fight, her two children are grown up but her grandchildren are young, my cousin's wife is struggling with metastatic cancer (they have two young children) and another friend with four kids was diagnosed with breast cancer for which she has had extensive treatment.
I think I'm a bit scared. Can somebody say something to reassure me please? (Apart from stop reading the obituarys) I'm normally a very optimistic person and I know that it is normal to react to circumstances and process things and I'm not a gibbering wreck or anything - just need a bit of a hand please.

Well, I think I can reassure you that it's normal to feel anxious around a specific thing when you've had such a lot of horrible encounters with that thing. What are you scared about? Are you worried that this might become more of a problem for you? It probably won't

Thanks. I think I'm scared of being scared and I''m scared of leaving my babies. I think that's always there a little bit isn't it - it just seems to have got a bit bigger recently.

There is a lot of tragedy in this world The only thing you can do is change how you respond to it.

I heard a really inspirational story on Radio 4 the other day from a young woman in her early twenties. She had lost her father when she was quite little to an awful car accident and then within the same year her mother also died due to cancer.

She had been raised by her grandparents. Rather than being bitter and angry she gave a wonderful moving story of how this experience had formed her into who she is today, how she had realised how precious life is, how much she valued her grandparents.

Before she died of the cancer, her mother had taken the time to write a birthday card to her for every year up until she was 21. In each card was a special message for her, relevant to that age. She said it was so wonderful to "hear from" her mother at every life stage as she was growing up. It was such a wonderful, thoughtful thing for her mother to have done.

I suppose we cannot avoid what life throws at us, but we have to respond in the right way. It's hard not to be scared of these things, but I believe that if you face tragedy, you will be given the strength to deal with it, day by day, and you may find you are changed as a person through that experience.

It sounds like a lot has happened around you that has hit home to you how vulnerable you are as the mother of young children and how much you need ot be around for that. Your reaction seems normal to me.

Last year a friend took me up the church tower as I wanted to see the view, dh came too and we left baby ds downstairs with a friend. we had to scramble up some dodgy wooden ladders round the bell tower and I would have normally relished it but I almost panicked at the thought of that little man downstairs and what if we fall down now.

I wouldn't be worried about getting and being scared unless you find yourself avoiding situations and not doing things you want to do.