Anxiety Battles at Night: How do you get through them?

Do you have nights where maybe certain thoughts keep you from falling asleep? Or worse.. where your already sleeping and a stupid, creepish thought is so haunting it wakes you?

I get them a lot, both kinds.. some from years ago of choices I made that will slither their way back into my brain just because they can. And some from choices of others that have done or said things to me where I cannot change the outcome or result.

Yesterday, I took my daughter to the chiropractor to help her with the curve in her spine and relevel her hips. It was a great experience, she loved it, did great with it, and finally had a bit of relief. The hiccup came when we were checking out.. my son was with me, he is 7. Our chiropractor is a friend of ours, she knows my husband & his family, she does not know that my husband created another child with another woman during our marriage… until my 7 year old brought it up!

The office staff, and both chiropractors were chatting with us, so super lovely it was a decent sized audience.. they brought up the fact that my son is a spitting image of my husband (which he is) and my daughter is a spitting image of me (which she is).. and I always joke that they both act like my husband (because they do lol).. someone said “so you have three kids basically” and I said 100% … to which my son intergects “yeah me, E, and my brother!” I bring up— no I’m talking about your dad… (trying to redirect his thinking but it fails miserably.. because he says it again very clearly explaining that he is talking about his brother from the other lady…

Whole office was a bit taken back, one chiropractor left the room on that awkward note (and he even said that lol). The other mentioned that it sounds like that’s a whole different story for a different day.. I laughed, tried hiding a bit of my embarrassment, and scooted the kids out of there.

That situation haunted me last night, I don’t blame my son, he only knows that he has a brother that he just met and is excited for it. My daughter understood a lot more of what was going on, but she’s still young and ultra shy where she also felt my wave of dread.

The haunt of it came from the fact that this is now my life.. my son has zero filter, and will say it when the topic comes up. What do I do? Tell him he can’t say anything about his brother? Embrace it? And then how? Be excited when it gets brought up? Or just grin & bear it? Breathe through it is all I could do in the moment, and then as it settled in my brain, body, & soul, it just made it even clearer that more moments like this will happen.

On top of all of that, Christmas is coming up, and our big goofy “family” chat with the mother (mistress), her fiance, the ex-husband (who thought he was the dad), & his girlfriend.. started up with when we can get the kids together again for another play date. The kids love it, and I will never stand in the way of my husband knowing his other son, but the mom… I have a harder time with obviously.

That plan is still unfolding, I’m still shuffling the pieces in my head. I have accepted it, but navigating this sometimes is a hard. I hold on to this Cross I got on Amazon, I keep it in my pocket practically 24/7. In the worst of nights I hold on to it while I try to sleep.

What do you do to navigate your obstacle?