Tackle tough problems

One of the anxiety that survivors seem to struggle with is worry.  What if......?  My sister and I often talk about this. On one of our walks I was discussing a meme on Facebook about how most of the things that we worry about never happen.  But our situation was, "What if IT happens again?"  We already been through tough crap.  We recognize the signs of a storm brewing.  We see the early warning signals and jump straight to hyper-alert with good reason.  Not being alert and aware we get slammed.  Knowing when to duck has advantages.  When I was working as a computer tech, I told one of the professors about up coming changes that were going to happen.  He assured me that would never happen.  Well, I read the signals right.  Everything happened exactly as I thought it would and I still got thrown for a major loop.  Kind of like if you lived through a tornado you know what the drop in air pressure means.  People criticize worry warts not realizing they are reading the signs of a situation and already jumped into hyper-alert prepared for an emergency.  My counselor pointed out how tiring this is.  I agreed.  Then he watched me hit storm after storm after storm in my life.  My counselor recommended I go complete no-contact with my family of birth.  I refused.  My sister and I have each other's backs.  We know the signs of a storm brewing.  Believe it or not, when mother is nice to us all hell is about to break loose.  Or we let our guard down and she strikes like a cobra.  Boundaries in place at all times, for a REASON.  I am learning to recognize that life changes.  My daughter posted an article about raising resilient children.  I am hoping to find some ideas for myself.  If I find some good ones, I will pass them on. 

Well tomorrow I start back to school.  My summer went way differently than I planned.  My husband was awesome supporting me through tough times.  My sister shared Froglogic radio shows about embracing fear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXfNpqgtAKE.  I am excited about listening to the next segment.  I tackled several medical test this summer.  All came back with a clean bill of health mostly.  12 years ago I went in for mammogram and three months later had cancer surgery.  I went in feeling perfectly fine and came out feeling perfectly awful.  The things is for survivors bad things have happened so please don't tell me that everything will be fine.  Because sometimes it isn't.  One of the gifts from counseling is learning to judge at what level I need to worry and how to relax when a storm is over or just gives me a short break.