The "PANIC" thread

It's always been my nature not to panic before or during, it's always after, then I fall apart. This time I do feel some anxiety though, I can't think of any one event in my life that was bigger or scarier than this. Well when my daughter choked on her steak one time, that was really scary, I swear I was speaking in tongues. My firefighter/rescue husband was there and he was able to do the Heimlich on her. It just seemed like it took forever. We had just had one of our friends die of choking two weeks prior to that, so even more scary. I'm mostly worried about the people that haven't prepared. Are they going to try to steal from me? Will they make it all the way out to my house? I have these little daydream scenarios where I imagine what could happen and how I would react to the situation. Does anyone else do that? I've always done it, the thing is that the scenario's I imagine usually don't happen, so that's good. I also worry that what if I didn't prepare enough? What if I prepared enough but one of the kids breaks a leg or something? This is a crazy thing, but I've always done this too, I imagine one of my kids getting killed like getting hit by a car, then I cry.  It's not that I try to do it, it just pops in my head. I guess that’s the greatest fear of a mother. When my kids were real little and in car seats, I would strap them all in and head to the store. On the way there a railroad crossing, back then it didn't have a light and several people were killed there because you couldn't see the train coming very well, you had to pull way up to the tracks to see, then if one was coming you'd be too close to the tracks. One day, I pulled up to see if a train was coming and it was, so I started to back up quick and there was a car that had pulled right up to my bumper and I hit it. It didn't cause a dent or anything in either car and no one was hurt but the woman I hit, she kept yelling at me. Now, here I am with my kids in the van, a train is roaring by, and this train track was my current biggest fear. I told her my kids were in the car and I had to back up because we were too close to the tracks. She just kept yelling, and saying she didn't care if I had kids in my car, I shouldn't have backed into her car. Like what was I supposed to do get hit by the train so I wouldn't bump her car?  I don't know what happened to me, I just lost it, next thing I knew I had grabbed her arms and shook her. I'm not a very big woman, I'm only 5'2 and she was a lot bigger than me, but I guess I must have looked like a loon because she just said 'let go of me' then she just got back in her car and told me to forget it through the crack in her window.  Let me tell you, that is not the way I am, I'm one of the most non-violent people you'd ever meet. In that moment though I felt for some reason that she was a threat to my children, even though they were safe. Right now I feel a little like I did that day, even though they're safe right now. Don't worry I don't feel violent, just that same kind of feeling, like my kids are too close to the train.

Whew, that was a little more than what I intended to say, I doubt very many people will get this far into my post but thanks for the opportunity to vent here.