Living with Anxiety

When it hits:
Racing heart, racing thoughts. 

Real hard to get stuff done.  Pretty much paralyzed.

If I'm at home, I follow my husband around and try to look like I'm doing something productive.  When it's really bad, I just follow him around and try to keep from collapsing to the floor in a fetal position.  For some reason the bathroom floor and/or the kitchen floor seem the most inviting.
If I'm at work...I talk to my co-worker friend and ask her to bear with me.  I also do the Pretend-Like-I'm Being-Productive bit.  I have no idea how much I am "fooling" people.  The catch is that I work with small children.  This forces me to center myself so as not effect them.  They feel the tension and if you are relaxed, they are more relaxed.

The last major episode was triggered by a phone call from my mother.  This brought on old feelings that I have worked so damn hard to change. 
I have a huge mirror in my bathroom and I find myself looking in it when I am in a state of anxiety. 
I tell myself things. 
"You are ugly." 
"You are useless." 
These things I tell myself without even thinking, I just look at myself and automatically respond to my image in this way.  This is what happens when I am triggered.

So What, So What, So What??

I've been 19, 29, now 39...
At 19 I was pregnant.  My life seemed and was absolutly crazy.  I was so lost.  Little did I know my life was starting, really starting.
By 29 I had gotten divorced, met my soul mate, gotten married again, experienced loss, had a second child, made it through college,  and was pretty settled.
And now, by 39.  by 39.  by 39.
Not that big of a deal.
Really, it's not.
But just looking at those years between 19 and 29--seems like a lifetime of change took place in 10 short? years.
But what about after 29.
And up until now.
Well?