If you want a good example of how my brain works, especially with anxiety, let me show you a glimpse from a recent post I made in response to a subject on Facebook.  The original poster is worried about kids – whether she should keep trying to have them biologically, try adoption, what have you, especially with time running out and finances being an issue and is wondering about other people’s experiences with the subject.

I have added some to my original post because I have had more thoughts about it.  Added portions are italicized.

“I don’t know either.  I know my parents would love to be grandparents.  I think I might even be a good parent.  I know that if I needed a support system, mine is extensive and loving.  I think
that if I ever wanted to do it biologically I might even have a volunteer or two to father them. 
But I have doubts.

What if I pass on my mental and physical illness to biological children? Granted, they are not severe, nor super expensive, but I worry.  I worry that it is not responsible for me to be bringing
someone into the world with the extra burden of those illnesses.  But people do it all the time.

What if my mysterious fatigue issues get worse and I cannot properly care for a child? I am a spoonie, this is a huge concern for me.  I would have to learn how to manage those spoons better and figure out how to give in to the days that just don’t work without compromising my
ability to parent.  I feel like I cannot put that on anyone else.

What if I cannot find a better paying job?  I love the job I am at, but long term, I don’t know. Mine is enough for me to live paycheck to paycheck with my medical bills, but kids are
expensive.

What if my partners leave me?  I am not married to either of them legally and I would be supporting a kid on my own, at least financially.

If I decide that I want to do an adoption, what if I get turned down because of my relationship status, either because I’m legally single or because of my partner-status?  Or because I don’t make enough money?  Or the whole process just gets to be more than I can take and I just
throw in the towel?

But in spite of all that, my biological clock is poking at me, saying ‘maybe we can make it work, somehow?’.  Now, I can certainly think of ways that might work, or at least ways to make the
burden easier, but it is a balancing act.  How much compromise with my other life goals can I allow to make this possible?  What can I put on hold, perhaps indefinitely, to make this work? 
And that is a tangled mess.

I know I still have time to decide, as my mother had my sister and me in her mid-30s without any problems, short of ones that would have been problems ten years earlier anyways.

But yeah, it’s not easy.”

Afterwards I talked to Raven – I had remembered talking to him and Minx a long time ago about this, in fact the last time I had considered the idea in any seriousness.  I had been expressing my hesitations about the idea from a social perspective – I just didn’t know if it was something I would be any good at.  They had both expressed opinions to the contrary and, for some reason, I had never asked why.  Until now.  Obviously too late to ask Minx, but Raven I did.

He expressed a confidence in me and my abilities that I have no doubt was genuine, but it is amazing how much we don’t see the great things in ourselves, just the downers.