Real question: I had a genuinely good day with my 3 kids today. Everyone was happy, nobody cried, I wasn't stressed. But then later I felt this weird guilt like... was I ignoring some problem? Should something have gone wrong? I swear my brain immediately starts looking for what I must have messed up. Anyone else deal with this or is it just me being paranoid?
Dude that's anxiety talking. Your brain is expecting chaos because that's the baseline you've normalized. Therapy helped me with this - learning to just... let good days be good without guilt was actually harder than dealing with the bad days.
Maybe worth examining whether this is about guilt or just unfamiliar? Like if 90% of your days have at least one meltdown, a perfect day feels wrong not bad. Does that make sense?
I get this. Think it's because parenting is 90% problem-solving so when there's nothing to solve your brain goes "okay but what AM I missing?" Intellectually I know a good day is just a good day but my default mode is troubleshooter.
This is real and honestly kind of messed up that our brains do this. A therapist told me it's anxiety - your brain is so trained to look for problems that a good day feels wrong. Like you're waiting for the other shoe.
I do this too and realized it comes from years of just expecting chaos with three kids. But then when there ISN'T chaos I don't know what to do with myself. Like my baseline is broken.
This is actually wild and way more common than people talk about. Like we're all so used to waiting for the other shoe to drop that when things are good our brains short circuit. I had a perfect afternoon with all three kids last month and legitimately couldn't enjoy it because I was anxiously waiting for someone to get sick or break something.
Omg yes. Had a perfect afternoon last week - all three kids got along, everyone laughed - and I literally thought "okay what disaster am I missing." Brain was already scanning for the catch. It's exhausting.
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This might be worth talking to someone about honestly. That constant threat-detection mode isn't normal and it means you can't actually enjoy the wins. You deserve to have a good day without immediately looking for what went wrong.
Could also just be parental hypervigilance? We're so used to scanning for problems (injuries, meltdowns, getting kidnapped, etc) that our brains won't turn it off even when everything's fine. Doesn't mean something's broken necessarily.