When Melinda was five, she'd be getting ready for church.

She'd be putting on her fancy shoes, her Mary James, and she'd get an idea.

And so I'd just say to myself, okay, things will go well today if I wear my buckles behind

my ankles instead of like how you're normally supposed to wear them, which is like over

the foot.

So I would sling them back and say, okay, now my day will go good.

But what if it doesn't go good all because I changed the way I put my shoes on.

So I should probably take them back off, change them back to how they're supposed to

be, and put them back on again.

As a kid, Melinda figured everybody thought this way, that we were all controlling our

destinies through things like the positions of our shoe buckles.

She now knows that the shoe buckle thing was just her way of coping with anxiety.

Anxiety is something we hear about a lot when it comes to moms.

Postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression.

Lots of people like Melinda have anxiety, kid or no kid.

Add sleepless nights and a tiny beating heart to the mix.

And the worrying and obsessing just gets even more intense.

And that stuff can be really hard and embarrassing to talk about.

Melinda sees a therapist known, has friends she can confide in.

But before she had kids, she kept her anxiety completely secret, even from her husband.

This is the longest shortest time from WNYC.

I'm Hillary Frank.

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