Breaking the Cycle of Chaos: Learning to Slow Down After a Lifetime of Rush

I didn’t grow up in a peaceful household. I grew up in noise. In movement. In urgency. In survival mode. We were a foster care home, which meant that at any given time, there were always a lot of children under one roof. The least we ever had was six—but it was usually more. I have two biological sisters and four adopted foster siblings who are forever part of my family. But outside of the seven of us, more children always came and went. We had nine for a while. Eleven for a while. Over the years, from the time I was four or five until I graduated high school and moved out, I think around fourteen or fifteen children came through our home.

With that many bodies, there was always motion. Always mess. Always someone needing something. There was very little space, very little quiet, and almost no privacy. Showers were five minutes long—timed and enforced—not just because there were so many of us, but because we often ran out of hot water. Getting ready for school was a production. Dinner was loud. Even bedtime felt like a race. There was no such thing as stillness. No room for slow. Efficiency wasn’t a preference; it was survival.

I remember every time we had to go to town, we had to load up the big 12-passenger van. It was never just a quick or simple outing. Even the most basic errands took an enormous amount of coordination and energy—getting everyone ready, buckled, accounted for, and out the door. It wasn’t just “grab your purse and go”—it was a full-scale production. That kind of preparation became ingrained in me. It taught me that everything in life takes a lot of time and effort. That even simple tasks require planning, bracing, hurrying. And now, as a mom of just two, I’m realizing that I carry that same mindset into my adult life—treating everyday moments like they’re overwhelming when they don’t have to be. I’m learning to let that go. I’m learning that a grocery trip today doesn’t have to feel like it did back then. Not everything has to be hard.

And still, I catch myself rushing through a shower like someone’s waiting their turn. I get tense walking into the grocery store like it’s going to be an ordeal—even though it’s just me and my two. I feel stress settle in my shoulders the moment we decide to go out to eat, as if I have to mentally prepare for battle. But there’s no battle. There’s no line of kids waiting behind me. There’s no chaos knocking on the bathroom door. It’s just me—and the quiet I never learned how to live in.

That’s the part no one talks about. How hard it is to live in peace when you were raised in panic. How exhausting it feels to not be overwhelmed—because your body doesn’t know what to do with stillness. How easy it is to snap at your kids, not because they’re doing anything wrong, but because you’re still carrying years of hurry, of overstimulation, of never having a moment to breathe. I only have two kids, and still, it sometimes feels like too much. Not because they are—but because the girl inside me was trained to brace for impact. Trained to expect noise. Trained to panic before anything even happened.

Sometimes it feels like I’m living in a fire drill even when there’s no emergency. I rush through the motions, tense before anything even goes wrong. And it’s in those moments that I have to remind myself: This is not that home. This is not that life. I am not twelve anymore, rushing out of the bathroom so the next person can go. I am not one of nine trying to be heard over the volume of everyone else. I am not the child trying to keep the peace in a storm of sound and movement.

Now I’m the adult. And I get to choose calm. I get to choose slow.
I’m trying—gently, quietly—to break the cycle. I’m learning that I don’t have to live in a constant state of urgency anymore. That I don’t have to feel guilty for sitting down before the chores are done. That I can walk slowly through the store, and that nothing will fall apart if dinner is ten minutes late. That I can take my time in the shower. That I can breathe.

I want my kids to remember a mom who didn’t just keep up—I want them to remember a mom who was present. Who laughed. Who paused. Who didn’t rush bedtime or dread every errand. And more than anything, I want that version of me—for me. Because I am tired of surviving a life I’m supposed to be enjoying. I am tired of performing calm while my insides scream go, go, go.

If you’re reading this and nodding, if your heart is racing even though your house is quiet, if you feel like everything is always just a little too much—even when it’s not—I see you. I am you. And I want you to know that you are not broken. You are not dramatic. You are not failing. You are simply unlearning a rhythm that wasn’t yours to begin with.

Breaking the cycle doesn’t always look brave. Sometimes it just looks like staying in the shower for ten minutes instead of five. Sometimes it looks like taking your time putting the groceries away. Sometimes it looks like letting your kids be loud without bracing for the explosion. That’s the work. That’s the healing. That’s how we begin again.

I am not just breaking the cycle for my children—I’m breaking it for the little girl I used to be, who never got to slow down.