I stopped checking the locks after my children had already checked them

Dear Delyara, My anxiety made bedtime a forty-minute inspection: front door, back door, stove, windows, garage, then repeat because I no longer trusted the first check. My children began joining in to reassure me, which was the moment I realized the habit was becoming part of their childhood too. With therapy, I created one written checklist and practiced completing it once. No photographs. No sending the children back downstairs. The first weeks were terrible. I would lie in bed certain the front door was open. Gradually, the urge lost strength. Tonight marks three months of one check only. My daughter locked the back door while I finished dishes. I asked whether she had done it. She said yes. I believed her. That may sound ordinary. For years, anxiety required evidence stronger than another person’s word. Breaking the habit has meant allowing my family to live in a home where bedtime does not require participating in my fear.