We’ve all been told the healthy things to do when life is freaking us out, when we find ourselves unable to serenely detach from things like the computer crash, our brother’s indictment, our spouse admitting an affair.

There’s going to a quiet place, even for a few moments, to deeply, consciously breathe. There are calming mantras and gratitude lists and hugs from someone you love. Why, then, don’t we automatically turn to one of these simple refuges of peace?

Most of us have a favored alternative. We drink. We overeat, or we run and run beyond the capacity of our knees. We scour the floors, plant 300 tulip bulbs, or cook for 15 instead of our family of three. We have sex with someone we just met, or drive aimlessly down the freeway smoking the cigarettes we supposedly quit at 22.

I’ve done most of these things at one time or another but, growth being the apparent goal of our souls, stopped doing them when it occurred to me that what I wanted was not more food, wine, tulips or nicotine, not more living on the edge or running away. Clean floors and Clorox-wiped cabinets didn’t seem to be tidying the real messes in my life. What I needed was calm, a sense that all is right in my little world, or at least the belief that I am strong enough to accept the way things are.

So I dropped those irrational responses. Most of them. Most of the time. When the shit hits the fan I do try to gently turn away and breathe.

But then an urge strikes that is more primal than food or sex or compulsive cleaning, more basic than planting flowers or driving down I-5 really fast.

I buy clothes. Not for myself, but for my son.

Irrational, but there it is.

Years ago, as my father wasted away from cancer, I’d stop at a shopping center between his house and ours, loading up on bright new duds for my little boy to wear in first grade. The kid had more striped t-shirts and jeans, more sweaters and jackets than a Macy’s catalog. Not expensive, high fashion clothes, just clothes.

When it was work that threatened my sanity, I ran this drill too. As my marriage fell apart, I went into serious boy’s department overdrive.

My son couldn’t have cared less, but it made me feel settled, somehow, to know he would be warm, that he’d never want for clean socks or a sharp looking jacket that fit his lanky frame. Something was in order. Somebody looked well put together. Bright and promising and cute, too. I’d taken care of him, as best I could, even while falling apart myself.

As my boy grew older and my jobs more intense, I’d pop into Mervyn’s to visit the young men’s racks, coming home with unnecessary, unwanted jeans, shirts, and socks. Often, I’d return them. Costco was an excellent excuse for even more socks, and who could resist those polo shirts, $9.99?

He would have happily worn the same pair of jeans, the same Guns ‘n Roses T-shirt, every single day of the year. Now, as a young man in Manhattan, he’d wear the same torn shirt with the same baggy jeans if it weren’t for his fashionista friends and their eye-rolling intolerance of non-metrosexual dishevelment.

In winter, a free floating anxiety about cold places urges me to purchase a nice wool watch cap, some gloves and yes, socks, because surely he needs those thick woolen ones for that dreadful East Coast chill. And when things are seriously askew, my fight/flight instinct sends me straight to a men’s sale, to clothes I think he might think are hip but that are, of course, not.

After my own cancer diagnosis a few years ago, the online catalog boxes started arriving at my son’s apartment, from Zappos, Macy’s and J.Crew. Things got a little out of hand.

“Great sale!” I would claim. He was always grateful, or feigned gratitude, at least. I knew he knew it was I who was grateful for him.

This maternal stress response has nothing to do with a desire to shop. Mostly, I loathe shopping. I’m not an indiscriminate consumer of stuff. In the past four years, I’ve stepped foot in a big box store just once. If I must go to the Target near my house to buy, say, a baby gift, you can bet I’ll be in and out of there in 15 minutes flat.

No, the irresistible urge to purchase not just one short-sleeved cotton shirt but two, when the Manhattan heat wave hits the news – it’s strictly a mom thing. Let the shrinks have a field day but meanwhile, consider the marketing opportunities here! If there are other women out there like me – women who would not venture to Macy’s but for a primal need to clothe their offspring even well into adulthood – can you see the untapped market?

Department stores might consider discreetly putting flyers in places where people are likely under stress. In the oncologist’s office, for example, am I more likely to pick up yet another magazine featuring the benefits of a sea kelp diet and substituting free weights for sex, or a 30% off coupon for Levi’s?

Now that I’m well, I’ve almost eliminated this stress response. At least, when life gets a bit hairy, instead of sending clothes my son does not need or might not want, I now send a little cash so he can eat out or just not stress out. So one of us, at least, can be unstressed.

After last week’s MRI, for example, I expected the technician to say, “Your doctor will have results on Tuesday. Give a call Wednesday if you haven’t heard.” That’s what they usually say, something like that. Instead, after looking at my scans she said, “When’s your appointment with the oncologist?”

“I don’t have one,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “Well. Results should be to your doctor on Tuesday. But why don’t you call Monday to set up an appointment – so they can go ahead and get you in?”

I told myself it was probably just that one technician, being nice, just doing it her way, unlike the way all the others have done it in the past. Sure, that’s what it was. But just to set things right, to settle myself, I drove straight to Wells Fargo and made a little withdrawal from our savings account.

“Deposited $100 in yr account,” the text to my son read. “Buy new shirt, whatever. I love you.”

(The scans turned out fine. I think my son went out to dinner, or paid the cable bill. Inhale, Exhale…Thank you. Life is good.)