Anxiety. Just one word, one word, 4 syllables, 7 letters and yet what it means to me, the affect it has on me, the weight it holds is so much more than that. A few years ago I decided to share a little of my struggles on social media. My motive for this stemmed from the hope that I could throw a life raft to someone else who felt like they were drowning in their own sea of anxiety. I decided to do this after I was feeling really sad and isolated. This was a few years after moving to Washington, a few years after leaving behind all of “my people”. Someone told me to suck it up and just be happy, get over my worries and talk to people. This was said with love, this was someone who meant well when they said this, someone who loves me and just wanted to help end my loneliness, someone who does not suffer from anxiety. My hope is still to throw that life raft to anyone seeking it. Don’t get me wrong, I have no answers, I just want you to know that you are not alone and that so many others are silently struggling along with you. Don’t suck it up and talk to people (unless that’s what feels right to you, if that is the case by all means, do that), take a deep breathe and know you share your struggle with so many others.
I didn’t always have anxiety. I think if you asked those who knew me as a teenager if they thought I had any difficulty socially they would say absolutely not. I had no anxiety until I became a mom. Something about being a mom when my friends were just being teenagers caused me to feel isolated. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my friends and many of them I still hold dear but our paths at that time were so different. When I started college my son was 2. I had waited to go, partially because I wasn’t ready, partially because I had a baby. There’s nothing wrong with this, it was the best time for me to start, the only time that made sense. The problem worsened here. Those two years sound like nothing but being 2 years older than your peers and a parent of a toddler separated me (I would like to note that auto correct tied to say superstars instead of separated and if you are navigating you’re way through college (at any age) with a toddler I will gladly say you’re “superstar-ing” it. It’s just not how it felt to me). First, I felt old compared to my peers, all the time. Second I couldn’t participate in the “fun” part of college which further made me feel separated. It was hard to make friends. When you say no to all the invites it makes it hard to find college friends. I graduated with one friend. I don’t think she realizes but her friendship meant so much to me...so friend, if you’re reading this, thank you for being my friend.
I’ve gotten off track. Anxiety. It set in, really dug it’s claws in, during my 3rd year of college. It started with being unable to handle group work. A professor would say “ok, we are going to get in groups..” and I would simply pack my back pack and walk out. I just couldn’t. Really. My heart would race, my head would get loud with all of the negative self talk. “They won’t like you”, “you will say something stupid”, “you aren’t good enough”, “you aren’t smart enough”, “quit before they know you so they won’t dislike you...because they will”. Fortunately I was a good student and moments like this didn’t ruin my grades. I have always been a sleep walker but right around this time night terrors started. Waking up terrified, screaming hitting Travis or running from imaginary attackers became, SO very unfortunately for Travis, a regular occurrence.
Fast forward 11 years and I have off and on been an adult. I graduated in 2008. I was SO excited to teach. This was the year that the stock market crashed and teachers were laid off left and right. No job was to be had. Substituting meant new people all the time. If you have anxiety you know what this is like. It’s so, so hard and mentally exhausting. Every time I walked into a different school I felt a little more like I shouldn’t be there. Like everyone knew I wasn’t good enough. It got worse and worse and I took less and less jobs until I was a stay at home mom. This was a good thing really because Bryce needed that for a while. When he no longer needed it I knew it. I knew that I was hiding from the world and hiding really was exactly what I was doing. It got to where Trav and Bryce were my only people. I still talked to my mom and dad on the phone and my best friend when I could find the courage to answer the phone. Sounds strange but yes, courage is the right word. It got so bad that I was afraid to go grocery shopping because I would have to talk to the person who rang up my groceries. I dreaded having to talk to people.
Then things took a better turn. I started working at the preschool. Turned out being around people (the same people) everyday was good for my anxiety. I was again able to grocery shop without having small panic attacks while talking myself into going in. Summer before last I stepped out of my comfort zone and applied for the job that I had always wanted, an elementary school teacher. I was so happy when I got it. I still find myself in awe of the fact that I am where my 7 year old self began dreaming about. I am where I know should be. The problem is my anxiety. I worry all the time. I get in my own head and some days the negative talk wins. I will find myself avoiding people because they must know, “I’m not good enough”. Other times the voice will tell me how unliked I am and I will find myself avoiding adult interaction and when finding myself in conversations will stumble over my words and then later...later is the worst. Later I will go over, and over, and over, and over the words that I did say. I will question what I said, how it sounded, what I should say to fix it or I will avoid interaction with that person for a while making it so much worse only to have a (very friendly, perfectly normal) conversation with them and think kick myself for worrying for days.
Parents cause anxiety, test scores cause anxiety, common core standards cause anxiety, behavior problems cause anxiety. I know, every job has its stressors. I am not saying my job is more stressful than yours. I am simply saying life in general causes me anxiety. People in the grocery store, people at the gym, coworkers, friends, acquaintances, really anyone and everyone in my life causes me anxiety. Last year I decided to try medication. This was really hard because doctors and doctor appointments cause me anxiety. I made the appointment though. I got the medication, I took one pill and was pretty much knocked out for the day. I didn’t take a second pill. I canceled my follow up doctor appointment and didn’t speak to that doctor for a year, until last Friday. I went in for a cough that won’t go away. After checking it out he mentioned the medication and I explained. I found the courage to ask to try something different. He prescribed me something and silly me, took it that night. I thought, this will help with the anxiety of hosting an early Thanksgiving with my family the following day. Turned out it did the opposite. It made me jittery, I hardly slept and then I was more anxious than ever and on top of that I was confused. I kept mixing up details, when different family members had arrived, names, what I was doing, what I was saying. It was awful but after around 24 hours it, thankfully, wore off.
The doctor told me my blood pressure is too high, I have head aches every day and I am on week three of a persistent cough. I think that my anxiety is physically affecting me. I was so hopeful that this medication would help. Lately I find myself trying to figure out how to eeliminate the stressors. I have no idea. I see movies where people are happy and I start thinking “what is their job, maybe that’s what I need to do”. Sometimes I feel like just living day to day is exhausting. How the anxiety never turns off, how loud and heavy it is. I know those words so sound gloomy. They feel gloomy. That is not a good description of me though. I have a really good life. I have a family that loves me. I have a house that feels full when I come home . I have a home full of love, laughter and so much life. I also have anxiety. It’s really hard, most of the time that’s ok, sometimes it’s too heavy. Sometimes it is almost unbearably loud. Sometimes it takes everything just to get through the day. I’m not asking for sympathy just understanding. One thing that has made this journey a little better has been finding out I’m not alone in it. It is easy to look around and assume everyone else has it easy, no anxiety, no insomnia, no night terrors, no waking up to the same 7 words of a song running in a constant, loud loop in their head because they listened to that song 12 hours before and built a day of anxiety on top of it. When someone tells me “I struggle too” it takes a little bit of the weight off. I hope that if you read this and are going through you’re own cloud of anxiety you can find comfort in knowing you’re not alone and you are so much more than the negative things that you tell yourself over and over.
