My Fight With Anxiety

My Fight With Anxiety

This week I’ve found myself feeling very frustrated and overwhelmed. I was caught off guard the other day by an avalanche of exhaustion and a general feeling of overwhelm, that I got sucked into this sudden vortex of punishing myself and crying angry tears over something as small as a to-do list that I was desperate to organize and catch up with since being away on vacation. Call it hormones, call it jet lag, but in that moment I called it stupid, and I became even more angry with myself and the people around me.

Have you ever been there? Have you ever been in that spiral of emotions, overwhelm that turns into self-loathing, and the overall feeling that you’re overreacting, silly, and just not…enough?

In her book Rising Strong, Brené Brown has this teaching about being curious about your feelings. Instead of immediately acting on an emotion, she talks about the practice of exploring more about why you might be feeling that particular emotion. So, I tried it. I asked myself, “Why do I feel so angry with this situation? Why do I want so badly to control this list and master all the details of all the things? Why do I feel like people are excluding me, and why am I angry with them for doing things differently from how I think they should be done?”

The simple answer was, because I’m feeling vulnerable and I’m totally afraid of being vulnerable. I’m afraid of being left out and left alone to feel like I’m not enough. I’m afraid that I won’t measure up, and that people will use that against me.

Vulnerability makes me feel helpless and powerless, and I like to feel in control.

The process of vulnerability is showing open wounds or hurts that are still in the process of healing: Wounds you feel powerless to do anything about. It can be ugly. I don’t like ugly. I like pretty, perfect, Disney magic kind of things.

But this mission of mine for everyone to feel like they’re enough, and for women everywhere to feel like they’re not alone, calls for me to make every effort to be as vulnerable as I can.

I’ve had three anxiety attacks in the last 7 months.

We’re talking pull over to the side of the road, hyper-ventilating, I-don’t-know-what-to-do attacks. During one of these attacks, I sat in my car in the parking lot of my daughter’s cheer gym, literally praying that my windows were dark enough so that no one could see my black, fiber mascara-filled tears and the absolute mess that I was. Talk about fear of showing my vulnerability.

I’ve always undermined these attacks and tried to explain them away. I even looked up the definition of anxiety attack, just to be sure that’s what it was and that I wasn’t just being hormonal or tired or just a spoiled suburban wife. Although I’ve never felt like I was going to die or that I needed medical attention, the anxiety has been very real.

Anxiety strikes at the worst possible moment. It makes no sense, and it makes you want to hide forever because you feel like no one could possibly understand. In the midst of anxiety, facing the problem is scary, moving forward is scary, talking to people is scary. It makes me feel damaged.

It doesn’t discriminate, either. Anxiety doesn’t care what your responsibilities are, it doesn’t care if you’re over weight, under weight, or what neighborhood you live in. It doesn’t care about your success, your past achievements or how much money is in your bank account. There are people I know who struggle with anxiety that have very beautiful lives, and they’re thankful for them. They’re the ones who look like they have everything going for them. They’re beautiful, they’re admired and successful, and they’re some of the most personable, charismatic, friendly people I’ve ever met. You would never guess they struggle.

For me, anxiety comes from trying to make everything work. It comes from taking on the mindset that I can fix something as long as I have the right attitude and say or do the right thing. It comes from trying to be the person that I think everyone expects me to be.

My anxiety comes from believing in perfectionism like it’s my religion.

It’s hard for me to be in front of you and tell you that I don’t have a solution. In fact, it brings a lot of shame because as someone who wants to inspire, I feel like it’s my job to bring you a package-deal of positive results along with my vulnerabilities. People love a comeback story: “I used to have anxiety and now I don’t.” I don’t really have the solution. All I can say is that If you struggle with anxiety in ANY form, with any intensity or any length of time, please know you’re not alone, and please keep showing up for your story. It matters. You matter.

Some days I show up by doing simple things for my family, reaching out to a friend, or trying to come up with something meaningful to share with you. And sometimes showing up looks like getting out bed, putting on my pants one leg at a time, and just getting through the day. The day I cried in my car in the parking lot, I showed up by recording a ridiculous Instagram story of me singing Mariah Carey karaoke in my car on the way home, just to prove to myself that I could be funny and show anxiety that it can’t control me. Nothing says, ‘Take THAT anxiety,’ like my rendition of “I’ll Be There.”

Let’s just keep showing up. We’re in this together.

When I started writing this, I’d hoped that it would help someone else. But if it’s done anything, it’s helped me. It’s helped me call this monster out for what it is. This monster that’s hiding in the shadows, that thrives in darkness. I’m calling it to the light because it can’t survive there. When we throw light on these things, we expose all of their weaknesses and their powerlessness over us.

If this post meant something to you, or you think it might resonate with someone else, it would be my honor if you shared it.

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