Anxiety: A Healing Journey

Chapter One

Experiencing Brokenness

Things began for me in such a vague, indiscernible way. Almost without thought or interest, I noticed that sometimes when I talked about things that really mattered to me, I would be out of breath. I was exhausted most of the time, but it didn’t seem like I was that busy, even though my loved ones regularly expressed concern about my schedule. Sure, things bothered me enough to keep me awake at night, but given how important the issues I wrestled with were, though I should have been sleeping, how could I? I didn’t just care about things; I felt a need to solve them, work through all the possible scenarios of solving them, and consider all the “enemies” to the solution, and so I spent a lot of nights without much rest. My hurried pace in life was necessary to deal with all the things that had plagued my mind in the night. My defense to my family’s concern was that these things had to get done and get done properly. I had no choice. But many times in the middle of dealing with these life issues that I believed were so important, I’d lose my breath, breathing hard to finish a sentence as my cheeks grew hot. I was totally perplexed when an overwhelming feeling of nausea and indigestion wracked my body. It would happen at the worst times, when we needed to be somewhere or when we had company over, and I would end up sitting in the bathroom wondering if my entire stomach was turning inside out. This same awful feeling sometimes came in the night, just as I was ready to drop into bed exhausted from the day, but because it happened so irregularly, I just wrote it off as too much rich food. But when it would once again sneak up on me, I found myself pondering this strange and aggressive indigestion that came and went within hours, leaving me exhausted and food shy for a day. Then there was the lightheadedness and heart pounding that demanded I sit, better yet, lie down. I felt sure I was about to pass out. This made me feel panicky because I didn’t understand what was happening to my body, and it seemed very likely to me that I was in some severe physical distress that needed immediate attention. Sometimes it was hard to swallow, and sometimes I felt tightness in my chest. Sometimes my lips felt numb or my tongue felt swollen. Thoughts of terminal illness always seemed to flit through my mind, as if every physical problem could have no simple explanation. But a breath of fresh air outside often helped, and because these awful symptoms did subside, I would settle down and carry on, weirdly lacking in curiosity about what had just happened to me. These feelings had been so long a part of my life, however intermittent, that I accepted them as normal. Though I was home with two small children who kept me busy, the phone often rang with requests for my time. “Robin, we really need your help” were the words I didn’t mind hearing at all. And I never said no. My calendar looked like a bistro’s chalkboard menu, every possible space filled with writing. No moment was left unaccounted for as I worked in or led five different volunteer activities. Ironically, one of those was a lay-counseling ministry. I look back with awe at how, in the midst of my desire to help people, I was blind to the fact that I was in much need of help myself. My life was characterized by anxious questions that ranged from trivial to important, but all weighed on me as if they were of vital importance. “What if I don’t get where I’m going in time to sit with the people I want to be with?” “What if someone else gets the parking spot I want?” “What if an important decision gets made before I can weigh in on it?” “What if the teacher doesn’t treat my child fairly?” “What if this ministry fails because I didn’t hold it together?” “What if the sky falls because I’m not there to hold it up?” All of this often left me with a rock in the pit of my stomach because the responsibility was so great. I denied that my feelings of responsibility had anything to do with the awful physical symptoms that would periodically befall me. Eventually, the time of questioning these terrible feelings became unavoidable as they began to increase in frequency and intensity that bleak January. I had just been diagnosed with a sinus infection. I was feeling completely overwhelmed by my responsibilities as a mother and volunteer. Then my son got a very bad case of croup that meant several sleepless nights, running him to the shower or letting freezing air in from the window when his breathing became badly labored. Exhausted, I then watched my husband a few days later get sicker than I’d ever known him to be. Two more sleepless nights, and we found out he had strep. And then February brought a pregnancy scare, which I responded to with utter despair at the thought of one more large responsibility. By March I was a physical wreck. My sinus infection resisted every antibiotic I took, and I felt flu-like symptoms regularly. By the end of the month, I was not sleeping well, and by April, I was repeatedly awakened by nausea in the night. I stopped eating, believing I must have the stomach flu, but the nausea only intensified. Amazed at the power of this sinus infection, I dragged myself back to the doctor who gave me a new and more powerful antibiotic. That night as I sat in our family room, I could feel that familiar old chill enter my body. The sensation was like a vial of chemicals suddenly released into my system causing my heart to pound, my entire digestive system to reel, and overwhelming heat to climb from my chest into my face. The sense of fear was overpowering. I was sure I must’ve been having a heart attack; or was it a reaction to the new antibiotics? Whatever it was, I felt sure it was life-threatening. And so the argument in my head started, the rational woman pitted against the anxious woman who feared that every illness was terminal. “But just a minute here, Robin. You’ve felt this way before and you didn’t die.” “Maybe, but this time I’m taking new medication and I could easily be having an allergic reaction.” “You’ve never had an allergic reaction before. Why would you start now?” “It’s a well-known fact that allergies can start at any point, even if you’ve never reacted before. I’m not going to ignore this and die!” And so goes the ongoing internal argument. Brief moments of rational thought mingled with much greater moments of abject fear, fear winning in the end. That night I went to bed and never slept. The next night I went to bed exhausted and hoped desperately for sleep, but finally woke my husband, Leon, at 3:00 a.m. I knew I was on the verge of dying, and for the second night in a row I hadn’t slept at all, not even briefly. Every time I’d begin to drift off, something would jar me awake. My teeth chattered as my entire body shook uncontrollably. I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin and I knew I needed to go to the emergency room. Once there, I was so weak that they got me a wheelchair. My hands and arms tingled, and I knew I was on the verge of passing out when they took me to my cubicle. Interestingly, once the doctor came in all these terrible feelings began to disappear. He handed me a sedative and told me to go off the antibiotics, though he didn’t like the idea because they were starting to work. I could tell he didn’t think the antibiotic was the culprit, and I was curious about why he thought I needed a sedative. Leon wondered out loud how I suddenly became better once the doctor checked me out. I didn’t admit it, but I wondered too.