The Anxiety of Talking About Anxiety

Imagine getting ready to meet friends for a drink. You've been looking forward to it all week. As you look at the clock, you start to get uncomfortable. Maybe you just need to go to the bathroom one more time before you leave, so you go again. As you walk from your apartment toward downtown, getting closer to the bar, the queasiness in your stomach grows. You review everything you've eaten that day, wondering if it was something you ate, but a part of you knows it’s not from any kind of food you had. You get to the bar and walk inside, when it hits you. You can barely breathe. You break into a cold sweat but somehow still feel hot at the same time. Something is very wrong. You find your friends, but you can hardly concentrate on what they're saying because all you can focus on is your measured breaths and how you absolutely cannot throw up on the table. You haven't had any alcohol, so it can't be that. You stick it out for what seems like an eternity (in reality about ten minutes) before excusing yourself to walk outside for some air. The relief you get once you get outside is overwhelming and the thought of going back terrifies you. You try to reason with yourself. Your inner dialogue goes something like this "What the fuck is going on with you? You have had zero alcohol, there's no reason you should be feeling sick. Why can't you just sit down and have a couple drinks with friends like every normal fucking person in that bar? Everyone is going to think there's something wrong with you, it's like you can't even have fun." Too much time passes, you can't go back now. You text your friends that you aren't feeling well and you walk back to your apartment. You breathe a little easier with every step, but by no means are you okay. You get home, put on sweats, and park yourself on the bathroom floor with a pillow knowing that sleeping on the cold tile is inevitable tonight. The rest of the night is spent alternating between throwing up and trying to catch a few minutes of restless sleep, because you know your stomach will be heaving again soon.

This is how the last couple years of my college career were spent. At the time, I had no idea that what I was experiencing were panic attacks. I kept trying to make sense of what was going on, but there was nothing logical about what was happening to me. I couldn't figure it out myself, much less explain it to my friends. I didn't know how to say, "I'm sorry, I know we had plans. But I can't make it this weekend because the thought of being at someone else's house and sleeping on their bathroom floor is too much for me to bear." And how could I expect them to constantly put up with my flaky behavior? I had a lot of internal conversations about how I should be feeling or acting, which contributed to the downward spiral. 

I lost the majority of my friends from college because I didn't know how to communicate what I was going through. Looking back now, had I trusted the friendships and just opened up about it, some of those friendships would probably still be intact. But I was embarrassed because what triggered me seemed so inconsequential. I didn't think anyone would understand and I was utterly miserable. But I was still scared to get help. 

I moved back to my hometown after college and my cousin pushed me to go see the doctor. I have a fucking mountain of gratitude and appreciation for that cousin. It couldn't have been an easy thing to bring up to say, "I love you and I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you're a miserable person right now, go get some help." I finally went to my primary care doctor and tried a laundry list of different medications, daily medications as well as acute (take in the moment) type of medications. I really wanted there to be a pill I could take to make it better because that would be an easy fix, but nothing seemed to help. I had begun to accept that this was how life was. I had gotten to a point where I didn't know what "normal" felt like anymore and I truly didn't believe that I could get back to a better place. After all, I had been feeling that way for four or five years already. It was isolating as hell. I began losing weight because I got sick so often. I wasn't sleeping and I felt exhausted all the time. I had tried going to a few different therapists, but none felt like the right fit. I hadn't made any tangible improvements. That same cousin, again, pushed me to try going to a cognitive behavioral therapist, one more try. After some major coaxing, I agreed. I was hesitant, not only because I didn't think it would work, but also because the appointments weren't covered by my insurance and it was going to be SO expensive. She finally told me that if I had a broken arm, I wouldn't hesitate to get whatever treatment was necessary to fix it, no matter the cost. Why the fuck wouldn't I be willing to do the same for my mental health, especially when it was having such detrimental impact on my life. That was the perspective that I needed to finally make the appointment.

I couldn't even call to make the appointment. I had to email the therapist because every time I tried to talk about what was going on I started sobbing uncontrollably. Unfortunately, there were no quick fixes for the anxiety and panic attacks that I was having. I went to an anxiety treatment center once a week for over a year. The therapist gave me reading and "homework" activities to do, and it was a LOT of hard work. I had to put myself in situations that would generally have triggered a panic attack and just sit there with those wildly uncomfortable feelings. For example, I had to sit at a bar and not flee when I began to feel queasy and started sweating. This seems like such a simple thing to the majority of people, but to me it felt arduous. My brain had to be retrained to react properly, to not go into fight or flight overdrive. And eventually over the course of a year or so, it started to get easier. I was able to wean off of all of the different medications that I had been taking, which was a HUGE deal. I began going to the therapist less often, knowing that I could have check-in type of appointments when necessary, which I still do occasionally, almost 10 years later. 

When the twins were almost two and I was going back to my full-time job, I got back on an anti-anxiety medication. After multiple appointments with my therapist, we came to the realization that I was doing everything I could possibly do to keep my anxiety at bay on my own. But the reality of being me: the ringmaster of our fucking circus, working a full-time job with travel and needing to present myself as a (borderline) professional, trying to raise socially conscious humans, cooking daily, and pretending that I do housework. It was too much to manage on my own. Taking the medication has given me the edge I need to maintain some semblance of sanity in the chaotic mess we call our daily life. 

The words "self-care" are thrown around a lot these days and I have mixed feelings about it. Had someone told me that I needed to practice self-care years ago when I was in the throws of my dark period, it would have meant nothing to me. There was no amount of exercise my tired body could have done, no amount of healthy eating I could have managed that would have eased the burden on my wearied soul. The mix of finding the right therapist and finding the right medication was what had the biggest impact on my wellbeing. Only after I started to claw my way out of the dark (with the help of my therapist and medication) did I have the energy to focus on other self-care items like exercise and healthy eating. 

There's also a financial component to treating anxiety and panic attacks. I'm privileged as hell that I was able to afford the THOUSANDS of dollars that those therapy sessions cost. It's easy for people to say, "prioritize your mental health" or "you can't take care of others if you don't take care of yourself first." But for many, the reality is that they can't afford steep therapy bills of over $100 per session. Especially when, for many parents, they would also be paying for childcare on top of that. I'm distraught thinking about all of those people that are going through something like I did, but that don't have the family support or the financial freedom to get the help that they need. Every time I think about it, I get pissed off that our healthcare system is so fucked up that people have to go without, because their choices are seeing a therapist or feeding their family. 

Seeing the emphasis on self-care out in the world is an excellent step, but it needs to be more than buzz words. With all the pressures on people today (not just parents, but kids, teenagers, students, and young professionals alike) we aren't going to see a drop in mental health issues unless we start providing resources so that not only the privileged can get help.