Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Grace is Messy

Home
Meet Steve Austin
About Messy Grace
Books
Speaker
Contact
Categories
- Faith
- Family
  - Marriage
  - Parenting
- Mental Health
- Recovery
- Writing Help
Best of Messy Grace
Support
Supporters
Affirming Churches
ASK STEVE!
Press
The Podcast

Home
Progressive Christian
Anxiety: Not Your Grandma's Kind of Worry

Anxiety: Not Your Grandma's Kind of Worry

Last updated on: October 22, 2013 at 5:00 am by Lindsey Austin

Anxiety: Not Your Grandma's Kind of Worry 2013-10-22T05:00:56-05:00 Lindsey Austin

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is a guest post by someone I think the world of. The author asked to remain anonymous for now, and I completely respect that decision. We are all at different points in our journey. –Steve

I am a perfect person. Well, if you ask just about anyone. I was the kid that teachers adored and other kids hated. I always made the highest grades, I always joined the most clubs, and I never broke any of the rules. This was not the result of having helicopter parents or a tiger mom – I was, and still am, my own toughest critic. As an adult, I continue this rigorous self-evaluation. Even though I have a wonderful job that many people would give up so much to have, on a small level it still bothers me that it doesn’t require the college degree that I worked myself to the bone to acquire. I strive to be perfect.

That’s probably why it took me so long to admit that I have a problem.

I worry too much.

It sounds like a fake problem, right? Like something that only a middle-class young woman who has had a pretty comfortable life could concoct. That’s what I always assumed before, too.

Suppressing my stressful and worrisome thoughts began causing even more problems. It started a few years ago, a string of isolated incidents that slowly but surely grew closer and closer together: the panic attacks.

Sleepless nights filled with unnecessary calls to 911 and/or reckless sobbing because I was sure, absolutely sure, that I was dying. It feels like a blood clot was breaking loose in my veins, like my arms are going to fall off, like someone is sitting on my chest and strangling me at the same time. The two times that paramedics actually inspected me, they said the only thing that was wrong with me was high blood pressure, and that I was likely from hyperventilating.

It got to the point where I felt like I was going insane. I was plagued by worry and panic at all times. If my husband was five or ten minutes later getting home than I expected, I would practically be in tears, just knowing that he was dead somewhere on the side of the road. I would stop several times on my way home from work to check under my seat to make sure that a snake hadn’t managed to sneak into my car during the day. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even know what I was worried about. I would just be mentally paralyzed by terror.

It was awful.

One Friday, after spending three nights up worriedly Googling the symptoms of heart attacks and blood clots, I had the worst panic attack of my life. It was there, early morning, on the side of the road, surrounded by sirens and emergency responders with a portable EKG machine hooked up to me and a blood pressure cuff around my arm once more, that I realized I could not take it anymore. I scheduled an appointment with an internal medicine doctor, and he diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder and asked me if I’d like a prescription for Klonopin.

Ashamed, I said yes.

I was ashamed because I’d always thought that people who depended on medicine to help them deal with their anxiety or depression were weak, that they just couldn’t get it together, that they were – dare I say – not all there. I didn’t need medicine to help me. I just needed to buck up and stop worrying so much. And then when I realized deep down that I did need medicine to help with my worrying problem, I started worrying even more about the stigma attached to it. Worrying about what my husband would think. What my friends would think.

About a month later, all I have to say is that I didn’t realize how unhappy my anxiety made me until it was gone. So many fears are just…gone. I sleep at night. My husband is in awe of how much I don’t worry about one or the other of us dying. I have never felt so free.

If this is you, don’t tell yourself it is just a funk, or that you need to “just stop worrying.” Get the help that you need and deserve. You are destined for greater things than this. Make no mistake: accepting anxiety as your fate, or as a personality quirk, can only harm you. It is nothing but a hindrance between you and the ones that love you, and most importantly, our magnificent Creator. Banish it from your mind, from your soul, from your life. You won’t be sorry.

Generalized anxiety disorder

Previous Post

October 21, 2013

Pain in the Pew

Next Post

November 19, 2013 Broken

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anxiety Best of Messy Grace Current Events Depression Faith Family Featured Fiction lgbtq Marriage Mental Health Messy Grace Millennials Parenting Recovery Recovery from a Suicide Attempt Recovery from Abuse Recovery from Porn Addiction Religious Recovery Self Care The Struggle With Church This is My Story (series) Uncategorized Writing Help

Select a Month January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 June 2015 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 June 2013 April 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 September 2011 August 2011 May 2011 July 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "My soul magnifies the Lord"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Mary Deborah Hannah Elizabeth