If anxiety only had a look, what would it look like.

I shared with my daughter-in-law the other day that earlier in the evening I was feeling so anxious. It wasn’t until we went outside that I felt more at ease. She said she hadn’t noticed. I had just kept with the conversations and stayed busy as I have learned to cope through it. My husband though, usually can pick up on my symptoms. He’s witnessed my anxiety attacks. He says that I talk faster or sometimes I have “short” replies. It all depends on the situation and on how anxious I may feel at that moment.

If only anxiety had a “look”, maybe then more would be understanding and know what to do to help someone when they are anxious or feeling like an attack is coming.

I have heard people talk about someone with anxiety and they just cannot understand why those that suffer from it cannot seem to choose when and how to control it. Some think it is something that can be turned off just as easily as it comes on. I mean you can have anxiety, but you should be able to control when and how it affects you. If only.

I wish.

I get it. It can inconvenience others. Especially if the person with anxiety is not able to do their job that day and someone else must fill in or a child’s parent is not at their sporting events because crowds are just too much for them.

Just know it’s not that they want to live like this.

When you do not live with anxiety it is not easy to understand the helplessness people feel and how ill and incapacitated, they can become. Just everyday events can be a challenge.

In some situations, anxiety is good and helps us to be on our toes. Fight or flight. We all have experienced momentary anxiousness at one time or another. It may have been something that we have felt while we were getting buckled in for a wild carnival ride at the county fair or the first time parasailing or flying in a plane. Anxiety stems from fear and once it burrows in, it is hard to shake, especially when the ride doesn’t come to an end.

It just keeps building, day by day, week by week and month by month, until one moment it just hits. It can cause all kinds of symptoms.

There are some days you get up and just go through the motions not wanting to let anyone down, you push through, even if you are running to the bathroom constantly because your nerves are screaming from the inside and then there are days that you just can’t move. You cry unconsolably. There is nothing anyone can really do to help you.

Anxiety made my heart pound hard, and it would race, it made my breathing shallower and faster, I would have tingling and heat in my stomach and chest, my arms would feel useless and limp. I would sometimes think I was dying. Uncontrollable feeling of doom. Dissociated from reality and kind of an out of body sense.

Anxiety is a mental illness. Anxiety disorders can be disabling. Anxiety can steal your life.

I dealt with anxiety after my mother-in-law had passed. After her passing, it was the first time in my life that someone that I had loved and was very close to had died. I missed her. I got to the point with my anxiety that my husband and I could not go out on a date or go anywhere away from our home, especially without our children. We’d sometimes get a babysitter lined up and would only go 7 miles, then have to turn around and return home. I could go to work and do our daily routine, but any curve, including a school program during the workday in which took me away from my norm, my “safe” place, would sometimes send me close to the edge. The only thing that would get me through was seeing my child’s face while he shared his poster, sang his song, or whatever it may have been.

I always had to keep myself in check and focus on my surroundings and my boys and not on how hot my stomach felt or how my heart was pounding so hard in my chest that all I could hear was my heartbeat in my ears. I started on Xanax and counseling, as my husband not only lost his mother, but he was also missing his wife.

Over time, I used the skills that I had learned and took baby steps, we were able to go out for dinner, not a dinner and a movie because that would be too much and not with another couple because that would be over stimulating from conversation. Crazy, I know. Eventually, I was able to go with my husband and boys on short trips, as getting on the interstate with my “every things”, was just too much, as my fears and conspiracies in my head could be very loud.

After losing my mother-in-law, I sensed the loss so deeply and had so much fear of my children experiencing that kind of loss if they were to lose my husband or myself, I felt my anxiety stemmed from me wanting to keep them safe from that, so staying home was the easiest way for a mother to do just that.

 Although, I believed in God and I trusted in Him, my fear and anxiety of that deep sadness from a loss was not comforted. I knew she was in a good place, that was not my concern. My concern was that there was nothing that took away the pain and the “missing” that those left behind are left with and are to live out the remainder of their lives enduring that. In this case, it was us. So unfair.

As time went by and life, I eventually was able to plan family vacations, which involved flying all of us to a destination. The week and especially the night before leaving was horrible. I would spend the whole night pacing the floor, crying and beating myself up for planning such a trip and worrying about leaving our home, taking our children away from our security. It was like I had to go through this drama followed by me persistently praying, in which I eventually would sleep. The next day I would get up and get the boys ready, help my husband pack the car and as soon as we were on the plane, I was focused on my family and ready to enjoy our adventure.

I know He listened to me and calmed me.

I had years of having a little anxiety with outings, trips, sporting events and more, I learned that if I went to something very stimulating as a baseball, basketball tournament, or a wrestling event, I’d have to give myself a day or two to recuperate, it was just a given. The same went with traveling for work or with friends. I would most of the time have to have my own hotel room so that I could allow myself the “down time” that I needed to cope. I once went to a concert and ended up having to leave it because our seats were in the “sky high club” and was packed. Too much.

Years had passed without having a panic attack, although I could feel it growing over time.

My anxiety intensified right before Memorial weekend. There were many factors that took place up to this point. One factor was having a son serving in the military and the grueling awareness of what Memorial weekend is truly about, hit hard. Also, my two other boys and my husband were preparing and getting ready to leave for a two-day race for sprint cars, in which the last race I had witnessed my son flipping in the air in his car and landing very abruptly, so not something a mother feels good about. It was also the time of the George Floyd murder and destruction of our American monuments and cities. Not to mention, we were also dealing with Covid policies, and I was in a bad place with my past employment. There was so much chaos everywhere.

It was so much weight to carry.

I started on Zoloft and was prescribed Xanax, as well. I also started counseling again. I was on a moderate dose and still had a great deal of anxiety. Taking the dose, I was on though, I experienced involuntary twitching, especially in my fingers, so did not really want to increase. It took months for my nerves to calm and for the serotonin levels to finally get to where they needed to be to help me live again.

During my years before Zoloft, I kept Isaiah 41:10 very close to my heart. It was written on a card in my purse and in my suitcase, as well as highlighted in my bible on my nightstand next to my bed. It was a verse I kept very close to my heart. Deep down, I have always felt I had maybe failed Him because I can’t tell you how many times I heard and was told that fear and anxiety come from my lack in my faith of God.

I never stopped believing. My faith never wavered. I know from scripture that there is grace for the anxious. I am working on my anxiety and on a better me, even if that is still just going to the store on non-busy hours, shopping on my own terms, and only accepting invites that do not include crowds and a lot of stimulation, it is still a win for me.

I am shielding myself and surrounding myself with only those that I love and love me. The circle is small, but it is so good.

If you invite me to something or see me out, just know that it was not easy for me to be where I am and send me your prayers. The power of prayer is so important.

Anxiety may not look like something, but to me, it is a “beast”.

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