the evolution of my worry
April 5, 2019
So many people struggle with depression and/or anxiety. If I don't end up talking about coping tools particular to stress, worry, racing thoughts, with my clients, it's an off week.
I didn't understand my own anxiety as such until it had mutated into something stronger, and manifesting in ways I had not experienced before. It wasn't until I started working as a therapist that I even had an anxiety attack. And when it did finally happen, I did feel like I was going to die, even though outwardly I was still maintaining some composure. I remember just talking about what I was feeling. My arms felt like they were heavy but numb. My chest hurt, felt tight, felt like I couldn't take a proper breath. At one point, my vision began to go to that tunnel vision that, the kind I'd gotten right before I'd fainted, the few times I'd fainted in my life.
I followed the advice of the doctor on duty at the center, and went to the ER. I felt so foolish having my boss drive me, who at that point was promoted to the director. The director, taking time out of her day to take one of her employees, a therapist no-less, who should understand what to do when having an anxiety attack, to the emergency room, where I sat in a wheel-chair for four hours before just deciding to go home, because now I was humiliated that it was just anxiety.
I do remember thinking, "And there are people who have these frequently?" and what a nightmare that must be.
When I was eight years old or so, I remember being awake at night, crying in the living room of my grandparents' house. My aunt heard me crying, and she came down to see what was wrong. I had been thinking about my parents dying. The thought was overwhelming. It still is (I'm tearing up as I type, having lost one parent and having one who is now retired). I don't remember the details of how my aunt comforted me. I know she sat and talked with me. I know I continued to cry for a bit.
That may have been after my cat, Peaches, had to be put down. She'd been hit by a car, and the damage to her little cat body was extensive. She'd need surgeries, multiple, and there was no guarantee they would work to save her quality of life. I was so upset that my parents had chosen to have her put down. One of the first lessons about money and death for me. So naturally my mind began thinking about how things die. All living things die. And it was only a matter of time before my parents died too.
It wasn't the idea of being orphaned, simply how much I would miss them, because of how much I loved them, and felt loved by them. That moment as a child I began to conceptualize grief was probably about the time I learned how to worry.
It stayed with me as I got older. Not always interfering, but sometimes making it harder to sleep. But this is how I learned to give my mind something to focus on. I also remember staring for close to a half hour as what I thought was a snake in the middle of my bedroom floor. When I finally had the courage to turn on the light, it was just a sock, just the shadows making things look like things they weren't. My eye fixed, body paralyzed, caught up in that momentary terror, fear that somehow a snake had gotten into my room, and was just waiting to get me.
As I got older still that worry began to become more self-conscious. I heard things that were never said, imagined opinions that weren't shared or implied, based on my own internal bully reminding me I was not good enough, never good enough. Years later, when I realized how much of what I perceived about others' opinion of me came from my own mind--that was a breakthrough. It would be years later still until I learned the term "negative self talk."
Add to this the tension in the household. Parents' marriage not so great, because the money isn't so great, and it's a struggle raising two girls. My mom frustrated with my dad's habits. My father isolated to different parts of the house where he could smoke. Discreet and infrequent disagreements eventually became obvious fights, and I knew my mom was angry when she swore. And it was one of the few times I remember my dad raising his voice at a person (typically it was hockey or video games). I have memories of my mother throwing things across our bedroom, when Grace and I still shared a room. My mom was yelling and crying sort of, and we were just upset in the doorway watching her fling our things. She threw a little Greek doll that belonged to Grace. We didn't really play with them, because they were porcelain. And my mom hurtled Grace's across the room, and I heard it crack. I don't remember if my mom stopped throwing things then. If she heard the crack and checked herself. But it was clear my mom was angry about how things were, and I really didn't appreciate the pressure she put on me. It would later be reinforcement for that feeling of not good enough. Never enough.
High school and college were not difficult for me. What was always difficult for me was working. I had already constructed a narrative about what life was like for grown-ups. It was stressing about money. It was having to make a lot of foods. It was having to go to a place every day, like school, but where you had to do things for money. My mom had been lucky; she found and pursued a career surrounding something she was passionate about. My father had become a painter, because there were other Greek men in his community who were established as painters, and rather than going to school, he chose that career path. But I remember my mother complaining that he wasn't earning enough money. And it seemed my dad was doing the best he could. But it wasn't enough.
So I had this picture of adulthood, and I had realized I had a bit of a peter-pan complex by the time I was 16, and had to get my first job. I know some kids were excited to be about earning money. But I wasn't. It felt like from that moment on, I had to start worrying about adult things. Money. Sex. Career. Family. I didn't want any part of it. But I did get a job with my cousin, Angel, as an usher at a concert venue. I wore the wrong shoes initially, but it was a good gig otherwise. The second job I had was as a floater in a department store, and for many reasons which became more clear to me over time, that job was absolute hell except for the one summer re-tagging the entire store, when I got to spend all day with a group of girls my age, a couple of whom already had kids. It was so sweet. They were so kind, and I enjoyed getting to share that time with them. But my experiences with work didn't get much better. Next was hostess. I got sexually harassed at that job, and learned first-hand about how many people were fucked up on something just to get through the day. There were some positive people there. But it was still such a hot mess of food, drugs, attitudes, and hustle. I tried coke during that job. It was bad coke, which made me puke, and then kept me from sleeping, so that was really why I never had a coke problem.
But my friends had some drug problems. Those evolved too for some people. I think part of why I hate the iconic family tv sitcom from the 90s is because while those teenagers were dealing with what they seemed to present as normal problems, my friends were being raped. My friends were trying heroin. My friends were already dying. Sometimes it was the rare reason like childhood cancer, like with my friend Christina from middle school. But I had experienced my share of death by the time I finished high school. My cousin hung himself when I was 17. My father died when I was 26. My grandfather, yaya, aunt, grandmother.
I think death makes most people more aware of mortality. Someone dies and people are all "you never know what day is your last." "Life is short."
On one hand, death is the last thing that makes me anxious. So why the fear when my body feels like it might die? Isn't there a contradiction there?
Or is it that something like worry had the power to put my body into that state. Something born of my own mind has the power to shut my body down like that.
Sometimes I feel frustrated when people talk about changing life to be better. As if it's a snap of the fingers. It has taken me years. I keep trying. I keep doing. I keep working. But a part of me still feels I am just going through the motions. I know I have these unique relationships, both with my clients and my friends. But sometimes I feel just as uncertain as I did out of high school. I could say I wish I had worked more jobs, tried more skills before going to college. College just helped give my brain more to think about. Lots of it good. But you know what they say about ignorance and bliss. So the information I accumulated in a lot of ways just made it busier inside my mind. So many associations. So many connections, and patterns between my life, the stories I'd lived and the stories I was learning about.
I'm rambling at this point. I just don't want to be doing what I'm doing, and I'm afraid that I won't be able to change it the way I'm hoping too. I don't know how to save any money, and if I have to take a class, I don't know how I'm going to afford it. I don't care about learning a bunch of trainings that don't help me with what I want to do, and I feel like what I want to do is not just based on the formula they provided for us in graduate school, and it's also not just what I'm supposed to do for the insurance companies. I want to talk with people. Be real. Listen, yes, but also join them in being vulnerable. Give them that space to explore, then say, hey you're not alone because I'm still exploring too, and these are also things I deal with, and these are also things sometimes I still struggle with. But we are here, and we're doing it, and seeing as many tomorrows as our time permits. And that is enough.
So many people struggle with depression and/or anxiety. If I don't end up talking about coping tools particular to stress, worry, racing thoughts, with my clients, it's an off week.
I didn't understand my own anxiety as such until it had mutated into something stronger, and manifesting in ways I had not experienced before. It wasn't until I started working as a therapist that I even had an anxiety attack. And when it did finally happen, I did feel like I was going to die, even though outwardly I was still maintaining some composure. I remember just talking about what I was feeling. My arms felt like they were heavy but numb. My chest hurt, felt tight, felt like I couldn't take a proper breath. At one point, my vision began to go to that tunnel vision that, the kind I'd gotten right before I'd fainted, the few times I'd fainted in my life.
I followed the advice of the doctor on duty at the center, and went to the ER. I felt so foolish having my boss drive me, who at that point was promoted to the director. The director, taking time out of her day to take one of her employees, a therapist no-less, who should understand what to do when having an anxiety attack, to the emergency room, where I sat in a wheel-chair for four hours before just deciding to go home, because now I was humiliated that it was just anxiety.
I do remember thinking, "And there are people who have these frequently?" and what a nightmare that must be.
When I was eight years old or so, I remember being awake at night, crying in the living room of my grandparents' house. My aunt heard me crying, and she came down to see what was wrong. I had been thinking about my parents dying. The thought was overwhelming. It still is (I'm tearing up as I type, having lost one parent and having one who is now retired). I don't remember the details of how my aunt comforted me. I know she sat and talked with me. I know I continued to cry for a bit.
That may have been after my cat, Peaches, had to be put down. She'd been hit by a car, and the damage to her little cat body was extensive. She'd need surgeries, multiple, and there was no guarantee they would work to save her quality of life. I was so upset that my parents had chosen to have her put down. One of the first lessons about money and death for me. So naturally my mind began thinking about how things die. All living things die. And it was only a matter of time before my parents died too.
It wasn't the idea of being orphaned, simply how much I would miss them, because of how much I loved them, and felt loved by them. That moment as a child I began to conceptualize grief was probably about the time I learned how to worry.
It stayed with me as I got older. Not always interfering, but sometimes making it harder to sleep. But this is how I learned to give my mind something to focus on. I also remember staring for close to a half hour as what I thought was a snake in the middle of my bedroom floor. When I finally had the courage to turn on the light, it was just a sock, just the shadows making things look like things they weren't. My eye fixed, body paralyzed, caught up in that momentary terror, fear that somehow a snake had gotten into my room, and was just waiting to get me.
As I got older still that worry began to become more self-conscious. I heard things that were never said, imagined opinions that weren't shared or implied, based on my own internal bully reminding me I was not good enough, never good enough. Years later, when I realized how much of what I perceived about others' opinion of me came from my own mind--that was a breakthrough. It would be years later still until I learned the term "negative self talk."
Add to this the tension in the household. Parents' marriage not so great, because the money isn't so great, and it's a struggle raising two girls. My mom frustrated with my dad's habits. My father isolated to different parts of the house where he could smoke. Discreet and infrequent disagreements eventually became obvious fights, and I knew my mom was angry when she swore. And it was one of the few times I remember my dad raising his voice at a person (typically it was hockey or video games). I have memories of my mother throwing things across our bedroom, when Grace and I still shared a room. My mom was yelling and crying sort of, and we were just upset in the doorway watching her fling our things. She threw a little Greek doll that belonged to Grace. We didn't really play with them, because they were porcelain. And my mom hurtled Grace's across the room, and I heard it crack. I don't remember if my mom stopped throwing things then. If she heard the crack and checked herself. But it was clear my mom was angry about how things were, and I really didn't appreciate the pressure she put on me. It would later be reinforcement for that feeling of not good enough. Never enough.
High school and college were not difficult for me. What was always difficult for me was working. I had already constructed a narrative about what life was like for grown-ups. It was stressing about money. It was having to make a lot of foods. It was having to go to a place every day, like school, but where you had to do things for money. My mom had been lucky; she found and pursued a career surrounding something she was passionate about. My father had become a painter, because there were other Greek men in his community who were established as painters, and rather than going to school, he chose that career path. But I remember my mother complaining that he wasn't earning enough money. And it seemed my dad was doing the best he could. But it wasn't enough.
So I had this picture of adulthood, and I had realized I had a bit of a peter-pan complex by the time I was 16, and had to get my first job. I know some kids were excited to be about earning money. But I wasn't. It felt like from that moment on, I had to start worrying about adult things. Money. Sex. Career. Family. I didn't want any part of it. But I did get a job with my cousin, Angel, as an usher at a concert venue. I wore the wrong shoes initially, but it was a good gig otherwise. The second job I had was as a floater in a department store, and for many reasons which became more clear to me over time, that job was absolute hell except for the one summer re-tagging the entire store, when I got to spend all day with a group of girls my age, a couple of whom already had kids. It was so sweet. They were so kind, and I enjoyed getting to share that time with them. But my experiences with work didn't get much better. Next was hostess. I got sexually harassed at that job, and learned first-hand about how many people were fucked up on something just to get through the day. There were some positive people there. But it was still such a hot mess of food, drugs, attitudes, and hustle. I tried coke during that job. It was bad coke, which made me puke, and then kept me from sleeping, so that was really why I never had a coke problem.
But my friends had some drug problems. Those evolved too for some people. I think part of why I hate the iconic family tv sitcom from the 90s is because while those teenagers were dealing with what they seemed to present as normal problems, my friends were being raped. My friends were trying heroin. My friends were already dying. Sometimes it was the rare reason like childhood cancer, like with my friend Christina from middle school. But I had experienced my share of death by the time I finished high school. My cousin hung himself when I was 17. My father died when I was 26. My grandfather, yaya, aunt, grandmother.
I think death makes most people more aware of mortality. Someone dies and people are all "you never know what day is your last." "Life is short."
On one hand, death is the last thing that makes me anxious. So why the fear when my body feels like it might die? Isn't there a contradiction there?
Or is it that something like worry had the power to put my body into that state. Something born of my own mind has the power to shut my body down like that.
Sometimes I feel frustrated when people talk about changing life to be better. As if it's a snap of the fingers. It has taken me years. I keep trying. I keep doing. I keep working. But a part of me still feels I am just going through the motions. I know I have these unique relationships, both with my clients and my friends. But sometimes I feel just as uncertain as I did out of high school. I could say I wish I had worked more jobs, tried more skills before going to college. College just helped give my brain more to think about. Lots of it good. But you know what they say about ignorance and bliss. So the information I accumulated in a lot of ways just made it busier inside my mind. So many associations. So many connections, and patterns between my life, the stories I'd lived and the stories I was learning about.
I'm rambling at this point. I just don't want to be doing what I'm doing, and I'm afraid that I won't be able to change it the way I'm hoping too. I don't know how to save any money, and if I have to take a class, I don't know how I'm going to afford it. I don't care about learning a bunch of trainings that don't help me with what I want to do, and I feel like what I want to do is not just based on the formula they provided for us in graduate school, and it's also not just what I'm supposed to do for the insurance companies. I want to talk with people. Be real. Listen, yes, but also join them in being vulnerable. Give them that space to explore, then say, hey you're not alone because I'm still exploring too, and these are also things I deal with, and these are also things sometimes I still struggle with. But we are here, and we're doing it, and seeing as many tomorrows as our time permits. And that is enough.
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