Befriending My Anxiety

On living life afraid

Photo by Briana Graham on Unsplash

I’m four-years-old playing at my preschool friend’s house. After an afternoon filled with Barbies and Polly Pockets, soccer and tag, she wanders into the kitchen to grab us a snack, leaving me alone with her two older brothers in the living room. An only child (at the time) who has never spent any significant time around boys, especially not older ones, terror immediately takes over my every thought. I don’t know how to interact with these formidable creatures¹. I am in a strange house. My friend has left me to fend for myself. This is a nightmare.

I take the only logical step and hide behind the La-Z-Boy chair in the corner, willing myself to become invisible until she comes back. She returns and calls my name quizzically, wondering where I have gone. I reluctantly, yet gratefully, emerge from my hiding spot, embarrassed over my fear but appreciative of her presence once again. For the rest of my life, any time I attend a social gathering where I know only one person, I will resist the urge to take this same action whenever they leave me to use the restroom or refill their drink or heaven forbid, talk to someone else.

****

I’m walking through the therapy gym of the rehabilitation center where I work as a speech therapist, co-treating a patient with my work-friend and physical therapist. As she leads our patient through an obstacle course fit for an octogenarian, I’m guiding her through the memory, problem solving, and sequencing strategies required to complete the task at hand. When she sits down on the wooden bench for a quick break and sip of water, our conversation leads my friend to comment on my easy going nature. I stare back at her blankly.

“Me? Easy going? That could not be further from the truth,” I reply incredulously.

“Really? It just seems like nothing rattles you,” she retorts, equally incredulous.

“Oh, I’m very rattled. All the time,” I assure her.

What my face hides are the heart palpitations and racing thoughts, which make it nearly impossible to do my job every day. What she can’t sense is the sinking feeling inside of my chest, an anchor of dread, each morning when the day’s wildly variable schedule comes through. What is imperceptible to her is the imposter syndrome I battle every hour of the day—doubting my qualifications, second guessing each decision, and knowing in my gut I will be outed as a fraud at any second.

This is not the first, nor the last, time someone will comment on my breezy persona. It is not the first, nor the last, time I will congratulate, yet chide myself for projecting confidence while inwardly falling apart.

****

I’m meeting friends for dinner in Downtown Houston on a sweltering August night. After circling the block several times, a parallel parking spot materializes before my eyes. I spot a friend standing nearby and roll down my window to confirm I can actually park here, as the signage is confusing.

She agrees it seems fine, so I maneuver my Jeep into the space. As I emerge from the car, my friend and I continue to deliberate the likelihood of me getting towed, until a man walks by and overhears our conversation. He tells us he works for the city and assures me my car will be safe.

“I’m holding you accountable if I get towed”, I joke as my friend and I round the corner and head into the restaurant where the rest of our group awaits.

Minutes later, my sister calls me with an update on her sorority recruitment experience, so I step away from the table and into the lobby where we can chat briefly. In the middle of our conversation, the same man who promised my car would not be towed pokes his head through the door. Both of our eyebrows raise in surprise.

“I can’t believe I found you!”, he exclaims. “I just talked with my manager and it turns out I gave you bad information, you actually can’t park in that spot. But I found a place you can park if you want to move your car.”

In my haste and bewilderment, I grab my keys from the table where my friends are seated and quickly mouth that I’m going to move my car, that I’ll be right back. I tell my sister we’ll have to talk more later and trot off behind this kind stranger.

“Thanks so much for coming to find me,” I effuse with gratitude.

“Of course. I would’ve felt really bad if you had gotten towed because of me.”

We make our way to my car, where the man attempts to motion where I can re-park, but I don’t understand his directions.

“If you want, I can just ride with you and show you the way, that would probably be easier,” he suggests.

Ignoring every instinct I have which tells me this is not smart and not wanting fear to get the best of me, I agree.

I let a strange man into my car while I am alone².

Immediately, regret and unease inflate within me like helium in a balloon.

I think back to every episode of Oprah I watched as a teenager, racking my brain for what to do in an attempted kidnapping situation³. One piece of advice rises to the surface of my memory—humanize yourself and make it obvious how many people love you and would come looking for you if you disappeared.

As the stranger directs me from the passenger seat—left, right, and left again—I blabber on and on about the friends waiting for me at the restaurant, the sister whose phone call I just ended, the husband waiting for me at home. I talk and talk and talk, channeling the story I remember of a girl who, during an abduction, blabbed so much her assailant became annoyed and let her go.

Within minutes, we arrive at the promised parking spot, unscathed. We exit the car and I breathe a shaky sigh of relief over this man truly just being a Good Samaritan without sinister motives. But the rest of the night, what I can’t shake is my imagination replaying the scene over and over again in my mind with all the ways the story could have ended differently.

Because anxiety is my first nature, I often balk and fight back by acting impulsively. Recklessly. In an effort to prove I am not scared all the time, I find myself ignoring true warning signs of danger. This time my actions didn’t result in disaster, but what about the next time?

****

I’m a new mom whose husband has earned a work trip to the Dominican Republic and for the first time in his career, he gets to bring his wife. As his wife, I am over the moon about the prospect of this trip. I order tropical dresses from Nuuly. I pack an entire bag full of books, severely overestimating how much time I’ll spend reading. I dream of nights upon nights of uninterrupted sleep and the ability to lay in the sand for as long as I want without anyone needing me.

As a mom, however, I am terrified about the prospect of this trip. For starters, I have decided to fully wean my thirteen-month-old before leaving—the choice a messy tangle of liberation and heartbreak. I am also fighting flashbacks to the last time there was an ocean between me and the child I loved. I received news of how that child would be leaving me within a few days and I couldn’t close the miles between us fast enough.

My hormones and emotions are raging as I prepare to leave my daughter for four days, the longest we’ve ever been apart. And if those factors aren’t enough, she is in the middle of oral immunotherapy (OIT) for an inconclusive peanut allergy she may or may not have. Treatment includes giving her a small dose of peanut solution every day at the same time, slowly working our way up as her tolerance increases. The idea of passing this task on to someone else is daunting, to say the least.

“I think we should do a trial run of having her spend one night at my parents’ house before we go.”, I suggest, “That way if any kinks arise, we can work them out now instead of when we’re away.”

Everyone agrees and having a plan brings me a little more peace.

The night of the sleepover arrives and we take our baby to her grandparents’ house. As I begin talking through the instructions for how to give her daily OIT dosing, I feel my chest tighten as I sense my parents are not hanging on my every word, not taking this as seriously as I would like.

“And in the event she needs her Auvi-Q, here is how you use it”, I explain, pulling the demonstration medication out of her diaper bag.

I pull the cap off the top and the prerecorded voice verbalizes instructions of what to do next. Still not trusting my parents to know what to do, even though my dad is a retired paramedic, I feel I must walk through the entire demonstration, step-by-step.

“So when it tells you, you just inject it into her leg like this”, I say, slamming the canister onto my baby’s thigh as she begins to scream.

“Are you sure that was the demonstration one?”, Luke questions, alarmed.

“Yes! The noise just scared her!”

But when I pull the canister away, the needle mark in her leg says otherwise.

Immediately, panic floods my thoughts. I just punctured my daughter and unnecessarily injected her with allergic reaction medication when she was not, in fact, having an allergic reaction.

“What do I do? Do I need to call 911?”, I want to know, trying to keep the alarm and embarrassment out of my voice, but very much feeling both.

My dad advises I probably don’t need to involve 911 but can if it will put my mind at ease, so I do. I humbly explain to the operator how I accidentally injected my daughter with her Auvi-Q when she was totally fine. You can imagine the line of questioning that followed.

It’s times like these when it would behoove us as a society to go a step beyond a simple nonemergency 911 number and have a nonemergency medical team, who can come check things out when you’re pretty sure things are fine, but not one hundred percent sure. Because by the time all six paramedics drive to my parents cul-de-sac (yes, SIX), walk up their giant hill IN THE RAIN, and every neighbor texts or calls my mom asking what is happening, my daughter has calmed down enough where I know she is going to be okay.

The paramedics confirm my hypothesis, predicting she will probably have a burst of energy and then crash⁴, as epinephrine is really just adrenaline that buys you time for the paramedics to get there if you were actually having a breathing emergency.

But in my impetuousness, I do not know this. All I know is my anxiety over my parents’ perceived lack of attention, coupled with my unresolved issues around leaving, resulted in me stabbing my daughter with a medicated needle unnecessarily. All I know is I let my fear get the best of me and I needed reinforcements with better judgement than mine.

Months later, my mom will attend a city chamber event and run into some paramedics. She will make a joke about them probably being at her house when her daughter accidentally injected her own daughter with allergy medication and they will reply,

“We weren’t there, but everyone at the station has heard alllllllll about that story.”

****

I’m a 33-year-old woman who reflects on these incidents with shame and empathy in equal measure. I can easily transport back to those situations and understand my decision making while also judging the girl who operated out of so much fear.

At this age, I oscillate between keeping my anxiety under control and drowning in a sea of worry, panic, fear, and despair. My feelings waver as often as my three-year-old’s.

When I can take a step back and evaluate my anxiety for what it is, though, I see myself as Paul sees himself in 2 Corinthians 12 when he speaks about the “thorn in his side”.

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (verses 8-9)

Anxiety is the thorn in my side (one of many, if I’m honest) the Lord has not taken away. By accepting this thorn, I am trying to befriend my anxiety rather than outrun it. I am figuring out how to approach it with curiosity (what are you trying to tell me?) rather than disdain (get away from me). I am learning to rely on the grace of God and to recognize His power being made perfect in my weakness.

That grace applies to the weaknesses of my past selves, too, who didn’t have the tools then that I do now.

Grace for four-year-old Kelsey, who needed her fears validated and also the reminder that danger is not lurking around every corner⁵.

Grace for therapist Kelsey, who needed the real confidence (not the kind she projected) to leave the job that was sucking the life out of her⁶. Who didn’t know there were other options, options that don’t wake you up in a panic every morning and go to bed with dread every night. Who needed a nudge not to wait so long before taking her Wellbutrin again.

Grace for people-pleaser Kelsey, who needed emboldening to trust her instincts and the reminder that fear serves a purpose—it’s not something to always be pushed down or ignored.

Grace for new mom Kelsey, who needed someone to wrap their arms around her and validate every experience building up to the moment when she accidentally gave her baby an unnecessary prick. Who needed encouragement to start therapy sooner⁷.

While I can’t change the past, I can make strides towards a better future for myself and my daughter. As an already high achieving, only (hopefully one day oldest) daughter, the deck is stacked against her in favor of anxiety. I can’t mutate her genetics or take this burden away from her, but I can give her the tools for not letting her worries control her life. In leading by example, I hope to model that bravery isn’t the absence of fear, but showing up in spite of it. I hope when she looks back on my mothering, she sees these efforts. I hope she sees me working with and through my anxiety so she knows how, too.

1. These boys were perfectly harmless, albeit intimidating.

2. Yes, I’m screaming at me too.

3. Is it still called kidnapping when you’re an adult?

4. That is precisely what happened. One minute she was doing headstands in the living room, the next she was passed out.

5. The incident with the brothers was not an isolated one. My vivid imagination found danger everywhere I looked.

6. I have not always been in a position to make choices that allow my body and mind such a reprieve. Sometimes there isn’t an escape. When job prospects are bleak, when the baby won’t stop crying, when your body has been through trauma, sometimes the only way out is through.

7. This is not to say there were not people in my life trying to encourage me through each of these struggles, seeing a better way for me when I couldn’t see it for myself. This encouragement, validation, and emboldenment could only come from within.