Anxiety is a condition that effects countless individuals in a very profound way and I happen to be
one of those. I have suffered with extreme
anxiety for as long as I can remember. Even
as a very small child I can remember being fearful of everything. New experiences
and changes terrified me. My parents
were very young when they married and had children and I'm sure I made life
challenging, especially for my mother who was a stay at home mom. But back in those days, this was the sixties,
no one recognized or even knew what to do.
So I understand they did the best they could.
I remember my first
day of kindergarten. I was, without a
doubt, petrified. Everyone did their
best to prepare me for the inevitable, but I didn't want to leave home or my
mom. I cried so hard I was shuddering
and hiccupping, but I was very fortunate to have a kind and compassionate
teacher. She sat me nearby her desk and
made sure I was okay. I liked her
immediately. It was a hard day, but I
made it through and I was fine.
The school bus was a
whole other ordeal. Big, loud, noisy and
smelly. All the things that would set me
on edge. The second day of school my
poor mother could not get me on that bus to save her soul. I flipped out in the driveway and the bus
left me. My poor mother was fit to be
tied as she tossed me and my baby brother into the car and hurried off toward the
school.
The next day Dad
stayed home from work (huge deal for him to take time from his job) and he
walked my butt to the end of that driveway.
There was no messing with Dad. I
sobbed and sobbed, but I didn't say a word and I got on that bus because I knew
what would happen if I didn't. After
making it safely to school and back home again I realized that I was fine. The next day I got on the bus without a fuss. I'm sure my mother was greatly relieved.
Doctors, dentists,
you name it and I was terrified. I can remember
sitting in the waiting room with my little brother staring at me like I was
crazy. I was already crying when we left
the house so you can imagine what I was like by the time we got there. My mother, I'm sure, was embarrassed and
frustrated as she dragged me into the office and then had to sit there in front
of everyone while I wailed. Everything was
such an ordeal.
And if my
grandmother couldn't babysit, forget about it.
My parents were hard pressed to go anywhere. Babysitters?
Are you kidding? My mom's main
outlet as a stay at home mom was to go bowling.
She was really good at it too and belonged to a women's league. One day my grandma could babysit and mom
decided to try the daycare at the bowling alley. She pretty much knew it would be a disaster,
and it was. My brother was happy as a
clam and his big sister was at the door going ballistic. They finally called my mom to come down and
get me. I spent the entire time sitting
in a hard plastic seat watching the ladies bowl. I was happy because I could see my mom. She, on the other hand was furious. When we got home I was sent to my room for
the day. Not an uncommon punishment for
my constant "carrying on".
Kids with extreme
anxiety tend to eat weird things. I was
a fuzz eater. I picked all the fuzz off
of my teddy bear and ate it until she was bald.
Then I started to work on my brother's until he got wise and started
hiding him. I also managed to put large
bald spots on the pretty pink blanket my mother put on my bed. My best friend in grade school ate
crayons. We must have been drawn to each
other for what we recognized in one another.
Kindred spirits I suppose. She
tried not to eat crayons (can you imagine the temptation lying about everywhere
in a grade school?). I remember one day
on the playground I noticed she had green wax on her two front teeth. When I asked her about it she told me it was
medicine to help her stop eating crayons.
She was my best friend so I pretended to believe her. I'm pretty sure I was still eating fuzz at
the time.
As I grew older my
anxiety seemed to get better. Not that I
outgrew it, but after more experiences and understanding that not everything
that happens to us is bad I figured out ways to cope. To the best of my ability anyway. But having anxiety as your constant companion
takes its toll on a person. And of
course I grew up in a family and a time when you didn't talk about this kind of
stuff. It wasn't until I was in my early
forties that I finally mustered up the courage to get some professional help.
After a little more
than a year of some pretty intensive therapy I was able to gain a whole new
perspective and understanding of what anxiety is and how it affects me.
My condition is real, not just in my head, and I found out I could do
something about it. I'm not crazy, I don't
have "issues", it isn't my fault, it is not a weakness or an illness,
it just is. Simply put, it is how I'm
wired. It has been a process learning
how to handle my "complicated wiring" and I work on it every single day. Every day I start again.
In addition to
learning certain techniques and coping skills to better handle situations in my
life I also learned how to handle other people.
The odd thing is, that the people closest to you, the ones who should be
helping and protecting you are often times the ones that treat you the worst, at
least that was the case for me. It was a
hard one to come to grips with, even harder was to remove that element from my
life. It wasn't easy, in fact it was
probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but since I did it,
things have dramatically improved for me.
And while I feel
badly that I'm not able to endure having those people in my life, especially
since most of them are my family, I do not regret my decision. The people in my life now are the people that
belong here. I still have some family
members in my life - my aunts, my uncle and some cousins that love, care and
encourage me. Sadly my grandparents are
gone now, they were always wonderful.
But I am also hugely blessed to have the best group of friends a girl
could ever ask for. Talk about
protective and encouraging, holy cow! They are my family as well.
My reason for
sharing this with you is not to garner any type of sympathy. Quite the contrary. It is simply to share a little more about myself
and to tell you that no matter what obstacles we face we can learn to adapt. There are lots of things we can do. Plenty we can learn. And it is okay to ask for help when we need
it.
Life can be really difficult
sometimes, but at the end of the day it is still good. In fact,
it is very good. Take care my
friends and enjoy this blessed day.
