“On paper you have all the symptoms of ADD, but the good news is you don’t. In fact you actually have an above average IQ, your brain is just fine. “
” I don’t understand, what’s wrong with me?”
” You just have anxiety.”
Good news? The words hit me like ice being poured over my head- cold numbness through my hands and finger tips, as I felt every ounce of hope slowly leave my body. I cried that night. I cried the next day on my way to work, and on my way home. I cried a lot.
3 years ago I was diagnosed with anxiety – and this is my story.
I couldn’t function. Everything had fallen perfectly into place, and yet I couldn’t seem to find anything. I had my dream job, in my dream city, in a decent apartment, close to my family. I had spent every waking moment of my life working to get here. So what was wrong?
I couldn’t function. I was exhausted. I would walk into a room to do something. Why did I come in here? Why is this here? I have to put it away. Why is this dirty? I must clean it. I still have to send that email. Now why am I in this other room? I came here for something. Those papers need to be graded. That laundry needs to be done. I still have to send that email. I’m thirsty. Why am I in the kitchen? Those dishes have to be done. I still have to grade those papers. Oh right don’t forget that email. What did I come in here for? I still haven’t sent that email.
I spent my life constantly doing things… never getting anything done. A pop up list in my head constantly running through all the things I had to do, then disappearing. A cruel mental game of endless Whack – A – Mole.
Before I’d had friends to grade papers with, roommates to help me remember, people to keep me accountable. I was alone now. Just the thoughts, just the list to keep me company. And of course – no one could know how inadequate I really was. EVER. Look perfect on the outside that’s the goal.
I had friends with ADD, family members. I knew what it looked like. I figured I’d get tested. We tested for 4 hours. I would get medication – like everyone else, I would finally have the life I deserved, the one that would allow me to FINALLY focus. I could finally be the friend, teacher, co- worker, family member I always wanted to be. Yes. This was the answer.
I didn’t have it. My magical solution vaporized the second I got that awful call. Anxiety- there was no hope. Anxiety was just the inability to cope with stress. You can’t fix that – it’s not a real thing, just a lack of strength and mental energy. I was doomed to my habits forever.
I made 2 weak attempts to find a therapist- none of it panned out. I resolved to come to terms with the fact that I was unfixable, cursed with the inexhaustible, unending mental list and fear of failing. I had always been this way- I could, and would survive being this way forever.
I know what you’re thinking. This is the girl that worked two jobs to get to Paris, who studied abroad, who taught abroad, who traveled Europe by herself, she got a job in one of the best districts in the state, she got straight A’s throughout college. She performed on speech team and on the color guard in high school in front of hundreds of people. She coaches. I’ve seen her. She’s fearless. She doesn’t have anxiety.
That girl – She’s highly extroverted. She loves people and will do anything for them. But she feels guilty for all that she can’t give because in her mind she just can’t ever seem to get it all together.
I had a small panic attack at the end of my first school year. God gave me a friend who got me through it, I love her so much to this day for being there for me. It was a wake up call. Get a therapist. I got one.
One of two things happens when someone is diagnosed with something, and sometimes maybe two things happen. Sometimes with a diagnosis you get a cure. Other times you get a label. Often you probably get both.
I got a label. The more I wrestled with anxiety the more it came to define me. I got a lot of out therapy, I learned a lot about myself. But internally I think I started to contribute everything I didn’t like about myself to fear, and the disorder. I learned that I wasn’t unfixable. I learned that anxiety wasn’t just being inadequate. I needed that. But the thing about anxiety, is it’s more than just being afraid once in awhile. People think of fear like standing on the edge of a cliff ready to dive into the water below. If you could just muster up enough strength to dive you leave the cliff behind, and find joy in the plunge. The thing about anxiety is – the fear doesn’t stay on the top of the cliff once your toes have left it. It’s the bathing suit you wear in the water. It follows you everywhere.
Then I decided to do something most people would find scary. I signed up for the World Race. The journey, the trip itself doesn’t scare me much. I’ve traveled. I’m excited for that.
But I had to fundraise. I had to ask strangers for money. I had to ask strangers and friends and family to believe in me enough to put a financial stake in myself and what I was doing (or so I thought at the time). I was awed and amazed and overwhelmed with gratitude whenever anyone gave no matter the amount. But I was petrified of the rejection, petrified enough that even though God still pulled through when I procrastinated, I avoided it like it was the plague.
I sat down at my Culver’s fundraiser a few weeks ago. I had failed. It was not the first time I had purposely set myself up for failure. It was better to fail because I hadn’t really tried, than to have tried really hard and failed. Because that was even worse. Something had to change.
I have been around MANY loving people this past year. God blessed me with a WONDERFUL woman’s bible study. They empowered me, the prayed over me, they inspired me. They also reminded me that my fear was not from God. They encouraged me to be fearless. But as much as I appreciated the reminders, and I knew what they were saying was biblical and true- I was frustrated.
I prayed, and prayed and prayed. I read. I tried to fill myself up so much that I could just push out all the fear inside of me. No room here! Sorry! Goodbye! Why wouldn’t God take this away? WHY? If it was not from him and was keeping me from doing His work properly WHY did I still have this?
After that fundraiser I read the God Ask. Two things happened. I began to really question and wrestle with who I was and what I was doing. The back of the book is filled with lists I wrote out of who I think God is, who I think I am, who do I want to be, what do I want to do, what does HE want me to do, and lastly…
WHO does HE want me to be? I came up…… blank. No answers from heaven. A blank white whiteboard on the subject of my specific and unique identity in Christ. – Thanks God.
I kept reading. “99% percent of you reading this book are afraid of fundraising, the other 1%- you’re lying to yourselves”. Phew, I wasn’t the only one. Apparently this was normal…
And then I got to the plan, the “here’s how to hit the ground running the way God wants you to” part. It felt like a scarf wrapped around my neck. Someone pulling either end. Tighter, tighter, tighter. I couldn’t breathe.
And then I got to a section- couldn’t tell you which one, that talked about courage.
Raise your hand if you ever grew up a Harry Potter or Hunger Games fan or read one of those books that made you ridiculously jealous of how courageous the heroes and heroines were. I was.
Our pastor at our church had just gotten done talking about how joy wasn’t the absence of sorrow, peace wasn’t the absence of conflict. And here it was in this book – courage was not the absence of fear, but rather being absolutely petrified shaking in your boots and marching forward anyway. Trusting solely on God to get you where you needed to go. I had spend months if not years beating myself up for not being more fearless.
We spend our lives searching for love, joy, peace, courage.
How can we ever find these things, if we only ever seek them in the absence of the things that make us so fundamentally human?
It hit me like a brick smacking the side of my head. WHO does God want me to be? What does God want me to be – the empty list had one word. This is a word that will carry me through the Race, and probably throughout the rest of my life. One word is written on that list, covering all the others I tried to come up with on my own, in bright pink pen.
God won’t take my fear away. My fear is my cross. He wants me to pick it up. He wants me to walk through it. He want’s me to come out on the other side. Because he could make me fearless, but his plans are different. By walking through my fear – I get to come out courageous. And the coolest part is that the more afraid I am, the more courageous I become. The old adage is wrong “there’s nothing to fear but fear itself”. I don’t have to be afraid of my fear, or worry that it will ruin my life.
Anxiety will not define me. Courage will.
In a few minutes I’m going to post this blog on social media. My parents, friends, family, strangers, fellow world racers are all going to see it. They’re all going to know. I am afraid of that, and I remind myself that in doing it anyway – God will make me courageous.
But there’s one more thing. I dedicate this trip to all of you who know what it’s like to spend your life, and your sleepless nights with the list. Who never feel like you’re enough. Who know what it’s like to not be able to drink coffee because you get so anxious, who know what it’s like to feel like you’re always afraid even when you rationally know that there is nothing to fear. For those of you who have ever had your body break out in hives during a panic attack, who know the feeling of thinking your throat is closing up because you are so scared, who know the frustration of feeling like you will never get out.
I want you to know that you CAN be courageous too. You may never be fearless. You might have to accept that. But you can be courageous. And without that fear, you could never be courageous at all. Because the definition of courage is doing something you are damn scared of.
And I vow from this day forward to be an example of that. To be living proof of the courage God blesses us with. That these next 11 months of my life will be a transparent story of where fear and anxiety meet courage. I am blessed to have many people to lean on, I’ll fall they’ll pick me up. But either way, from this day forward I set out to be –
Courageous in Christ.
