Mental Illness, part 2 Anxiety

This series of posts was prompted by a Relief Society meeting I attended. It was a great start for our sisters to talk a little bit about mental illness and I think some people got a lot out of it.

A month or so ago I was involved in a conversation at a friends house. Some of our friends had just departed and 4 of us remained. One person commented about someone who had just left. There was a little story with it and then the question, "Why would she do that, why would she say that?" It was kind of like a "how weird" statement. Well, I know my friend deals with anxiety and she is seeking methods, other than medicine, to manage it. I wanted to explain to them what it was like to deal with unmedicated anxiety. I wanted them to understand how you view the world when you're anxious and explain WHY she would say/do that. But, I didn't say anything and ever since then I've been bothered by it. I hope this post makes up for it.

Anxiety is not an uncommon emotion, however, when it starts to dominate your life, it is a problem. I feel qualified to comment on anxiety because I have experienced it. I hope to give you a little glimpse into what goes on in the mind of with someone with anxiety.

The first time I started experiencing anxiety was when I was working in a ridiculously stressful management position and teaching full time at a massage therapy school. Stress is often the trigger for a mental illness.(In fact, most people don't even think of anxiety as a mental illness, yet technically, it is classified as a mental illness.) I had no clue what was happening to me and neither did my husband. The playful, social me was being replaced by someone who cried a lot and was afraid. I didn't want to talk to anyone anymore. I wanted to say "yes" or "no" and be done. Any type of chaos was overstimulating and I wanted to flee. I felt panicked and desperate to escape. It was the first time I wanted to be invisible. I remember feeling so embarrassed by it too. (On a side note, I'm still trying to eliminate some of those behaviors.) I was aware of the changes in me and I knew I was acting differently. My friends weren't quite sure what was going on either. I remember getting to the point where I was terrified to teach a class/topic that I had taught a dozen times before. I remember driving to work one day crying because I was so overwhelmed. I begged the Ed Manager to teach my class for me. It was a really hard place to be in. I've never been the same since. Since LT and I didn't know I was experiencing anxiety, we didn't know what to do about it.

Now, one important thing to know about mental illness is it is exacerbated by disturbances in your sleep patterns. So when Olivia was a newborn and she wanted to be fed every 3 hours, my anxiety was just out of control. I went from wanting be invisible and being overwhelmed by everything to seeing every flaw or unmet expectation through a magnifying glass. EVERYTHING was huge, and I mean, literally everything. I was desperate to keep my life in some sort of order. I became ridiculous about keeping my house clean because I had a baby. The fact that I wasn't perfect in every little thing made me want to apologize to everyone because I thought they saw it too. And I thought they judged me harshly by it and wouldn't want to be my friend because of it. "I've got dirty dishes in the sink, I'm so sorry", "I haven't vacuumed today, I'm sorry", "I should have done this, I'm sorry"," I should have done that, I'm sorry." Truly, it was ridiculous. People didn't know why I was so weird. For a while, I didn't even know why I was so weird. ha ha ha

Back to my friend, because I had experienced anxiety of my own, I understood why she said what she said that day. I totally understood why she did what she did. I got it, I knew she wasn't weird. She just deals with anxiety, it's okay. I wish more than anything I had come to her "defense". I wish more than anything more people knew about mental illnesses and how they show up.

I want to illustrate my point by using pregnancy as a comparison. People GET pregnancy. Even if you've never been pregnant. It's seen and talked about enough that people get it. The way a woman acts when she is pregnant is "okay". We tolerate it. If she starts crying, or gains a ton of weight, or is on bed rest or so on and so on, it's okay, because she's pregnant. Pregnant people just do those things or experience them. People are more lenient with pregnant women.

"Why would she do that, why would she say that?"

"Ah, she's just pregnant. It's all those hormones."

People would rush to her aid if she needed it.

"She's on bed rest, I can help". Often times it is the women who have been on bed rest themselves that can really show and have compassion for her because they've experienced it too.

Why can't it be that way with someone with a mental illness?

"Why would she do that? Why would she say that?"

"Ah, she's just dealing with anxiety. She says that to make it feel smaller."

It may also be a way for her to say, "I know I'm acting differently and I know you probably don't know why. Please don't judge me harshly."

My intention is to teach others so one day people will "get" mental illness. My hope is that it will be talked about enough that it will be as normalized as pregnancy. My experiences with anxiety have helped me gain a deeper understanding of it and I feel a great deal of compassion and tolerance for others who deal with mental illness. I hope more people can have compassion and tolerance for it too.