Anxiety and Me

Well, friends, I had a completely different blog planned for this week, but as the saying goes “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” Our family got thrown for a loop this week, nothing dangerous or inherently bad, just something unexpected that has made us have to reevaluate some things. As I discussed last week, I am not great with change, and it causes me anxiety, and this particular change has my anxiety through the roof. Thus, that is what I am driven to write about today: anxiety and its role in my life.

Anxiety and I have been linked for a long, long time. I don’t know when I first started experiencing it, but I’d estimate it started peaking around the time I was in middle school. In 8^th grade, I was a mess. I know those years are turbulent for almost everyone, but that period of time was when I remember just feeling as though nothing was in my control. I wasn’t officially diagnosed with anxiety until a very scary incident when I was a senior in high school. I’d been told I had asthma, and one day, as I was experiencing what I thought was an asthma attack, I went to bathroom and used my inhaler. Almost instantly, my heart was racing out of control, I was sweating, faint and extremely lightheaded. I honestly thought I was going to die, right there in my high school. I was walked up to the office, leaning heavily on my friend, and the school nurse was called. Needless to say, the whole experience was terrifying, and embarrassing to boot. My mother took me to the doctor, and soon I had a new diagnosis: depression and anxiety. No more inhaler, but instead an antidepressant and an anti-anxiety medication. Now, depression is a whole other beast, one in which I’ll cover later, but I will say that the two diseases, at least in my case, do tend to feed on one another. However, I tend to suffer more from anxiety than the depression, though I have battled both off and on since I was first diagnosed at 18 (though I feel it does indeed go back years farther, but that’s another story).

There have been times, like my senior year of high school, when my anxiety has been almost unbearable. There have been days where I’ve had panic attacks so bad that it seemed there would be no end to them. There’s truly not many things worse than a full on panic attack. I liken it to an elephant sitting square on your chest, squeezing the breath out of you, until you honestly can’t breathe. At least, that’s what your brain tells you. So you hyperventilate, trying to get the one thing that is evading you: air. For me at least, the pressure builds in my chest and throat and it physically hurts. My hands shake, I have trouble breathing. My heart races. The worst thing? These things come out of absolutely nowhere, and disarm you before you even know there’s a battle. They leave you shaken, exhausted, and scared. I wouldn’t wish such a thing on my worst enemy. Dealing with it knowing the tools of how to calm them is one thing. Dealing with them without those tools? Pure terror.

For me, anxiety is not just one thing. It’s not just panic attacks, or the equally stressful but less scary anxiety attacks (those come on slower, but share some of the same symptoms). I worry, obsessively about things that most people don’t even think twice about. If I ask someone to call me when they get home, and they don’t, my mind ALWAYS jumps to the worst possible scenario without fail. If there’s a test I have to take, I automatically assume I’m going to fail. If I am meeting someone for the first time, I automatically think they will hate me, or judge me, or think that I am stupid. I question every single thing that I do, a hundred times, wondering if it’s the right decision. I run every single conversation I have with people over and over, wondering if I said the wrong thing. It’s an endless loop, all the time.

And then there’s nighttime. I don’t sleep well. It takes me at least 45 minutes or longer every night to even get to sleep. My brain whirs, replying things from 16 years ago that most people would think are insignificant, which they are, but for me, they are cringeworthy moments flashing through my mind. I think up the best, the worst, and every other scenario in between about any and everything. For instance, Scoot has a field trip soon. Her first. My thoughts go something like this: Will she have fun? Will she behave? Will she be safe on the bus? How will her teachers keep track of all those children? What if the bus crashes? What if she gets hurt? What if she gets separated somehow from her class? What if someone takes her? What if? Once I force myself to move on, sternly reminding myself that she will be fine, have a great time, and everything will be okay, my traitorous mind then moves on to the next thing to obsess over. The cycle is never ending. Even when I do get to sleep, I may have dreams. Horribly vivid dreams, depicting those I love dying or getting hurt, while I stand helpless. Those images haunt me in my waking hours.

I keep saying my anxiety because everyone is different. Everyone that battles anxiety has a version that is all their own, and they will develop different skills to combat it. There is no single, cookie cutter cure for anxiety. It’s not as easy as “oh, don’t think like that” or “take a breath, it’s okay.” It’s literally doing battle with your own mind. I get very upset that people think you can simply snap out of being anxious, or when they assume that you only are anxious in social situations. Yes, I have some of that as well (I hate being thrust into situations where I don’t know anyone) but I’ve learned that things like that are going to happen. Anxiety is multifaceted, and it’s difficult to control, even at the best of times. At the worst, it is your very worst nightmare. It is your own mind telling you that all of your worst fears will come true, and there’s nothing you can do about it. It is your mind telling you that people don’t like you, that you don’t measure up, that all the bad things you’ve ever thought about yourself are true. If good things happen to you, you even feel unworthy, as though you don’t deserve them. All because your brain is telling you so. Think about that. The same force that is keeping you alive, telling your heart to beat, and your lungs to inflate, is telling you that you are not worthy.

I think that is what most people don’t understand about anxiety. It’s not just one thing, or social situations. There are a million different triggers, and those triggers are different for different people. Anxiety isn’t a switch that you can just turn off. It is a daily, sometimes minute by minute, battle to live your life without your mind telling you that things are going to go wrong, and get out of control. Times of stress can validate those voices in your mind, reiterating these negative thoughts, and make it even harder to stay ahead of your anxiety. While positive thinking and breathing techniques can help, and I am not knocking them, they don’t work for every person. They also don’t help in every situation. So simply suggesting someone that is struggling with anxiety to “cheer up” or “think happy thoughts” isn’t going to help. In fact, I’ve found that in my case, when I am truly struggling, those comments can make it even worse. I don’t want to think negatively. I don’t want to have these horrible thoughts in my head, but I can’t control them. All I can do is tell myself, sometimes over and over, that these thoughts and worries are unfounded, and go on about my day. In so many ways, I’m lucky. Though I have my moments where I have a very difficult time, my anxiety is mostly controlled. So many people don’t have that luxury, and every day is wrought with overwhelming feelings of fear and pressure and panic. Anxiety is a marathon, where the finish line is consistently moved farther and farther away, and you are always struggling to keep up.

The stigma attached to mental illness also bothers me. So many people see anxiety and depression as weakness, but that is simply bullshit, to put it bluntly. There is nothing harder in this world than doing daily battle with your mind to combat anxiety and depression. It takes so many tools, like positive affirmations, breathing techniques, and a great support system. It’s mental fortitude and an understanding doctor. It’s learning what works for you, and what doesn’t. Sometimes, it’s medication to help stabilize yourself and to cope with the nastier effects of anxiety. Living with anxiety is a tightrope act, and there is absolutely no shame in asking for help when you need it, or being on medication. If you are suffering through anxiety, instead of seeing yourself as weak, consider yourself a warrior, because you are. After all, the very force that keeps you alive is tricking you into thinking that you are in danger, or unworthy, or that you are inherently unlikeable. Having the strength to tell your mind “no”, and fight through that is not only impressive, it’s brave. Know that you aren’t alone, and that there are many, many people that will understand. Don’t feel as though you have to suffer alone. Remind yourself that you ARE worthy. You ARE important. You are NOT weak. You will find your way, no matter how hard it seems at times.

I hope this gives a bit of insight as to what goes on daily in my mind. I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on the subject (or anything else I write about, except maybe boybands!) but as someone that has dealt with anxiety for a long time, I do have intimate knowledge of what living with it is like. The next few weeks in our world are going to be fraught with stress, so I am fully expecting my issues with anxiety to amp up, but that’s okay. I have a wonderful family and friends that are going to help me through the worst of it. I’m going to do my darndest to keep on the same schedule of posting every week, but the next few weeks are going to be a challenge. Bear with me, friends. Now I’m going back to listening to The Greatest Showman soundtrack for the millionth time (today). Until next time!

Changes

Things are a-changing around my household, folks. Hubby and I made the leap, and decided to start looking for a home to call our own. It’s something we’ve been talking about for over a year, but now that it’s here, it’s more than a little scary. The decision to buy a home is huge, and it’s a terrifying commitment. I know it’s a smart decision, and the best one for our family, but that doesn’t make this journey any less daunting.

Want to know a secret? I don’t deal with change very well. Change can be scary. It rattles up your world, shakes things up, and nothing’s ever quite the same afterward. I have a habit of just keeping things as they are, even if I’m not completely satisfied. For me, the devil I know is easier to live with than the one I don’t. It’s a problem I’ve always struggled with. I wish I was more of a risk taker, but I’m simply not that person. It takes a lot to rattle me out of my safe little cage.

That being said, it’s not a quality about myself that I like. I know that my fear of change holds me back at times. I know that an unwillingness to make steps forward may save me from some awkwardness or failure, but it also keeps me from any successes I may have. It’s a pattern that I want to break, and one that I’m trying to work through. I recently read a book that said, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” The book, a self-help and motivational book called T is for Transformation by Shaun T, held many gems like that, and it spoke to me. I don’t want my daughter to learn my bad habits and shy away from change, or things that may be difficult. Of course, her personality is nothing like mine, and she doesn’t shy away from ANYTHING, so I really don’t worry too much about that, but I don’t want to be a bad example nonetheless. I want her to see me as someone that puts the wheels in motion. I want her to see me taking chances, and even doing things that frighten me. I want her to see that people can grow all throughout their lives. Most of all, I want her to know that progress can’t be made in life without change.

I like to think that I am taking baby steps in the right direction. I think that flying to Boston alone last year, something COMPLETELY out of my comfort zone, was one such step. Doing that showed me that I am capable of doing things that I thought I couldn’t do. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t absolutely scared out of my mind walking into that airport alone, going through security alone, and boarding that plane alone, but I did it. That step made me wonder what other changes I could make in my life. I started thinking about my writing, and how much I have always loved it, but how I was too scared to really put myself out there in any meaningful way. I started tinkering with the idea of writing a book, something that I am still working on, but something I would love to do. I am working up to it, I think, day by day, keystroke by keystroke. This blog, in fact, is one more change, one more step in that journey.

I understand that anxiety and fear play into my resistance to change. Yet, more and more, my comfort zone is becoming more confined, and I can’t allow that to happen. If life truly begins outside of my comfort zone, then I am not living. I’m existing, and that’s not good for anyone. Every decision is a chance. Every decision is a potential journey down roads unknown, but that doesn’t mean that it’s bad, or even truly frightening. I don’t want to let my worries over what “might” happen overshadow the progress that I could be making. After all, the first step in any journey, is realizing that it’s time, and then putting a foot forward. Even if you fall, even if you scrape a knee or an elbow, well, aren’t you already farther along than you were at first? Baby steps add up. One day, I hope that I will look back and see this moment in time as one that started me on a new path, one that was fruitful for not just me, but my family as well.

If you are interested in reading T is for Transformation, I highly recommend it. It is faintly based in fitness, however, I found it to be more of a motivational book for all aspects in life. I am including a link for it here, and hope that you’ll check it out, especially if you like Shaun T like I do!

As always, I hope you enjoyed this week's topic. Let me know in the comments what you would like to see in the future! Until next time!

A Flicker of Light in the Darkness

Ten years ago today, something momentous happened. For a whole generation of women, life was changed when New Kids on the Block reunited after 14 years. For all of us, it was the rejuvenation of a dream, one in which some of us didn’t even know we had. We had moved on, grown up, started our lives as adults, but kept this band locked in our hearts, hoping that maybe one day they’d reunite, but not expecting it. After all, lightning doesn’t strike twice, does it? In this case, it does, and it sparked a journey that has been incredible. Now, I know there is a contingent of people that will read this and say, “New Kids on the Block? Really? You wanna talk about that washed up boyband?” Yes. Yes, I do. The reason is simple. These five guys from Boston played a huge role in my life.

Surely that can’t be, you’ll tell me. They’re just a band. Just a group of guys trying to recapture their youth. Just. Not to me. To explain what these guys mean to me, we have to go back ten years. I have to tell you about the girl I was, and how NKOTB sparked new life within that girl, helping her to become the woman she was meant to be. Sometimes what you consider “just” something, dismissing them, can be the thing that helps change someone else’s life.

Ten years ago, I was miserable. I was in a marriage that was falling apart around me. I was a recent college graduate that couldn’t find a job in her field (I never did, but that’s neither here nor there). In so many ways, I felt lost. Down trodden. Beaten. There was darkness in my life that was threatening to overtake me, and it was all around. Even though my best friend lived with my ex husband and me, I still felt isolated in many ways. I carried around this weight all the time. Wondering when he was going to snap. Would he scream at me today? Would he tell me that I didn’t love him well enough? Would he explain to me, spittle flying, how I simply wasn’t trying hard enough? Would he look me in the face and tell me that he knew I wished he would die? These were the secrets I kept locked inside myself. I prayed no one in my life knew how bad it really was. I lived in shame of what was going on in my life.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a wonderful family that’s extremely supportive. However, I didn’t want them to know how bad things were. I didn’t want them to hear the things that I was told, or the fact that after so many years, I believed them. I’d lost everything that was strong and happy about myself, but I told everyone in my life that I was fine. Is there any more dangerous word in a person’s arsenal than fine? I don’t think there is. Fine is almost always a lie. I was not fine. I was lost, and sad, and had been telling myself and everyone around me that I was fine for so long that I’d forgotten what happiness and light and joy actually were. In other words, I was sleepwalking through my life, just hoping to make it through the days.

Cut to early October of 2008. My marriage, only a year old, is crumbling to dust. I’m working part time at Ross with my best friend. I’m fighting a growing sense of malaise around me, and I don’t know what to do...and then there’s announcement on the radio. New Kids on the Block are going to be in Charlotte on October 30^th. I looked at my best friend and I said, “We have to go. We may never get the chance again.” The tickets would be my birthday present from my husband…and the last gift he ever gave me. They were nosebleeds, in the 300 level, but I didn’t care. I was going. I just wanted a break from everything going on around me, and a girl’s trip with my best friend. I wanted to get away. I never expected how that one pivotal moment would make me feel.

October 30^th came. Peaches (just kidding, her name’s Melissa. She said I could only use her name if I called her Peaches first) and I piled in her truck, and our first stop was to Walmart. We bought The Block, NKOTB’s new release, and put it in the CD player. For 3 ½ hours we listened to every single NKOTB song we could. We sang. Excitement built. It was a lark, a quick little girl’s trip to relive a little piece of our childhood. We checked into our hotel, got lost, made it to the arena. We walked in, and surprise! We’d been bumped down a whole level! Still far away from the main stage, but closer! We made our way to our seats, taking in the electric feeling in the air. To this day, I still remember the way I felt when the lights went out before they came on. I can still feel that first heart stopping wave of pure excitement, the way the opening video tickled along my skin. That moment of knowing “Holy crap, this is real. I am about to see these guys I've loved since I was five.” I can picture with perfect clarity the flashes of light, and feel the scream that ripped from my throat when they appeared on the stage, heads bowed, hands folded, in a triangular formation. It’s a perfect, crystalline memory. Even today, when I watch old videos from that tour online, I still smile and feel my heart expand in my chest. The moment I heard Joe’s voice ring out over the crowd singing “If you came here by yourself tonight” I knew. This one night was the start of something magical.

I won’t bore you with every detail of that show. The details don’t matter so much as the feelings that memory carries. In that arena, with my best friend at my side, I came alive again. I laughed. I cried. I sighed. I LIVED. All at once, every worry that had been plaguing me melted away as I watched the men on the stage. I held on to Melissa, and we sang along, screamed along with the rest of the audience. We let the magic and exhilaration of sharing this moment roll through us. When I walked out of the arena that night, I was changed. Somehow, in the last few hours, I’d remembered what fun was. Something had awakened inside of me.

That night made me realize how I’d buried myself. I’d become so used to censoring my thoughts and my feelings, telling myself and everyone around me that I was fine, that I’d anesthetized myself to how bitterly unhappy I really was. A few weeks later, Melissa and I went on a trip to Southport, and while waiting in line for the ferry, we spilled out our hearts to one another about the situation I was in. We cried, and for the first time in a long time, I admitted how unhappy and scared and lonely I was. How I was worried about letting my family down if I divorced my husband. How if I didn’t, the verbal abuse I suffered would one day escalate. She echoed my every worry, telling me that she feared if I didn’t get out soon, that one day he’d hurt me. I couldn’t disagree.  Opening up to Melissa was another step, one that I am not sure I would have been able to take without the concert in Charlotte. It had blown open the doors, allowing everything that I’d held so tight within me to break free, destroying the chains of my own making.

Within two months of the NKOTB concert, my husband and I had separated. Melissa and I moved into a one bedroom apartment, where we supported ourselves through our jobs at Ross. Times were hard as hell, with lots of ramen and mac and cheese, but at the same time, it was one of the best, most freeing times of my life. I had my best friend. I was on my own for the first time in years, learning to love myself again. I created a soundtrack to my life, filled with NKOTB, Hanson, Ne-Yo, and Jesse McCartney. To this day, those songs are the go-to’s for me when I’m having a bad day. They remind me of traffic jams, singing and dancing in the car with my best friend, or day trips to Southport. I started writing again, filling scraps of paper with scribbles as I worked the dressing room at Ross, writing stories at night after work. I met a great group of friends, enjoying myself in a way I never had before. It was the beginning of a new life.

In 2011, I married again, to my wonderful hubby. Our daughter was born in 2012. My life was settled, and happy. Still, being a stay at home mom hasn’t always been easy. In fact, there’s a whole blog to be written about that, but that’s for another day. I’ve struggled to find my place in this new life, and it’s been difficult, but through it all, I’ve had NKOTB. My happy place. Though my hubby doesn’t understand it, they are just an integral part of my life. I can be having the worst day, with tears and arguments or just sadness, and I can put on their music and feel better. I can watch a concert on youtube and laugh the pain away. Best of all, though, my love for NKOTB has introduced me to an incredible group of women that I consider some of my best friends. These women have supported me on some of the darkest days of my life. They are a gift in my life, and I never, ever would have met them without loving NKOTB. Funny how life works,  isn’t it?

It is because of these friends, and this band, that last year I had two of the most incredible experiences of my life. In July, I traveled alone to Boston to meet these friends in person, and to see NKOTB at Fenway, which is basically Mecca for a New Kids fan. Through this trip, I grew to love these friends even more. I made memories that will last a lifetime. I hugged these women, who had talked me through the deaths of my grandmother and my cousin, who had listen to me rant about the bad days, that had virtually held my hand through the hard times and laughed with me in the good times, and felt absolutely blessed. I stood in the pouring rain inside Fenway, heart filled to bursting, beside one of these friends as we shared a once in a lifetime experience. I walked my feet off through Salem, admiring the beauty and laughing until my sides hurt. And when I went home, tears filled my eyes for leaving them.  Three short months later, however, we were all reunited in New Orleans when we boarded the Carnival Triumph on the NKOTB cruise. I’ve already documented that journey a bit, but suffice to say that it was a trip I’ll forever treasure.

You see, at the heart of it, my love for New Kids on the Block is so deeply seated within me because of the experiences and the people that I have discovered through them. Without that one night in Charlotte, would I have had the courage to let go of a bad marriage when I did, or would I have stayed? I don’t know. I like to think that I would have let go eventually, that the strength was there within me, but I don’t know. I do know that without NKOTB I wouldn’t have met some of the coolest damn people on the planet. These women are a part of the fabric of my life now, and I can’t imagine my life without them. It is because of five men from Boston and an international group of friends that I have traveled to places I never saw myself going, and doing so alone even though it scared the hell out of me. I have found happiness, learned to treasure every moment, and discovered how to stand up and say what it is I need in life. NKOTB is my escape, my happy place, the source of bonding with friends. Most of all, they are a symbol of rebirth for me. For that alone, I will always be a Blockhead.

Donnie Wahlberg always tells BH’s not to thank him or NKOTB for getting them through a bad situation, because they did it themselves. While that’s true, I have to thank these guys, because while I did the heavy lifting, they were the key. They were that first spark, the eye opener, the thing that made me say, “this is how happy really feels.” Now, I know that Donnie, Danny, Jon, Jordan, and Joe will probably never, ever see this blog, and that’s okay. Yet, I have to say it anyway. Guys, thank you so much for reuniting. Thank you for the laughter, the love, the light in the darkness. Thank you for this INCREDIBLE journey, and I can only hope that it continues for a long, long time. Most of all, thank you for giving me the gift of realizing true happiness, and opening my mind and heart to a world of new possibilities.

Finally, I know some of you reading this will never understand why this band is so important to me. That’s okay. The truth of it is, though, we ALL have that one thing that just makes us happy. Whether it’s an artist, or a band, or a TV show, we all have something that just lifts us up and brings us joy. Whatever your thing is, I’m glad you have it. I would never begrudge anyone their joy. My hope is that you’ll remember that while someone’s favorite thing may not be what you’d choose, it is still theirs to love. Everyone has different struggles, different heartbreaks, and different things that make them happy. If it lights up your eyes, and brings a lift to your heart, treasure it, no matter what the world thinks. Life is far too short to not love what you love and find pleasure in it. Who knows? Maybe that thing you love so much will open up new worlds within you, just as NKOTB has done for me!