Anxiety

I struggle with anxiety.

Ironically, I am able to say this because most of the time I win this struggle, these days. 

In fact, anxiety used to be so much a part of my life that I only noticed it for the first time about twelve years ago, when I began to have fleeting moments of freedom from it. Before that time, I had an anxiety baseline which was pretty high all the time. I recall a medical check-up about twenty years ago, when my doctor was trying to test the reflexes in my arm. He asked me to hold out my arm to the side. I held it in a tensed 90 degree angle. When he told me, "just relax," I was mystified, because I was as relaxed as I knew how to be.

Sometime happened to me when I started singing in my parish choir. There was a lot going on there. For one, I had singing-induced dopamine flowing in my brain. For another, I had a spiritual awakening going on where I found courage to step out of being self-contained and into being self-giving. Also, for the first time as a Catholic, I had a tremendous sense of belonging that was both social and spiritual. I was moving forward. It was anxiety-provoking, really, but of the sort that stretched me and which left me feeling regularly "leveled up" in terms of how much anxiety I could handle. I was growing.

It was also about that time that a Naturopathic doctor introduced me to ashwagandha. That was a really good thing, because right about then all of that stretching left me revving on so much cortisol that I never could mellow out. 

In those days I took a supplement called Cortisol Manager, whose main ingredient was ashwagandha. But I kept it on hand only in case of "really bad days," and on normal days I just coped with, you know, an acceptable level of anxiety. The type that seemed like normal life. Still.

Fast forward several years, and it came onto my radar screen again as I began exercising and trying to find my metabolism again, and learned how cortisol makes you store belly fat. Then I came across Goli gummies, and oh my, they are just so yummy. So I began taking both a capsule and gummies -- which actually brought me up to the recommended daily dose. Wow! I felt great! 

Recently I made a silly decision, and honestly I've done this same kind of thing so many times. I just decided to not take the full dose. I always use the logic that since I'm feeling great, I must not really need it. 

Lo and behold, anxiety started slapping me in the face again. And it didn't quite occur to me right away what was happening, because it isn't like my hands turn blue or I start sneezing, or some objectively noticeable thing like that. Anxiety is noticed from within. Even after I noticed it, my first thought wasn't, gee, take the pill. It was more like, "Oh, hi, anxiety; you've come to visit. Well, let me move my life out of the way so you can come in and sit down...."

It is one thing to not beat myself up, or spiritually shame myself, or self-medicate in other negative ways. Not doing all that is a big step forward for me. But I still have to work on realizing what's happening, and giving my body the care it needs to usher out the unwelcomed guest. 

And you know what? Recently I realized that for me, doing this is part of keeping the commandment "Honor your father and your mother." My father had absolutely debilitating anxiety. Both of my parents suffered from depression. This is probably one reason why I had a hard time recognizing these struggles in myself; this way of being seemed so "normal." Both of my parents also became alcoholics. From childhood, I've really struggled with what honoring my parents was supposed to mean, supposed to look like. Recently it just kind of clicked in my mind, that I don't honor my parents by erasing their struggles. I honor them by facing the things they struggled with with grace; especially where I face the same things in me. There is no shame in having a struggle. My honor of them, in part, involves accepting that I struggle with some things because I share their genes, and treating their memory in myself gently and honorably.

Then I can simply be the me God created me to be, and be at peace. It's hard interior work, that's for sure. It is worth it, though.