My Anxiety Doesn’t Get to Control Me
Sometimes, overcoming fear means fighting on, even though the object of fear is still there
It’s no secret in my family that I’ve had my struggles in life. I sometimes get praised for how far I come, that I’ve managed to move past my struggles and become stronger despite them. I always smile at the praise, because only rarely do these things get acknowledged out loud. People like to put painful things in the past, pretend they never existed. Besides, I completed my therapy, so that means I’m better, right?
I don’t have the heart to tell them the truth: My battles are far from over.
The other day at the restaurant where I work, we were enjoying an ordinary day. Service was running and the kitchen was busy. Then the head chef and manager started arguing about a dish. The argument was between the two of them, how the chef thought it should be and how the manager thought it should be. It didn’t involve me at all, I had nothing to do with it and it didn’t last more than a minute.
And yet, suddenly it was hard to breathe. The nervousness that was normally on a low burner was rapidly growing into panic, my heart rate was going through the roof, my palms were clammy, I felt light-headed and the thoughts started running. Was it me? Did I do something wrong? Don’t yell at me, don’t blame me, I’m sorry, stop, stop, stop...
If I were younger, I would have been on the floor already, crying and unable to breathe. At this point in my life however, I know how to stop my panic attacks before they get out of hand.
I forced myself to breathe normally. It’s okay. You’re fine. It’s not your fault. In, 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold. Out, 1, 2, 3, 4. You’re fine.
First step was to get my breathing into a steady pattern. Next was the mental exercise to calm myself down.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...
I long ago learned to use meditation as a way of reining my mind in when it begins running out of control. Meditation is essentially focusing your mind on a single point and letting all other thoughts but that single point drift away. Some people focus on a mental image, a loved one or a peaceful landscape.
Me, I do mathematics. I count the Fibonacci Spiral. Or, The Golden Spiral, as it also is called. In the kitchen that day, I began counting as soon as I felt the panic rising. I’d start over every time I’d lose the thread and by the time I could calculate up to 144, I’d calmed down. I was exhausted and still felt a bit disconnected from my body, but that would pass after half an hour or so. It always does.
I’d stopped talking beyond the necessary one-word answer while I was doing my mental exercise, but I’d kept working like nothing was wrong. No one noticed a thing.
Avoidance doesn’t solve anxiety. It drags you down a bottomless spiral.
My struggles with anxiety started in my early teens. I still to this day remember the very first panic attack I had. The pressure in my lungs from not having enough air no matter how much I gulped down, the absolute all-consuming terror, the uncontrollable crying and the feeling of my entire class watching me as I had to be pulled out of the classroom.
It was terrifying. It was humiliating.
I spoke to a doctor about it, and was told that it was probably just stress, a very common thing in young people my age, nothing to worry about. But the attacks just kept happening. By the time I was sixteen, I could easily have eight panic attacks in a month. On a good month I only had three. I did not have a lot of good months. And the loss of control was always as terrifying as it has been the very first time.
Anxiety had become a daily struggle, and I didn’t understand why the attacks kept happening. Sometimes they would come seemingly out of the blue without reason, and sometimes there was a pattern and I learnt to avoid the things I knew to trigger it.
But avoiding the triggers, didn’t make the root of the problem go away. All it did was make my world a little smaller. For every trigger I avoided, I hid myself further and further into a tiny box. Into a prison of my own making.
Knowing where a problem began, doesn’t make it go away. But it gives you a starting point to work with.
The one useful thing the doctor said, was that “stress is a common source of anxiety.” There were things that caused me more anxiety than normal, I could work that much out myself. But then, why were these things specifically causing me so much stress?
Why would I have an attack when visiting a possible option for college? Or talking to my peers? Or before a presentation in school? Or on the way home from work after dropping a plate on the floor? Or after being scolded for something as benign as forgetting it was my turn to clear the table after dinner?
The key was expectations. The fear of failure, of being a failure. Of being found lacking. Not good enough.
Your fault, you did something bad, you’re not good enough, it’s your fault....
That mantra would play in my head when my anxiety flared up. If I’m honest, it still does.
I haven’t "overcome" my fear like people think. I feel it every day. But I no longer let it control me.
I wonder sometimes, if I’d seen a doctor when I was sixteen, spoken honestly about how much I was struggling, if I would have gotten actual counselling and support. If I would have gotten the vocabulary to understand and explain what was happening to me, something I struggle with even now.
But there’s no point getting lost in "what ifs". As it was, I had to find my own words to understand and come to terms with what was happening to me and I had to find my own way forward. Therapy helped, but it was the regular visits to Buddhist meditation centres that truly gave me the tools to manage my anxiety and control my attacks.
Not overcome. Manage and Control. The distinction is important, because I still struggle. Every day I feel the unease in my bones and the tightness in my lungs. But I now know what it is, and I know that it can’t hurt me unless I permit it.
I used to see my anxiety as some vile beast lurking in my mind, ready to pounce at any weak moment, something outside of my control. Now, I see it as something born from my most primal fears, from my mind, and my mind is within my power to control.
I can control my breathing, I can run through my mental exercises and I can soothe that hurt, frightened part of my mind, counter the hateful mantra with another.
“No. It’s not your fault. Just because you fail sometimes, doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It means that you're human. You're good enough.”
Some would probably say I'm mad, for choosing such a stressful career, when I'm known to have these struggles. But I don't want to settle. I love my job as a chef’s apprentice and I don't want to limit myself. Not anymore.
Living in fear of fear is no way to live at all. I have to feel the fear, accept it's there, and keep moving forward.
