Tag: Chronic Anxiety

I Thought I Was Doing Better

(Title image: Photo by Merch HÜSEY on Unsplash)

Last week, I met with a friend that I don’t see often. We were talking about what was going on in our lives and he related how he loved where he lived right now, and put a positive spin on everything in his life, even when talking about negative happenings.

He sounded sunny and was handling the tough stuff that came his way.

But then it was my turn to tell him about what I’d been up to. I started describing what I’d been dealing with: my father’s decline and death last year, worries about my mother’s well-being, concerns about the increasing cost-of-living…

My friend smiled at me. The last time he had talked to me, he said, I was stressed about something else. In fact, every time he calls me, there’s some new thing that I’m stressed about.

And of course he’s right. As much as I’ve improved in handling anxiety using all the tools I’ve developed to calm myself down—and, yes, I’ve found success with that—the overarching feeling that I have is that I’m playing whack-a-mole with my worries.

It’s as if I’m trying to regain my footing, but something new comes up and knocks me off balance again.

I admit it. I’m feeling worn out.
(Photo by Anca Gabriela Zosin on Unsplash)

After getting past cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, you’d think that the skies would look brighter and my outlook would be more positive. And for quite some time that was completely true.

But as endocrine therapy wore on and I went through menopause, my spirit suffered. The luster of surviving cancer started wearing off. That’s embarrasing to admit, especially when I have lost friends and family to the disease and know of many others desperately fighting it.

But even being aware of that, my day-to-day seems to have become darker overall. I start the day with energy to get things done but by evening I’m exhausted and sometimes overwhelmed by what’s in front of me.

I know some of this is my own doing. In fact, one of the big, scary changes that I was faced with this year just sorted itself out. It was simpler than I expected (note my previous post). And then my son was admitted to the college he wanted to attend. All these are refreshing successes that I should have spent time basking in. But it didn’t take long for the clouds to gather again.

After hearing my friend’s assessment of me, I am trying to figure out whether what I’m going through is really getting harder? Or have I gradually been losing my ability to pull myself out of a funk? And once the uncertainties are settled, will I bounce back?

I feel disappointed in myself, which is exactly part of the problem. Lack of self-compassion simply compounds the stress. You know the carrot-and-stick analogy? Well, I’ve tossed the carrot and am just beating myself with the stick.

Back to the drawing board.

Nothing to Fear but Fear…Sort of

About five years ago around this time of the year, I had an uneasy feeling.

So, let me back up. The previous August 2016 I had felt a small lump in my left breast. It wasn’t all that different from another lump that I had gone to see my Nurse Practitioner about in late June 2016, and she had put my fears to rest.

Still, she noted that I hadn’t had a mammogram since 2013, so she wrote me an order for one so that I could keep on track with my screenings.

But I dragged my feet on the mammogram. And when the August lump appeared, I decided to wait until it disappeared–you know, like they always did–before setting up the appointment. Because going into a screening knowing that I had a lump seemed terrifying.

You can’t hide from your fears, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

It didn’t disappear. I kept feeling it, pressing it to see how squishy it was, did it move about, was it getting bigger. And all the time, wondering how long it would last. It was hanging around longer than I expected.

But I still waited because I was afraid. I didn’t want to go to the mammogram and have the technician look concerned. Maybe she’d call the doctor in and the doctor would look concerned. Maybe they’d suggest more tests.

I *knew* it was nothing because it had to be nothing, but I didn’t want to risk having the medical professionals think it was something because that would be terrifying to me when I really knew that it was nothing. I didn’t want to experience that fear needlessly. I was afraid of being afraid.

So I waited until around this time of the year in 2017, when, after talking with my mom, we both agreed that getting the lump checked out would relieve my building anxiety. I imagined a pleasant conversation with the Nurse Practitioner as she would say, “Don’t worry, it’s nothing.”

Except that’s not what my NP said. Her expression went from friendly-smiley to concern, and she told me that I needed to get that mammogram done as soon as possible. All that fear that I’d tried to avoid by not getting the screening suddenly hit me at once. As the NP left the examination room, she admonished me to not put the mammogram off.

The order that I got read, “Mammography and Diagnostic Screening”. The left breast on the picture on the sheet was circled. I think. To be honest, I don’t remember much more than that. To an outsider, I was just going to have a suspicious lump checked out. But inside me, there was a tornado of anxiety whipping around unchecked.

I know I know I know…but at that time, the fear of what might be overpowered common sense. So I waited.

I had waited six months simply to avoid fear. I was so afraid of the fear that I was willing to risk my life–even though I hadn’t see it that way. The overwhelming need to not experience fear trumped everything else because it was so horrible that I couldn’t seen past it. Nothing else mattered.

Believe it or not, I didn’t realize that I had been suffering from severe anxiety for a number of years. It was always bubbling right by the surface, occasionally boiling over, but never sufficiently dealt with. It had built up throughout my life through an unfortunate series of events and I had become worse and worse at shaking it, but the two years prior to my diagnosis brought some of the longest bouts of chronic anxiety and feelings of worthlessness.

And all that fear that I had, that reason for not getting the lump checked out, that fear that almost cost me my life? Cancer was what forced me to face it. The most feared disease that I could have imagined ironically put me on the path to finally dealing with one of the most crippling issues of my adult life.

No, I’m not going to say that I’m thankful for cancer. Because that would be ridiculous. But I can now step back and see the worth of fearful experiences and understand that sometimes it’s the horrible things that push you into the most meaningful personal growth.