I have anxiety. The kind of anxiety that can put me in bed all day. The kind of anxiety that makes me not remember what a day without feeling nauseas and sick to my stomach is like. The kind of anxiety that makes me not be able to breathe. The kind of anxiety that causes tears and overwhelming feelings of fear. The kind of anxiety that makes me disengage from those I love. The kind of anxiety that makes thoughts of running away seem more appealing than living with the fear of the next time the anxiety will overtake an hour… a day… a week.
The thing is most of the time I have no reason for feeling the way I do – that’s what’s so frustrating to my rational side. I have everything I could ever need. Anticipatory anxiety is a technical term, but I don’t like labels. The looming of “what if” is always whispering in my ear. It doesn’t take much to cause an anxiety filled few hours – What if my car blows up on the side of the road? What if someone breaks into my house? What if I lose my job? What if I get cancer? What if someone I love gets sick? What if, what if, what if. I know so many people around me who really have serious things to be concerned about, serious problems in their life… that’s what makes living with anxiety so difficult sometimes. Because, I know I have nothing to worry about, yet I can’t stop. It’s like an addiction – I can have a great day… everything is going good, things are in place, life is going along but something seems wrong. Something seems wrong because I’m not anxious about something, I’m not fretting over the next obstacle I need to face and thwart. It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted.
When I got back from my trip to St. Simons, I felt so renewed and refreshed for 2014. Things were perfect, really. I had peace and a plan. Somewhere between February and now, things have slowly been falling apart inside of me… like old paint chipping off of a wall. Layer by layer. Some days I feel like I’m spiraling into I-don’t-know what – a mire of mud? An empty hole where everyone I love is looking down at me and mad and confused because I can’t get my act together? I don’t find a lot of understanding in my anxiety… I find a lot of frustration, though. Because, after all, I have nothing to worry about.
I needed to write. Someone else needs this, because they’re feeling the same things I am. You’re not alone. When I was younger, I was the Queen of “don’t worry about anything, instead pray about everything.” Literally… everything. I prayed when I couldn’t find a paper or lost a toy. I find myself not praying as much. I find myself at a place where I am looking at everything I’m missing out on because my puzzle pieces are a mess. I’m not me. Somewhere last year I put on a cloak of discontent – and it’s still with me. I freely took it and wore it, thinking I could better myself into someone other than who I am. Who I am likes simple things. I like my small place to live. I like saving money. I like not having to be the best at every thing just to prove a point. I was handed a gift of discontent by someone who didn’t even know themselves and I have carried it with me for months.
There are many days I look around and I have no idea why on earth God has blessed me so abundantly. I have been given the most beautiful life and I know I am undeserving, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt where I am now is not God-given. So… for now, I have to take one day at a time. I have to run, I have to breathe, I have to love… because those are small things that keep me going. The verse Romans 12:2 has been on my heart recently…
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The world tells us we need more, we need to strive for wealth and more possession and more affluence and more to cram our life so full of stuff that we have no room for worth. The world robs us of our worth… worry robs us of our worth, our joy, our life. We are not getting any of this time back… it doesn’t matter how much I save I could die tomorrow and I will have spent the past three months of my life thinking what I would do if I didn’t have any money. We have conformed to the world’s ideals of worth and successfulness. We have bought the lies of entitlement and self-servitude so we reiterate those words to those we love and they carry on the torch until all that is left are robots in a world of worrying how we are going to keep up with the Joneses.
We want more until more begins to want us.
