Anxiety...and Being Present Over Perfect

This is a pill bottle. It is a pill bottle with my name on it. In this bottle are tiny white pills containing something called a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. It's prescribed for depression and anxiety. I have never in my life taken an SSRI, or any other psychotropic drug, before...until this week. I held onto the prescription for these little pills for more than month before I filled it, grappling with what it meant to take them...to need them. I felt like a failure. I've always been able to manage my emotional ups and downs with some combination of exercise, reevaluation, time, and sheer will. But this time was different. This time was some weird perfect storm that brought everything to a head all at once and resulted in my body remaining in a constant, heightened state of anxiety.

You know that feeling you get just before you go on stage, or get up in front of an audience for a big presentation, or before an uncomfortable conversation or early morning flight...that butterflies in the belly, nervous-sick feeling that finally goes away once you've done 'the thing'? That's how I feel All. The. Time. It never goes away. And when things really spike, I get this pressure in my chest; I feel jittery all over and I get a buzzing in my limbs; I get lightheaded and nauseous. I constantly feel like an incredibly exhausted person, who hasn't slept in days, who then drinks twelve espressos to function-- jittery and crazed, layered over top of tired and weary.

It's so weird. And I try deep breathing and I try distraction and I try talking myself out of it...but none of it works. My insides continue to buzz like a deranged swarm of bees.

Apparently, this is anxiety.

I'm sitting here, writing this, with absolutely nothing to be anxious about. Everything is fine. I am in a relaxed position. The house is quiet. Yet my body is on high alert. I feel broken. Like my thermostat isn't working and the air is pumping out full blast despite the fact that it's freezing outside. It doesn't make any sense, and that doesn't work for me. I like rational. I like understandable. I like being able to assess a problem and then fix it. But that's not working.

So, instead, I'm trying some outside help--a therapist and some tiny white pills. I don't like it, but I'm sharing it with you because I want to accept it; to own it and be okay with it. Because I want to not live a lie of an outward appearance that doesn't match what's going on on the inside. Because I've been struggling and only a few people really know it.

Over the last week, as I grapple with all of this, I've been listening to the audiobook Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist. I just finished that book this morning. I was so moved by it that I felt compelled to write her a note immediately (not something I often do).

Here's what I wrote:

Dear Shauna,
After watching your interview with Oprah on Super Soul Sunday, I found your book Present Over Perfect. I just finished listening to it while addressing Christmas cards this morning...as tears streamed down my face. I have been struggling with a bout of anxiety for the first time in my life. Things started to fall apart when my kids started school at the end of August--the first time my youngest would go to school for the full day. Something in me broke. It wasn't conscious. I wasn't thinking to myself, "Man, what will I do with myself now?" I had a plan. I'm a writer and I would finally have more time to write. But my body told me differently. I began to feel awful. All. The. Time. My primary care doc suggested that maybe it wasn't my thyroid or a digestive issue...maybe it was anxiety. I was so offended. Until I realized that he was right. That others had been trying to tell me the same thing for weeks...maybe longer. 

Anyway, I sit here, stomach in a knot of anxiety despite the fact that absolutely nothing is wrong, and I see so clearly that everything is wrong. That my life is ruled by a to do list so long and unwieldy that it would be impossible to accomplish it all in a year-- my expectations are to get it done this week, because that's what the sticky notes and planner tell me. That the day to day life I've built for myself since quitting my job to be a stay at home mom and writer has been built in a sad attempt to prove my worth to...everyone. Look I'm accomplishing a lot today! See this? See me? I'm getting it all done and I'm doing it perfectly! I know I don't have a real job, but I swear I'm earning my keep! 

Listening to your book felt like listening to stories of what's happening in my own head. I haven't been jet-setting around the globe, but I have been go-go-going...always on the move, always getting it done. I know now I need to stop. I know things need to change. My gut is telling me so. The anxiety pulsing in my chest is telling me so. I don't know how. I don't even know the very next step. But I know I need to change. I will listen to your book again. I will try to tease out some direction. But for now--in my long-winded way-- I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for writing all those beautiful words. Thank you for somehow being in my path at just the right moment, just when I needed it. Thank you. I will try to hear your voice and your words over and above the voice in my head that's telling me I'm not doing enough...that I am not enough. Thank you.
And Merry Christmas.
Sincerely,
Amy

I don't know if anyone else out there feels this way-- driven by a to do list, focusing on getting things done instead of living life and being connected to people and what's really important, out of touch with who they really are-- who they used to be, run down and tired and frantic, proving, proving, proving. I can't tell from the social media pictures, because everybody looks so happy and beautiful. But I don't. I look and feel ragged.

This is what Shauna Niequist's book is about. About finding a way to let go of perfectionism and productivity and responsibility in favor of being present in our own lives. And I feel that this message touches somehow on the heart of my anxiety. Born of a fear of failure, driven by a long-held belief that if I'm not hustling to get things done-- to be productive, to scratch things off the list, to accomplish--then I am not worthy, that I am not earning my keep. This is so ingrained in me that I don't know how to let it go, to give it up, to replace it with a new way of thinking.

But I know I wasn't always like this, not to this extent, at least. I used to have a better balance between the two sides of me-- the get it done side and the relax and enjoy things side. But somewhere along the line, sometime after having kids, and getting the nice house and all the stuff, and quitting my job to stay home--somewhere in there, I lost the balance, and I became someone I don't really know...and I don't really like. I don't like hustler-Amy. She's not a lot of fun. And she has twisted insides that cause her distress.

That's not to say I'm miserable all the time and I never have any fun. I'm not. And I do. But the balance between the misery and the fun has gotten way out of whack. And I need to rein things in.

I have no idea how to do this. Literally, no idea.

But I'm going to try. I'm going to give this eensy-weensy white pill a chance to help. I'm going to talk with the therapist, because she can see the forest while I'm lost in the trees. I'm going to try. To reach out to people. To be honest. To change. To let go. To contradict that nasty voice telling me to go go go, do do do. Hopefully I'm going to find the time to meditate and read and exercise and journal and write. Things I know help.

I'm going to try.

Until next time, know that you are enough just as you are--without doing or accomplishing or getting it done. You are worthy, just as you were when you woke up this morning, bedhead and morning breath and rumpledness and all. Without any hustle. Just you. All worthy.