It's Just Anxiety

“It’s probably just anxiety”

I’ve heard this sentence more times than I can count on both hands. It’s typically following something along the lines of, “All your blood work came back great! You look great on paper” *insert it’s probably just anxiety sentence here* and then the final sentence rotates depending on the physician I see that day.

Starting in 7th or 8th grade, I had some pretty whack stomach issues. I never felt great, my stomach was unpredictable, and my parents took me to ALL types of doctors to help figure out what was wrong. Over 2-3 years of testing, poking, prodding, rock energy reading type things, western medicine, non-western medicine, and me, still feeling absolutely awful, I had never once thought of anxiety, but apparently it was in the back of everyone else’s mind. Anxiety wasn’t mentioned to me as a cause of all this pain, these weird stomach issues, every seemingly ANNOYING thing about my body, until I was about a sophomore in high school. It made sense honestly. In all of my research that I did on “anxiety related stomach issues” the phrase “psychosomatic” consistently came up. “Psychosomatic” essentially means that a physical illness or condition is aggravated by a mental condition or internal stress. I had friends in high school who became so anxious they developed ulcers and knew others that had so much anxiety they got migraines, chest pains, and constipation. For a while I accepted it. “Anxiety causes my physical ills,” I told myself over and over.

So I went on some search for an anxiety cure. I thought that once my anxiety was “cured” then my stomach, head, hands, knees, feet, body overall would no longer be in pain. I was a little bit naïve! APPARENTLY you can’t just “cure” anxiety, something my stubborn-self never wanted to acknowledge. I still was trying to figure it out though. Every time I went to the doctor, I was hit with the “anxiety” diagnosis. It started to piss me off. I felt like there was something wrong with me; not only was my mind messed up but so was my body and vice-versa. I got so tired of this psycho-somatic crap. It felt sort of cyclical. My anxiety would get bad, it would affect my stomach, or head, or heart, which would in turn make me more anxious which would then affect my stomach, or head, or heart and then I was left there with this “it’s anxiety!” diagnosis, and no way to deal with any of the problems at hand.

This past year has been one of the worst years with this anxiety crap. Maybe it was because I loaded my plate with writing a play, directing a play, taking 21 units, working, trying to maintain a healthy mental state, trying to maintain a social life - it was most definitely a LOT more than I had originally anticipated. Anxiety, took this majority place holder in my life that I really hadn’t dealt with before. It was always depression, or my eating disorder, or bipolar, or body dysmorphia that were the ever present mental-illnesses occupying my mind… but anxiety, which had always been there, now took over and I had NO idea how to deal with it. It was so frustrating to me that this weird entity that existed in my mind could cause such big physical pains. Anxiety made me sick - mentally and physically. Laying in bed, my mind would spend an hour on a mental to-do list. Everything that I did, had to do, and should do, but didn’t really want to. Most nights, the list got so long I ended up grabbing a notebook and sitting down in my dorm hallway until 1 am trying to organize my life. My handwriting was so bad because my hand kept shaking, then I would typically vomit because I got so anxious, then I would go to bed. That became a routine - an unhealthy one to say the least. Last semester, I spent too much time at a local clinic getting an electrolyte drip because I had vomited so much and because I wasn’t sleeping, I drank coffee to stay awake, which then made me more shaky - needless to say, I had NO idea what to do.

Anxiety is something that has taken me longer to come to terms with than depression or my eating disorder. I was embarrassed to be a “worry wart” and nervous about every little thing… I became frustrated that I couldn’t be “chill” because my anxiety made me (over)think every single detail, conversation, or nuance in a friend’s text. Anxiety is probably one of the most frustrating things I’ve dealt with. Yes, it’s annoying, suffocating, and painful, but most of all it’s frustrating. Rationally, I know these things that are looping through my mind at world-record pace aren’t really that concerning. Rationally, I know that not everyone hates me. Rationally, I know that I didn’t gain X amount of pounds since yesterday. Rationally, I know I’m being irrational. But still the loop plays and I feel like I’m stuck on the It’s A Small World ride at Disneyland with no foreseeable end.

I went to the doctor last week as I was in so much pain I couldn’t stand up without the help of my dad. My head was pounding. My body was shaking. My mind was racing. I spent my days crying. I thought it was a flare up of my autoimmune disorder, presenting an extreme case due to some unknown trigger. Turns out I was semi-right. I went to the doctor when the pain became too unbearable that even sitting down was so painful because of the pressure on my legs (if you know me, you know I have a freakishly high pain tolerance so the fact that this pain was so bad shows just how whacked out my body was). My doctor was a calm yet confident woman. I explained to her what was going on. “You’re in pain…” (yah, no duh!) “… because your mind is in pain.” It was a different way of tossing on the “it’s anxiety” diagnosis, but the way in which she explained it made me feel unashamed of the pain I was carrying. “Your body carries around the weight of your racing thoughts and suffering mind.” The trauma my body has been through, manifesting in the form of anxiety, seemed to be the trigger for this extreme autoimmune illness flare up therefore weakening my immune system and just wrecking me.

Now, I don’t tell you any of this for pity. I’m coming to terms with the fact that my mental illness becomes a physical one more often than I’d like - it’s a symptom of the struggle. It’s weird the way body responds to things and my body happens to be incredibly sensitive (another thing that I can’t stand!) Sometimes the physical ills are a lot more tolerable than the mental ones and vice versa. Sometimes they compound and the psycho-physical ills become unbearable physical and emotional weights. I’ve spent the past near-decade in doctors offices, therapists offices, getting my blood tested etc. feeling like a complete crazy person all to be told, “It’s just anxiety” therefore in a roundabout way reaffirming my fear of “I’m crazy” But the thing is, it’s not just anxiety. “Just” should never be used in a sentence with anxiety, because anxiety isn’t “just” something, it’s anxiety. So when that doctor a few days ago told me that I was in pain because my mind was in pain, the mental and physical struggles that my body undergo all too often seemed a bit more digestible (the first thing I could digest in a while hehe). Don’t get me wrong, it still drives me CRAZY that my body breaks down under the weight of my mind, but receiving that permission to care for my mind in order to care for my body was such a weight off my shoulders.