My Anxiety is Different Than Yours

This, I believe, is what people don’t understand. There is a difference between “Anxiety”, an “Anxiety Disorder” and “PTSD Linked Anxiety”. This lack of understanding is what I believe is partially responsible for the misinformed “relation” or “advice” people offer that sometimes hurts those of us battling a Mental Illness…

I sometimes have to shake my head and bite my tongue after hearing some people’s responses after I reveal I struggle with Mental Illness.

“Oh my goodness, I forgot where I parked for a minute and almost had a panic attack! Totally get it!”
“Whenever I feel anxious, I pop a vitamin and it eases pretty much instantly!”
“When I feel the anxiety coming, I just say, “Jesus take it!” and my anxiety goes away.”
“You’re on medication for anxiety? I thought you were a Christian. Don’t you believe God will heal you if you just ask? You’re obviously lacking in faith.”

People say these things to me all the time. More times than I want to admit. Half the time, I’m not sure if they’re trying to relate, give advice, if they’re passing judgement on me or a combination therein. But the one thing I do know is that they have no idea what it feels like to be me. The girl who stood beside me and while laughing said, “I almost had a panic attack!” has not experienced the sheer terror of a true panic attack. Where you can’t breathe. Your chest is so heavy and you very truly feel like you’re going to die. Where you can’t stop shaking and all your limbs go numb. To have no control over your body or how it responds, just sitting there waiting for the cortisol and adrenaline to stop flooding your neuroreceptors so you can breathe again. You don’t know what it’s like to be me. If you knew, you wouldn’t joke about “panic attacks”. My anxiety is different than yours.

Anxiety is a normal reaction. At some point in your life, you have experienced anxiety. Whether it was before public speaking, a hard talk with your boss, or a first date, feeling anxiety is normal. Expected. Healthy even, my therapist tells me. It prepares you and can even help you. Before your encounter, you feel anxious, you begin, and your anxiety likely decreases as you continue through until you afterwards are able to look back and say, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought”, or, “That was extremely uncomfortable and distressing but I made it through”. The next time you have to repeat that encounter, your anxiety will likely be less because you made it through it already. Anxiety can be good. It can keep you alive. It triggers the “Fight, Flight or Freeze” (Sympathetic Nervous System) part of the brain, which in situations that are dangerous, is good. It can be a warning sign. But it is not supposed to last ALL the time.

This, I believe, is what people don’t understand. There is a difference between “Anxiety”, an “Anxiety Disorder” and “PTSD Linked Anxiety”. This lack of understanding is what I believe is partially responsible for the misinformed “relation” or “advice” people offer that sometimes hurts those of us battling a Mental Illness. Anxiety is a normal response until it becomes overbearing. Then it becomes a Mental Illness. So just because you’ve experienced anxiety does not mean you know how a Mental Illness affects someone. There’s a difference, one that I can help shed some light on (hopefully).

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is awful. You know how I mentioned above that regular anxiety comes, warns, and leaves? When you have GAD, that warning sign never leaves. You honestly feel anxious almost ALL THE TIME. Your body is literally in Fight, Flight or Freeze Mode constantly. You know that rush of adrenaline that comes when you’re hiking and see a bear? That moment of, “Holy crap, what do I do?!” People with GAD feel that all the time. It is literally impossible for us to relax because we are constantly feeling like we have to run or fight. Our muscles tighten and our heart rate goes up. Our Sympathetic Nervous System is running in overdrive, which means that our Parasympathetic Nervous System, the system responsible for Resting and Digesting goes offline. Our bodies start pumping all of our blood to our essential organs, mainly to our heart and lungs, because we are fighting to stay alive. So, temporarily, our immune system starts shutting down, we stop digesting and feeling hungry, our stomach stops receiving as much blood so it just feels tight and in knots, our limbs get tingly and our breathing gets faster because we are trying to survive. This response also causes our Prefrontal Cortex to essentially go “offline”. This is the part of the brain responsible for regulating emotions, reasoning and logic, decision making and your personality to name a few. You don’t need those things when you’re running from a bear, they’re not essential so off they go. Most people would react to the danger, get to safety and be okay. But for people with GAD, our brains react to things that aren’t actually dangerous. Not only do our brains over perceive threats, but when our brain is telling us, “YOU ARE IN DANGER!” we can’t even access the part of our brain used to reason our way through the actually not dangerous perceived threat and proceed to calm. It’s like we are incapable of realizing, “Oh, that’s not a bear, it’s just a big log, I’m fine” and calming down. We’re literally helpless. Whenever our Fight, Flight or Freeze System kicks in, the chemicals the brain releases remain active for AT LEAST 30 minutes. So, if we encountered or perceived one threat, you in theory could access your logical brain and realize you’re safe and return to calm all within 30ish minutes. Your body would return to regular functioning. But what if you feel you’re CONSTANTLY in danger like people with GAD? Well, those chemicals just keep pumping out, thinking we need them to stay alive, and preventing us from accessing our “logical” brain and our bodies from functioning healthily.

Now, imagine feeling like this all the time. To always have a feeling of dread or sense of impending doom. To be overly anxious and tense all the time. To not be able to stop it. To not be able to relax your muscles. To not be able to slow your heartbeat or your breathing. Imagine always feeling like a bear is about to maul you. That is GAD. We only have brief moments of relief, instead of brief moments of anxiety. It’s exhausting.

I’m not a doctor, but I do know from research and therapy that people with GAD have different brains. There are MRI scans that show this. Often, there is a chemical imbalance within our brain that is causing the symptoms. Usually, a lack of serotonin and/or nor-epinephrine. There are medications that you can go on to help balance the chemicals. Sometimes, after a while on the drugs, the brain will correct itself and the person can stop the medication. Other times, that doesn’t happen. Some say it’s hereditary. Some are just more prone to it. But people with GAD can live a happy and successful life with the right combinations of medication, therapy and/or coping strategies. It is possible for them to have brief bouts of anxiety, instead of only brief relief once they’ve done the work.

Now, I know it is hard to truly imagine what that’s like when you have a different brain. My mom and boyfriend have incredibly different brains than I do, and anxiety is something they feel briefly. It comes and it goes. It is hard for them to understand how I can always be anxious and what to do when the panic sets in. These are the ones closest to me, who know my heart and my thoughts and they still don’t totally get it. So I’m not expecting you to. But I do think people need to understand that there is a difference between “Regular ‘Healthy’ Anxiety” and “Mental Illness Anxiety.” There is something actually different in our brains. We think and respond differently based off our experiences and chemical balances. So, it can sometimes become frustrating when people try to “relate” or “give advice”. Because you don’t have my brain. You don’t know. And you never will. You can’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know that when most of you say these things to me, you mean well. I know it’s your way of showing you care and you wanting to help. But you can’t fix me and I don’t want you to. I want to be loved. Accepted. As is. When I get these little pieces of “advice”, it feels like a huge punch in the gut. An internal dialogue begins and goes something like this…

“Wait, what? Do you really think if a vitamin would take my anxiety away, that I wouldn’t have done that years ago? Do you think I live this for fun? Or for attention? Do you think I would be on an entire pharmacy shelf of brain altering medications if a vitamin would fix me?!”
Or…
“Are you seriously going to tell me that I am struggling with anxiety so badly because I haven’t prayed hard enough? Don’t you think I’ve prayed, cried, begged and screamed out to God asking Him to take this from me? Because I have. So, so, so many times. My anxiety isn’t a lack of faith. I am not weak for seeking medical attention. God gave us Doctors, Pharmaceutical Scientists, Psychiatrists and Psychologists for a reason. I know all the Bible verses, I know He is with me, and I refuse to believe I’m suffering because of what you perceive as lack of faith. His way of answering all of my feeble prayers may not be what you’re thinking or expecting. So don’t tell me this is my fault, because I still have faith DESPITE my anxiety. And that’s huge.“

Those comments often makes me feel inadequate. That there’s something wrong with me having anxiety because you feel I should no longer have it. But what I really want to say is, YOU. DON’T. GET. IT. You don’t know what it’s like to be me. You don’t know my brain and my anxiety. It’s different than yours. Every person, including those who struggle with a Mental Illness, has a different story. A different experience. There isn’t a “fix all solution”. If there was, there wouldn’t be Mental Illnesses anymore because we surely aren’t choosing to live like this.

My anxiety is Trauma Linked. I have experienced a never ending cycle of traumas since I was 4 years old. School was a terrible place for me, and honestly, has continued to be. When I was 4, I began to be physically and verbally abused in Kindergarten. The scariest thing was happening to me. 4 year old me didn’t know how to process that, but it did know that I didn’t feel good or safe.
The brain doesn’t fully develop until you’re 25. I’m 25 now. So all through development, my brain has known and developed in response to danger. 4 year old me didn’t have the skills or words to process what was happening. So my brain did what it thought was best and started to tell me to avoid situations, people and places because they WERE dangerous. I had been hurt there. Over and over. It was NOT safe. I knew that, felt it, had it bruised and burned onto my body. My brain began to think if I don’t go there, I’ll be safe. And as I’ve grown up and traumas have continued to happen to me, my brain just kept going down that same neuro-pathway. Because that’s what it knows. It’s what has kept me alive.

But it’s also made me afraid of everything. My brain, in trying to save me, is now destroying me. I view almost everything as dangerous or a threat to my physical safety. I don’t say that lightly. It is the truth. I’m afraid to leave my house. I jump and have a massive panic attack when someone rings my doorbell unexpectedly. I will lay on the floor, shaking in panic and never know who was there. I won’t answer phone calls from numbers I don’t know because it could be them. I try to avoid basketballs, red vans, gold Dodge trucks and lockers because they trigger traumatic memories from my past. I try to avoid these things because my brain tells me that something bad WILL happen as soon as I’m around them. And I believe it, because it has already happened. I know it to be true. I’m triggered by blonde women and will go out of my way to avoid passing one to try and fend off the panic. If someone approaches me quickly, I believe they’re coming to attack me and literally run away screaming. This is my anxiety. It is always in overdrive. It’s hyper-vigilant, always trying to predict the next threat and keep me safe. I’ve been in Fight, Flight or Freeze Mode since September. The adrenaline has rarely ceased. My body is always fighting, mentally, to stay alive. And I’m suffering because of it.

Not only am I no longer able to leave my house, I can’t work. The part of my brain that makes decisions, helps with interpersonal functioning and emotional regulation is rarely ‘online’. Friendships are hard to maintain because I’m too busy fighting off threats in my head, I forget to respond to messages. I’m so busy and exhausted staying alive mentally that I cannot even enjoy my hobbies anymore. My immune system pretty much shut off in December from long term adrenaline exposure, and I was super sick and could not heal. My blood levels have been irregular and I was at extreme risk for sudden death at one point from low platelets and didn’t even know it. I have trouble remembering things. My appetite is pretty much nonexistent. Because I don’t eat much, my energy is low, so even thinking about making food is too tiring. Even when I know I’m safe, I often feel like I’m not really inside my body. It’s there, moving and stuff, but I have no clue what’s happening around me. Because I’m so afraid and have debilitating panic attacks whenever I need to leave my house or go somewhere alone, I remain a prisoner inside my home often, which has triggered PTSD Linked Depression.

I don’t tell you this for pity. I tell you this because you need to know that there is a difference. My anxiety has stemmed from years of untreated trauma resulting in severe PTSD. It’s not just a discomfort going places or an occasional worry. It’s not feeling anxious about what is to come because it is unknown, it is fear of future situations BECAUSE of what happened before. I was originally (mis)diagnosed with GAD and I’ve been on a variety of medications over the years to try and calm my Sympathetic Nervous System (Fight, Flight or Freeze) and activate my Parasympathetic System so I can Rest and Digest. But we haven’t had success. Because my issue, deep down, isn’t anxiety. It is trauma. I still am tense and ready to run constantly. I’ve been in therapy and none of the coping techniques and relaxation methods have worked because you have to be in a CALM body for them to work. As soon as that adrenaline is triggered, you have to wait it out before the exercises will work. Because I see everything as a threat, my brain keeps
releasing that adrenaline and I cannot find calm because my body never relaxes. Not even with the help of antidepressants and anti-psychotics. Not with vitamins. It doesn’t go away even if I pray the entire time. My brain has learned that this world is really dangerous, felt the pain its brought and is now telling me if I want to stay alive, I cannot go anywhere.

My anxiety is different than yours. I have a dear friend who also battles with anxiety and her anxiety is different than mine. While we can relate on some level, there’s still much we don’t get. Because she hasn’t lived my life and I haven’t lived hers. My brain has paved pathways for 21 years that reinforced feelings of danger and provoked anxiety. It’s how my brain knows how to function. And it will continue to function this way until I do something about it. Until I decide I can’t live this way anymore. And I have come to that point. I can’t do this anymore.

But it’s not going to be a magic vitamin or memorizing all the anti-anxiety Bible verses or just giving it all to God that’s going to fix me. Sure, my faith will help and has been what keeps me fighting, because I believe I struggle with these Illnesses for a reason and a purpose. I have a story to tell. There is purpose in this season. Even though it hurts like hell. It’s not a lack of faith. It is a brain wiring issue, one that I now am working incredibly hard in rewiring. I am in intensive therapy for trauma and am doing the hard work to try and heal my brain. I’m fighting like hell, you guys. It is freaking hard. But I’m fighting to stop viewing everyone and everything as a threat. To not be anxious all the time, and to only have brief moments of anxiety. Because deep down, there is a tiny part of me that does believe and has hope that I can make it through this. And I have to cling to that because I won’t make it otherwise. I believe that I was called to share my story. To be a wife and mother. To live. And I know in my heart of hearts that there is hope, a purpose and a calling for you too. This fight is hard, but one day we will cross to the other side, stronger than ever.

Each one of our stories is different. My anxiety is different than yours. But I firmly believe that we need to stop judging and stop giving unwanted/unnecessary advice just to feel like you’re trying. In my experience, this has only caused more hurt than good. I have trained professionals helping me that I know & believe God put in my life for this season. I’m in good hands. People have my back in the advice and help department. Where I need you is in the love and encouragement department. Accept me, as is, mess and all. Don’t feel you need to fix me. All I want is someone to stand beside me as I fight, who I can lean on when it gets hard or who will help me get up when I fall. Feeling loved and just knowing you have someone there for you makes more of a difference than you could imagine. It’s not your job to fix. I know you want to, because you love me or your struggling loved one, but know that BEING THERE is what we need. More than anything. Knowing we have someone to turn to when hell gets really hot and firey. That’s how you help fix. A way you can help mend. This is my story and my experience. It’s not everyone’s. But from my perspective, this is what everyone needs to know. What we need most is love. Anxiety is different in every single person but we all need love.

So go love on others. Encourage someone today. It doesn’t have to be someone who has openly shared they have a Mental Illness, because there are a lot of people suffering in silence. Whoever comes to mind, pick up your phone or your pen and write someone a quick little note of love and encouragement. Not advice, love.

Keep fighting, dear friends. The world is better with you here. Know it. Fight to believe it.

Love,

Becca