My 'ongoing' bout with anxiety...
I've shared before that I struggle with anxiety. It was triggered about 7 years ago last week when I became the Lead Pastor at Impact. Before then I would feel pressure, stress, jitters, tightness in my shoulders, you know...typical stuff that comes with having responsibilities and deadlines and expectations.
But something shifted 7 years ago and though I didn't know what to call it then, I was experiencing acute anxiety. My Sabbatical coach suggested that it sounded to him like Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It's a fancy way of saying that I live with the equivalent of spidey senses and feel a transference of tension in almost any environment I'm in. But I think it's more than cause and effect (that is, a certain thing causes the certain feeling) after trying to get my head around what my deal is.
It varies in intensity, but I feel a tightness of my chest pretty much constantly. I felt it throughout my 3-month Sabbatical, I've felt in on the beaches of Mexico, on the streets of Venice, in the cathedrals of Rome. I feel it in the woods on my day off, in my house while I'm watching Jim Gaffigan...seriously. I feel a dull ache in my sternum regardless of how good or bad life is going or how successful or unsuccessful I've been at accomplishing something. So I've been able to test and see if this thing is connected to an actual conversation, expectation, or situation...and more than not, it's not. It's just there. Always there.
Most of the time on a scale of 1 to 10 it hovers around 3-6, but occasionally out of nowhere for no reason, it will spike from between 7 and 10. When that happens it's impossible for me to not be continually conscious of my own presence. What I mean is that even when I'm listening to people, I'm aware of myself, I'm reminded that I exist and that I'm standing there hearing them talk while my chest feels like I'm having a heart attack. When this first befell me, it freaked me out. I didn't know what was happening.
I went to the doctor to get some sort of diagnosis. I had chest x-rays, nothing. I drank liquid chalk (that's what it tasted like) to see if I had ulcers, nothing. I had probes connected all over my body and walked for 30 minutes to see if my heart was the issue, nothing. I had blood drawn to check for high blood pressure and all manner of disease that could manifest itself in chest pain...zilch. By this time I was also having a pain in my neck that felt like my jugular vein was about to burst, I was convinced I was having a heart attack. Turns out I was just having a panic attack. Never knew what that was before. Back in the olden days, they used to call it a "nervous breakdown", but that comes with a stigma apparently, but I'm not afraid to employ the descriptor. Seems to pretty much sum it up.
As more time went by, I was beginning to research my own family tree. As I explored my genetics and my families of origin on both my dad's side as well as my mom's, it was clear there were some indicators that 'mental illness' ran in the family. My mom's dad (my grandpa) dealt with alcoholism because of some vexation of spirit, my mom's mom (my grandma) dealt with--what shall I call them--'mood swings'. My mom's sister is an alcoholic on her 3rd marriage and umpteenth partner with emotional instability and psycho-social behavior that is and always has been strange and unhinged. And my mom's brother started with all sorts of hope and possibility, gifted beyond belief in the arts and the brilliant mind of a philosopher, yet something snapped in his 30's as he got divorced and lost his job and went on disability eventually living off welfare and cascading into a mental illness that needed to be medicated to the point of sedation. To visit him now in the mental facility he lives in is to interact with a zombie of sorts. It happened slowly, but surely.
My mom invited Christ into her heart when she was in college and I think it literally saved her life. I can see in her a propensity to stress that without the filling of the Spirit and the guidance of the Word would plunge her into self-destruction. I feel as though I share that same reality with my mom. I possess the Spirit, rather he has possessed me, so I am not on my own, nor am I my own. He intervenes and interferes with the natural trajectory of my natural man. As I lean into my identity in Him and trust him in the eye of the storm, I'm literally saved from myself. He saves me every day.
I share all this to say that recently, the last 5 days in particular, I have felt a level 8 to 10 anxiety that has occupied my chest cavity. When this occurs it takes all the energy I have to make it to 11am...from there I'm tapping into reserves and burning fumes and living off "mind over matter" will-power. I come home at 5pm and feel as though I've lived 7 days worth of life in one, aging in dog years. But, you know, I don't feel hopeless anymore. I know there is redemption in it and relief on the horizon. I've seen these intense seasons come and go, and it's that knowledge that gives me the strength to rise and live risen.
I just want to make sure I put this into words for myself and anyone else who may feel a kinship to what I'm sharing. I don't think it's because I don't trust God enough, have hidden sin in my heart, or have enough faith, not anymore. I think it's a "thorn in the flesh" as Paul talked about it (2 Cor. 12) that keeps me humble and hungry. If I woke up one morning and it was completely gone and I was totally free, I would take it. But I'm not holding my breath. Rather, I'm preparing my heart to live in this "jar of clay to show the excellency of the power is from God, and not from me." (2 Cor. 4).
I have anxiety. I am not anxiety. It's a reality, but it's not my identity.
But something shifted 7 years ago and though I didn't know what to call it then, I was experiencing acute anxiety. My Sabbatical coach suggested that it sounded to him like Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It's a fancy way of saying that I live with the equivalent of spidey senses and feel a transference of tension in almost any environment I'm in. But I think it's more than cause and effect (that is, a certain thing causes the certain feeling) after trying to get my head around what my deal is.
It varies in intensity, but I feel a tightness of my chest pretty much constantly. I felt it throughout my 3-month Sabbatical, I've felt in on the beaches of Mexico, on the streets of Venice, in the cathedrals of Rome. I feel it in the woods on my day off, in my house while I'm watching Jim Gaffigan...seriously. I feel a dull ache in my sternum regardless of how good or bad life is going or how successful or unsuccessful I've been at accomplishing something. So I've been able to test and see if this thing is connected to an actual conversation, expectation, or situation...and more than not, it's not. It's just there. Always there.
Most of the time on a scale of 1 to 10 it hovers around 3-6, but occasionally out of nowhere for no reason, it will spike from between 7 and 10. When that happens it's impossible for me to not be continually conscious of my own presence. What I mean is that even when I'm listening to people, I'm aware of myself, I'm reminded that I exist and that I'm standing there hearing them talk while my chest feels like I'm having a heart attack. When this first befell me, it freaked me out. I didn't know what was happening.
I went to the doctor to get some sort of diagnosis. I had chest x-rays, nothing. I drank liquid chalk (that's what it tasted like) to see if I had ulcers, nothing. I had probes connected all over my body and walked for 30 minutes to see if my heart was the issue, nothing. I had blood drawn to check for high blood pressure and all manner of disease that could manifest itself in chest pain...zilch. By this time I was also having a pain in my neck that felt like my jugular vein was about to burst, I was convinced I was having a heart attack. Turns out I was just having a panic attack. Never knew what that was before. Back in the olden days, they used to call it a "nervous breakdown", but that comes with a stigma apparently, but I'm not afraid to employ the descriptor. Seems to pretty much sum it up.
As more time went by, I was beginning to research my own family tree. As I explored my genetics and my families of origin on both my dad's side as well as my mom's, it was clear there were some indicators that 'mental illness' ran in the family. My mom's dad (my grandpa) dealt with alcoholism because of some vexation of spirit, my mom's mom (my grandma) dealt with--what shall I call them--'mood swings'. My mom's sister is an alcoholic on her 3rd marriage and umpteenth partner with emotional instability and psycho-social behavior that is and always has been strange and unhinged. And my mom's brother started with all sorts of hope and possibility, gifted beyond belief in the arts and the brilliant mind of a philosopher, yet something snapped in his 30's as he got divorced and lost his job and went on disability eventually living off welfare and cascading into a mental illness that needed to be medicated to the point of sedation. To visit him now in the mental facility he lives in is to interact with a zombie of sorts. It happened slowly, but surely.
My mom invited Christ into her heart when she was in college and I think it literally saved her life. I can see in her a propensity to stress that without the filling of the Spirit and the guidance of the Word would plunge her into self-destruction. I feel as though I share that same reality with my mom. I possess the Spirit, rather he has possessed me, so I am not on my own, nor am I my own. He intervenes and interferes with the natural trajectory of my natural man. As I lean into my identity in Him and trust him in the eye of the storm, I'm literally saved from myself. He saves me every day.
I share all this to say that recently, the last 5 days in particular, I have felt a level 8 to 10 anxiety that has occupied my chest cavity. When this occurs it takes all the energy I have to make it to 11am...from there I'm tapping into reserves and burning fumes and living off "mind over matter" will-power. I come home at 5pm and feel as though I've lived 7 days worth of life in one, aging in dog years. But, you know, I don't feel hopeless anymore. I know there is redemption in it and relief on the horizon. I've seen these intense seasons come and go, and it's that knowledge that gives me the strength to rise and live risen.
I just want to make sure I put this into words for myself and anyone else who may feel a kinship to what I'm sharing. I don't think it's because I don't trust God enough, have hidden sin in my heart, or have enough faith, not anymore. I think it's a "thorn in the flesh" as Paul talked about it (2 Cor. 12) that keeps me humble and hungry. If I woke up one morning and it was completely gone and I was totally free, I would take it. But I'm not holding my breath. Rather, I'm preparing my heart to live in this "jar of clay to show the excellency of the power is from God, and not from me." (2 Cor. 4).
I have anxiety. I am not anxiety. It's a reality, but it's not my identity.
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