I remember the first time I actually felt anxiety activate in my body.
I was 23 years old and performing in the Vagina Monologues with Temple University.
That year I was asked to gather a group of women to help me create an original monologue. It was an incredible honor and I was so excited.
Fast forward to opening night.
Our piece was created and it was an amazing conglomeration of many women’s voices. I was sitting in front of a small group of at Temple’s Ambler campus.
The big show in front of 600 people wasn’t until the following night.
I wasn’t nervous about performing. I had been in plays and choir and recitals off and on for most of my life. I’m a ham. I love the attention. No big deal.
That night as I sat and waited to perform my piece I tucked my index cards with my lines written neatly upon them under my seat.
One stipulation of all colleges that perform Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues is that all performers read the lines as opposed to memorize them. Fine by me!
But at some point my brown leather boot haphazardly kicked the index cards ever so lightly causing the first several cards to spill from the top. And when it was my turn and I bent over to grab the pile, I missed those cards.
I’m sure you can see where this is heading. I’m sure some of you are biting your nails and feeling my pain.
It took a few moments for me to realize that not all of my cards where in front of me. But once it hit me, I was flooded with big overwhelming doses of panic.
Here I am on stage and I didn’t have my lines. A slow fuuuuuuuck rumbled through my brain.
But I must say I recovered quite nicely. Luckily I wasn’t on stage alone and even better, I was in the middle of two young women who also had the entire piece written on their cards.
So I simply read my lines from their cards. Thank god for non verbal communication. Sure it was clunky but I avoided making a complete fool out of myself and the show did indeed go on.
But something happened to my body that night. Something was activated inside of me. Because after that night the deep and intense feeling that rumbled in the center of my chest took up permanent residency.
I remember getting out of the shower a few weeks later and noticing that feeling. I realized it wasn’t there before but despite the fact that nothing was wrong, it didn’t go away.
And thus began my tumultuous relationship with anxiety.
But really that’s not completely true.
While that was the first time I actually connected with having persistent anxiety, the very very first time I experienced it was when I was 5 years old.
I was at a birthday party and for reasons I can not remember I started clenching my stomach muscles. It was a nervous tick that floated into my body one day and stayed for several years. Then, one day it left.
But when I was in high school I was diagnosed with nervous stomach.
It didn’t shift until I started practicing yoga 5 years later.
And then came the play debacle I mentioned above. But still yoga helped me manage it.
And for the past 10 years I haven’t considered myself someone who has anxiety.
I’m happy. My life is fulfilling. I engage in lots of self care. I have great sex. Life is good.
I refused to identify myself that way.
Until now.
Recently my relationship with anxiety has taken a very sharp turn.
Recently it has become hard to ignore or manage or deny.
And that is because of my body’s physical response to my anxiety- I clench certain muscles in my body. One of them being my stomach.
And while this has been a mellow tick that I have been able to let be and manage, in the past week or two it has gotten more intense and harder to control.
And it wasn’t until this morning as I was in the bathroom getting ready for my day (I have a lot of epiphanies in my bathroom) it hit me like a thunderbolt from the heaven…
This is the SAME thing I used to do when I was 5 years old. I did not connect with it until that very moment. Boom. Big breakthrough.
And in the past few days I have finally admitted to myself that I am currently suffering from anxiety in a very real and tangible way.
Now this is something that is very challenging for me to do.
Due to my illnesses as a child I tend to simply allow things to be in my body without trying to fix them or fear them. I don’t need a diagnosis. I simply need to heal.
But acknowledging this has been huge. Because now I can take steps to address it in a more proactive way.
Because as you guys know, I do my work.
I meditate twice a day. I practice yoga 3-5 times a week. I take care of myself.
But right now I need a little more attention. I need to dig a little deeper.
But first I needed to get honest with myself.
I needed to accept where I am right now.
Because until I could do that I wasn’t able to move forward.
So I have lots of appointments scheduled with both healers and functional medicine providers. That’s my next step.
And I’ve already felt some promising shifts simply from the awareness and a very powerful Reiki experience with my fiance’.
And I will be sure to keep you updated on my progress.
Because I know that there is a very good chance that many of you reading this suffer from some form of anxiety.
I mean 40 million people over 18 years old in the US are affected by anxiety, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA).
So I want you to know that you are not alone.
I also want you to know that very successful and happy people can have anxiety. Because while this is going on for me right now I still feel wildly optimistic.
Nothing needs to define us unless we let it. We get to choose.
So I choose to move forward and figure this out.
I would love to hear from you. If this post resonates with you lett me know what you think in the comments below.
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