While I’ve been pretty open here in this tiny little corner of the internet about many of my varied neuroses—from my struggles with my weight to my frequent writerly freak-outs to my overly-sentimental (or, some would say just mental) inability to gracefully let my children grow up—there have been some cards, I must confess, which I have continued to play very close to my chest. After a week of struggling to determine how to play the current hand I’ve been dealt, I’m about to lay one down for you.

There has been a presence lurking around in the shadows of my life for several years now, but, until the past few years, I’ve been able to endure its existence.  Sure, it would keep me up at night from time to time.  So did the children.  I could tolerate them, right?  So certainly I could tolerate this little “worry thing.”  So it would send cold charges of electricity through my body without warning, causing my heart to pound and my body to sweat and my thoughts to race.  So did other activities of an adult nature.  If I could handle the one, I could surely hand the other.  Surely.  And so what if I would get hung up on trying to figure out a problem or resolve an interpersonal issue or contemplate the nature of the universe or our budget or my marriage, my thoughts drawn back to an issue over and over and over, unsettled until the problem was resolved?  Everybody does that, right?  It’s not a problem.  I didn’t have a problem.  My anxiety was NOT a problem.

Not until a few years ago.  And then, for some reason I cannot explain, my little “worry thing” suddenly became A PROBLEM.  Things that used to just make me a little bit nervous now suddenly caused me to panic, and no amount of self-talk would calm my brain or my body down.  Riding a bus (yes, seriously), climbing the fire tower at Mohican with my Baby (six stories with a clear, unimpeded shot all the way down), going out in a boat, getting stuck in an elevator—I suddenly couldn’t handle these things, and it freaked me out.

Now, as a mental health professional, I know, of course, that the best sign of positive mental health is to freak out without freaking out about freaking out.  SO, I did not freak out about my freak out.  Much.  And after I got done freaking out, I did the logical thing.  I got drugs.  A nice little beta-blocker, to be exact, which was enough to convince my body that the fight or flight response really truly was not necessary simply over shimmying through a narrow passageway or riding a ferry for 20 minutes.  It was a beautiful thing.  For a while.

But then something shifted again.  I don’t know what, I don’t know when, but it got worse.

It began last spring, when I went on my first writing retreat in Cincinnati.  On my way home, in the wind, I had to drive across what I have affectionately come to refer to as The Death Bridge From Hell—a high, long, two-lanes-per-side express-way bridge over a wide, exposed valley, driven over at 70 miles per hour on average.  It had made me nervous on my drive there, but I had managed to get over with minimal trauma.  The way home, however, was another story.

Between the wind and an absent-minded attempt to pass a semi just as I came upon the bridge, I found myself out over a vast expanse of nothing-ness next to the largest, most menacing truck you’ve ever seen and the wind blowing my car right in his direction.  And I did, that day, something I’d never done before.

I had a panic attack.

Nobody knew.  I told no one.  No one but my doctor and a trusted friend or two.  But I knew.  And it unsettled me.

Thanks to my trusty little quarter of a pill, I pushed on and made it through a summer of events that could have unnerved me without it’s assistance—The Maid of the Mist, a whale-watching cruise, climbing through tunnels in Maine, riding the train up Mt. Washington.  Things that, before, would have made me a little anxious, but now, caused my body to revolt, my heart screaming “I’M GONNA DIE!!!!!” and my adrenaline flooding my body to save me.  But not with my little pill.

The little pill, however, only works, it turns out, if you remember to take it.  Which I did NOT do when I returned to Cincinnati this spring.  Despite a stellar attempt at self-talk and the reminder to get around the truck BEFORE crossing the bridge, it happened again.  It was all I could do to not stop my car.  I slowed to nearly 50 miles per hour crossing that stupid bridge, the truck now passing ME, causing me to slow all the more.  What the HECK was wrong with me?

From time to time, throughout that week, I would suddenly remember I had to cross the bridge to get back home, and that same electricity would shoot through me with alarming intensity.  I finally got online and looked up a way around the darn thing, just to give myself some peace, which it did.  Until I actually found myself on that route on the way home.  Which, it turns out, was just as harrowing (though not as high or windy) as The Death Bridge From Hell itself.  The rest of the way home I fought to even muster up the ability to pass a semi-truck, the anxiety clung so tenaciously.  I couldn’t shake it.  Even with the little pill.  Something was wrong.  And something needed to be done.

I got home, and promptly put it all back on the back burner to let it simmer.  Until this week.  When it suddenly dawned on me that I am going on a bus trip next week.  A bus trip that involves a stop at Mammoth Caves.  A bus trip that involves a stop at Mammoth Caves which involves a two-hour tour of an underground cavern with spaces called things like “Fat Man’s Revenge” and “Tall Man’s Revenge” and me responsible for five rambunctious sixth-graders.

Gulp.

(Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump)

Suffice it to say, I’m not cherishing this idea.  In fact, I’m wondering WHAT THE HECK I WAS THINKING.

I’ve seen this happen.  I’ve watched other women get older and suddenly, in the midst of all the other joy that comes with changing hormones, deal with panic attacks when they’ve never had them ever before in their lives.  I knew this problem existed.  I just never, ever, EVER in my life thought it would become MY problem.

I do the right things.  I try to avoid caffeine.  I exercise.  I work to control my thought life.  I tell myself I’m going to be okay.  I breathe deeply.  I meditate on scripture.  I pray.

My body doesn’t get the message.

And so, tomorrow, there will be another conversation with my doctor.  It will go something like this:  “In four days I have to go spend two hours in a cave and squeeze through something and I don’t like squeezing through things and I really would like some new drugs, please.  Because freaking out an hour into the tour with 75 sixth graders and 40 of their parents watching me and wondering why the heck a professional counselor can’t even manage to walk through a dark, narrow underground passageway is not only mortifying, it’s bad for business.

“That, and I’d like to be able to sleep for the next four nights, as I’m going to need all the rest I can get ahead of time.”

Sigh.

I’ve done all I can do.  I will talk to the doctor. I will fill my new prescription and get to know my new little friend over the weekend. Come Tuesday afternoon, I will take one, and I will take a deep breath, and I will walk into that cave.

Hopefully, this time, my body will get the message.

THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR HERE.

Nothing except fear, itself.

anxiety counseling courage exercise trust