Daily Excerpt: Anxiety Anonymous (Ortman) - Introduction, Part 1
Excerpt from Anxiety Anonymous by Dr. Dennis Ortman --
Introduction
“Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.” —Tao Te Ching
In our fast-paced society, living with stress seems normal. There is so much to do and so little time to do it. You may rationalize the stress as the inevitable price of ambition and success.
What you call stress is really anxiety. It is your fearful, nervous reaction to the many challenges of your life. That anxiety may escalate and persist to the point that you tell yourself: “I’m powerless over my anxiety, and my life has become unmanageable because of it.”
If your anxious reactions become harmfully excessive and beyond your control, you have crossed a line. You have become addicted to your anxiety. You experience it as powerful as any drug, taking over your life.
Nancy’s Story
Tonight was a special night for Nancy. She planned a surprise thirtieth birthday dinner for her husband Rick. It would be an intimate celebration for just the two of them. Nancy carefully decorated the kitchen with balloons and the table with candles and birthday dishes and napkins. She prepared his favorite meal of prime rib and lobster with mashed potatoes and shrimp cocktail. Nancy even baked his favorite cake, double chocolate. She wanted to have a romantic evening together, a celebration of both his birthday and their fifth anniversary. It was six thirty, and Nancy was just waiting for him to get home from work so she could shout, “Surprise!” She had it all planned out in her imagination, and everything was set to the last detail.
When seven o’clock came around and Rick had not yet arrived, Nancy caught herself beginning to worry. “He’s often late,” she thought to calm herself, resisting the impulse to call him. She didn’t want to ruin the surprise or appear too anxious. A half hour went by, and still no Rick. Nancy lit a cigarette to relax herself. She kept telling herself, “There’s no need to worry.” Another half hour passed, and Nancy could not resist calling him.
No answer.
She called several more times, becoming more frantic with each voice mail. Nancy could not sit still and began pacing and looking for little cleaning jobs. Her stomach upset, she dreaded the thought of food. Her heart beat more rapidly, making her more anxious. She wondered if a heart attack was coming. Her head throbbed. “Why hasn’t he called? Dammit!” she said to herself as she felt her anger rising. “He had better not be at the bar,” and she had the passing thought he was having an affair. She felt like throwing the dinner in the garbage but restrained herself. “I could kill him,” she thought.
Nancy paced more frantically, watching the clock, her worry escalating, “I hope he hasn’t gotten into an accident.” She had visions of his car crashed with him mangled inside. When the phone rang, she jumped to answer it, imagining it was the hospital calling to inform her of Rick’s tragic death. It was only her mother, and Nancy quickly got her off the line, hoping to hear from her husband. “Some thing terrible must have happened to him to keep him from calling,” she reasoned. Nancy began to pray and bargain with God, “If you bring him home safely, I’ll never nag him again about his drinking.”
As the time passed, Nancy felt more desperate and began calling the area hospitals, certain that Rick had had an accident.
At midnight, when Rick stumbled through the door, intoxicated and apologetic, Nancy flew into a rage. “How could you do this to me, and on your birthday of all days?” she screamed at him. Rick just stammered his apologies while Nancy be rated him about his drinking and how it was ruining their lives. Rick sat down on the couch and soon passed out, deaf to his wife’s worry and anger. Her relief at his safe return home was fleeting.
Nancy could not sleep or stop the deluge of thoughts that flooded her mind. She felt like jumping out of her skin. When her stomach continued to churn and her heart raced, she imagined she was having a heart attack and wondered if she should go to the hospital. Nancy tried to calm herself by pacing and by distracting herself with cleaning up.
But the worrisome thoughts persisted.
Rick had become intoxicated on so many occasions that she despaired he would never stop. She imagined him losing his job, going broke, and losing the house they worked so hard for. Her mind jumped to the future, and she saw them divorced and Rick dying of alcoholism. Because Rick was her soulmate, she envisioned herself never remarrying and living alone the rest of her life. She imagined herself dying young of heartbreak. “I hate how I feel. These thoughts are driving me crazy, but I can’t help myself,” she lamented.
Nancy realized that her husband was addicted to alcohol, but what she did not see so clearly was that she had her own addiction—to worry. She had the habit of worrying about so many things, not just his drinking. At some level, she knew that her anxious reactions were useless and even harmful. She may have told herself, “My worry doesn’t change anything. What will happen will happen. It only makes me miserable.” However, the harder she tried to control herself and the circumstances of her life, the more she failed to quell her anxiety, feeling even more out of control.
Such a sense of helplessness in the face of self-defeating behavior is the essence of ad diction.
Anxiety as a Drug
As a psychologist, I meet with many anxious patients like Nancy. Nearly all have said, “I hate how I feel. What can I do to get rid of it?” They have tried many strategies, including therapy, and only found temporary relief. The anxiety usually returns with a vengeance. The anxious patient is fighting a battle within herself to get rid of what she does not like about herself. That battle of self-rejection cannot be won.
Another strategy is needed.
All of us feel anxious from time to time. Anxiety and fear are normal human reactions to a perceived threat. Our bodies are activated and energized to confront the danger by fight, flight, freezing, or fainting. Our minds anticipate the negative consequences and be gin planning ways of escaping or avoiding the imagined catastrophe. Both fear and anxiety serve survival purposes. They help us stay alive.
Sometimes, the warning bells can become so loud and persistent that they impair our ability to live a happy, fulfilled life. Our brain is constantly on high alert, and we cannot relax. Often we cannot sleep, and our bodies feel wired. There is tension in our neck, back, and shoulders, as we prepare to face the imagined threat. Our heart pounds, and we have difficulty breathing. We feel dizzy and sweat profusely. Our minds race uncontrollably with thoughts of terrible things happening. A sense of doom enshrouds us.
When the levels of anxiety and fear interfere with our happiness and daily living, we suffer a clinical level of anxiety, called an anxiety disorder.
If you recognize that your anxiety has crossed that line where it begins to interfere with your happiness and wellbeing, you are not alone. There is an anxiety epidemic afoot. Research indicates that anxiety disorders are the most prevalent of mental/emotional conditions. More than a quarter of the adult population (28.8%) will suffer some form of clinically significant anxiety disorder in their lifetimes1. A recent study of mental illness among U.S. youth revealed that nearly a third of our children (31.9%) meet diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder, with the average age of onset at six years.2 In our fast-paced, success driven, high-expectation society, these numbers are increasing.
If you suffer from anxiety, whether a little or a lot, you may feel enslaved by it. If you thrash helplessly in its grip, you may be addicted to your anxiety. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine if your anxiety is addictive:
• Do you feel overwhelmed at times by a sense of danger and helplessness?
• Do you consider your anxiety excessive, even crippling at times?
• Even though your anxious reactions are painful and harmful, do you feel powerless to stop them?
• Does your preoccupation with safety interfere with your life?
• Do you seek desperately to control your feelings and the circumstances of your life?
• Does your need for control seem excessive, interfering with your relationships?
• Do you feel hopeless about finding a cure for your anxiety?
Without you realizing it, your anxiety acts like a drug that excites, numbs, and possesses you. You probably don’t think of it as a drug because you do not feel any pleasant high. You hate the distressful feeling and cannot imagine deriving any benefit from it. Nevertheless, anxiety acts like a stimulant, giving you an adrenaline rush. Under its influence, you are energized. Your body tenses, ready for action, either fight or flight. Your emotions run high, intense, fast, and furious. The physical, mental, and emotional excitement numbs you to any other disturbing thoughts and feelings. Your anxiety may disguise deeper hurt and be a way of self-medicating.
It also numbs you to joyful feelings. Your focus narrows to the perception of danger and the pursuit of safety, excluding engagement in other life-enriching activities. Your life shrinks. Caught up in anxiety, your emotional reactions seem beyond your control, making you feel powerless and possessed. You feel stuck.
Anxiety—it’s a hard habit to break.
For more from this chapter, see Steps to Wholeness.
Finalist, Best Books Awards
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