Pocket-Size
“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.”—Arthur Somers Roche
Most mornings, my “disquietude,” as I prefer to call my anxiety, is a slow riser. I’m usually halfway through the newspaper’s Op-Ed page before it arrives, unhurried as a yawn but just as insistent, stretching its way through my thoughts. That’s because these days my brand of worry tends more toward melancholy than toward agitation and lingers rather than races. This kind of anxiety dates back to my childhood and reminds me of what I am not: someone born with “the happy gene.”
Sometimes I imagine how uplifting it would be to wake up every morning, sporting a smile with no effort at all. Or, to be able to hear a tune in my mind that has me humming before my toes touch the floor. Are you, too, perhaps a member of the anxiety fraternity—that club which no one wants to join? The statistics on anxiety and depression among those living in the U.S. indicate these conditions are common, and—to my dismay—physicians and psychologists are not exempt.
This past May, The Washington Post ran an article on depression that based its conclusions on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, reporting that 24% of respondents showed significant symptoms of depression and 30% had symptoms of an anxiety disorder. While these numbers might not seem surprising in light of the extraordinary challenges we now face as a nation, they unfortunately also resonated with my previous experiences during decades of practice as a clinical psychologist: anxiety and depression always topped the list of reasons my patients sought my help.
Often the two conditions presented as flip sides of the same coin. How common it was to listen to clients’ stories about trying to outrun their fears by using various activities as distractions, hoping to escape the dark cloud that threatened to blanket them if they slowed down. And how well I knew this from my own life. “Hard wired” for anxiety, it took me years to incorporate therapy, a low-dose of the right medication, and a plethora of mindfulness practices into my days with a success that spelled relief.
These days, we have more to contend with than ever before. Pandemic anxiety—fanned ever hotter by our country’s current sharp cultural and political divides—intensifies not only how we manage our internal distress, but how we communicate it, as well. How easily conversations can become confrontations when we feel we are falling head first into disaster!
Some of us, fearful of not being heard, allow our voices to rise, hoping that speaking louder about “what needs to be done” will drive the anxiety away. Others, fearful that pandemic talk will become contentious, may shift the topic or break away from the discussion altogether. Each of us struggles in our own ways with fear. But unless we recognize how anxiety can impede our desire to comfort one another, this comfort that we all crave will remain elusive.
Recently, while sitting at the breakfast table, patiently waiting for my anxiety to pass, my thoughts dawdled over the many therapy hours I’d spent with young children. So, from what your Mom tells me, it sounds like your brain likes to play tricks on you. Is that true? Typically, the question would be met with a single, solemn nod, and then we were off: two “worry” detectives—one tall, one short—in pursuit of the culprit responsible for bringing hours of misery to my small companion.
Over and over, I used story-telling, play, direct confrontation of the fear, and relaxation exercises to short-circuit the “brain-bully’s” power to ruin a perfectly good day. Let’s make him small enough that he can be carried in your pocket, okay? The message, of course, was not to attempt the impossible—to eradicate all apprehension—but to make the fear manageable. Perhaps, even, to befriend it.
So, too, my own anxiety—even that created in the cauldron of a pandemic. It’s inevitable that I will carry it with me throughout my day—just the same way I now carry my mask—but I keep it tucked away. I am not giving that hot stab of nerves even the most meager amount of power.
And so I find that most of my mornings begin this way: over my coffee and the newspaper, I cull the articles, careful about which I will read and which I will pass by. I take note of my disquietude in an “oh, there you are” kind of way. Then, I wait, confident that my nemesis will soon curl into a ball and go back to sleep—falling, once again, under my control. Becoming, once again, pocket-size.
For resources on how to manage pandemic anxiety and other stressors, go to the website for The American Psychological Association and click onto their Covid-19 resources page.
Best,
