This Week: Anxiety(Less)
My biggest regret of motherhood happened before my kids were born.
Dear fam,
I’ve been thinking a lot about anxiety over the last few weeks — about the shape of it, the taste, the ways in which it has crept into my life at various moments. This is distinct from experiencing anxiety (which I’ve also been doing). I’ve been turning anxiety over in my mind, like a psychic Rubik’s cube, trying to get all the parts to fit neatly together.
It’s not a Rubik’s cube, though. It’s more like smoke, rising from an incense burner, sending tendrils into my (and, likely, your) mind until I’m foggy with the thick, fragrant stuff. Where does it begin? If I knew, could I make it stop? The answers are almost certainly (a) doesn’t matter and, (b) not a chance.
As a kid, I never thought of myself as an anxious person — not that I knew that word. The way I remember the ‘90s, we had no idea about the intricacies of mental health. Now, I ask my kids if they’re feeling anxious, or nervous, or frustrated — emotional vocabulary is very important to my wife and I. Back then? You were either crazy or not.
As a teen, and then as an adult, I took pride in being the person who got shit done. I’d do impossible things in my early 20s. It was very regular for me to be on a bus to the other side of the country1, sleeping in the aisle, only to get up, work all day and then all night. Some nights I’d finish out the day by partying. At least twice, I can remember wrapping up a 12-hour shift waiting tables and getting in the car to drive several hours to another event.
Part of this, of course, is a function of being dumb, and young, and adventurous. Not necessarily in that order. When I was 18, like so many folks, I thought I was invincible.
Another part is something I’m trying to untangle.
I’ve had a fair amount of experiences that seem to have a single characteristic in common: They all could have been avoided, or mitigated, had I not been willing (or taught?) to accept discomfort as a fact of life.
Having an anxiety disorder. Having ADHD. Being gay and queer.
There are so many ways in which I could have been more comfortable. Why did I believe I should just put up with unhappiness and discomfort?
In hindsight, I had been anxious for a very long time before I got pregnant. I know this because I was having panic attacks — though I didn’t know to call them that yet. Once, a few years before Big Kid was born, my boss took me to the emergency room because I was having chest pains and couldn’t breathe. I called it stress, and took a week off work.
(But why is it acceptable for work to drive one to a point of heart palpitations?)
But it’s way more than that. As a kid, I panicked every time my mom had to travel for work. I remember screaming and crying and grabbing on to her as she left for the airport. As a mom now, I’m horrified that she had to endure this in order to provide for our family; I know what that feels like. Barbed wire on the soul. I was anxious, but my parents didn’t know. And I certainly didn’t.
There are other memories — crying during tests because I couldn’t focus, choking during a recital, so many (too many) nights lying awake in bed imagining the most horrifying things in the darkness. Nightmares. Insomnia.
When I got pregnant it got so much worse. Not enough, though, for me to think I needed help. Instead, I called it hormones and getting emotional. Which, of course, it was — it was my hormones that were making my anxiety disorder so unbearable. Except I bore it, every day, even the many days I had to pull my car to the side of the road and cry hysterically because someone cut me off. Or I couldn’t find parking. Or someone left me a passive-aggressive voice message.
Why didn’t I consider this an unacceptable way to live? Moreover, if I had taken my wellbeing seriously, could I have avoided the disaster that would follow Big Kid’s birth — a year of complete breakdown, insomnia, loss of self? Would Big Kid be less anxious if I hadn’t been such a complete mess that first year?
I think about this all the time.
The answer I keep coming to can be applied across all the experiences I listed above, even though having ADHD is a very different thing from being gay. It’s simple, actually.
People who were born as and taught to be girls (and then to be women) are taught to accept discomfort as a fact of life. This means making do with what is, instead of demanding what can be. It means believing we deserve to be uncomfortable some of the time. It means understanding we cannot get everything we want, so maybe it’s too much trouble to even try.
Plenty of good comes from this — first and foremost, tenacity and resourcefulness like you wouldn’t believe. We get shit done. Sometimes (often) impossible shit. Is the cost worth the gift, though? I don’t know the answer to that one.
Two things happened when I got diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety at ages 35 and 34, respectively2. First, I began a journey of self-acceptance, compassion, and learning that has led me to feel better about myself than I have ever felt in my whole life. Second, I began to understand Big Kid better.
The more I read, listened, and considered, the more I understood what I was seeing — in both of us (this list I made of resources about ADHD is a great place to start). I am 100% certain that I would be a worse parent if I hadn’t learned that I have anxiety and ADHD.
I would be unhappy. And uncomfortable. And unable to be there, wholly, for my kids. I would be unable to care for myself and, therefore, unable to care for them in the way they deserve. For most of my life, I thought caring for myself first was selfish. Turns out, it’s the kindest thing I can do for those I love.
Seeing myself allows me to see them more fully.
In particular, understanding just how much of Big Kid’s behavior is driven by anxiety has been life-changing. Since her diagnosis, my wife and I have been approaching various Big Meltdowns as expressions of a fear of some sort; invariably, this approach has allowed us to diffuse the altercation so that she feels seen and calmed down.
Just last night she was bouncing off the walls, refusing to lay down and go to sleep, when one of us asked if she was scared to sleep for some reason. Eventually, she told us about a whole array of fears (ghosts, mostly), and we were able to allay them. “I feel a little calmer,” she said as her eyes drooped. And, without a tantrum or any screaming, she was asleep.
How much of Big Kid’s life will be more comfortable because she’s able to know herself, to see herself, from such a young age? How will this modeling, in turn, impact how Toddler sees and accepts herself?
I’m trying to recognize the moments in which I am accepting less than I deserve so that I might break the cycle. I want to teach my daughters to take up space, to demand a quality of life that doesn’t include heart palpitations. I want them to know how to care for themselves, so that they can show up fully for the ones they will love. I want them to know themselves. I want them to have words for how they feel, for who they are. I want them to know they will change, because the world will change, but the kernel of self will remain steadfast, adapting as needed. I want them to always be able to find, and hold, that kernel.
Anxiety has played an outsized role in my life. Maybe this will mean it plays an outsized role in my kids’ lives as well. But maybe not.
Either way, I can’t do anything about the past. All I can do is focus on making the future a space where we can all live as our whole selves.
Sending you love and wishes for a delicious Shabbat,
Mikhal
Welcome to the Chaos Palace is the space where I write about ADHD, queerness, Judaism, and how to navigate the mess that is the world. You can support my work by sharing this post with others, subscribing, or just clicking the like button. Or just read! That’s huge, too.
And now for some links
Since the election, I’ve been alternating between dissociating and activism. Also, I cooked this Thanksgiving dinner for our fam and my older sibling. It was delicious! The kids at mac and cheese, olives, and chicken nuggets, so they had a delicious time as well. Not pictured: gluten free pumpkin pie. I have celiac, but I still love pie.
I’ve been dissociating with:
Throwback music, including the best album by No Doubt and the best album by the xx and the best album by the Indigo Girls. Because I am from the ‘90s, dammit.
Every single episode of Maintenance Phase. Again.
and make me feel grounded in reality, what can I say.Listening to
’s Fat Talk as an audio-book. I have a whole essay in the works about how much this book means to me (spoiler! a lot!), but let’s start by saying go read/listen to it asap! Especially if you are interested in dismantling the anti-fat bias soup in which we all are swimming, as part of the aforementioned not accepting discomfort and general shittiness as a fact of life.I’ve been activizing with:
My local chapter of Friends of Standing Together, a joint-society organization that is mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel against the occupation and for peace, equality, and social justice. Learn more here! Or here!
This group of Israeli citizens calling on the international community to help us stop Netanyahu from driving the country off a damn cliff. (The ceasefire with Lebanon is huge, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t mean the government is no longer made of criminals who have the absolute worst intentions for my country, that I love).
Israel. Which, in fairness, can be driven from top to bottom in about eight or nine hours.
Three years ago, for what it’s worth.