Tag: spirituality

I have suffered bouts of anxiety / depression off and on all my life. In 2019, I suffered the worst episode in my life. My emotions jumped from fear, anger, shame, helplessness, sorrow, worthlessness, despair, and back again. It was a constant spinning spiral, like being in a hurricane. I felt helpless as all these crazy emotions seemed to rage within me. It was distracting. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t get anything done. I had a hard time staying in the moment. I felt like my mind was being plunged into another place and time. A time that was frightening. Terrifying. But someplace oddly familiar, like I’ve felt this way before. I’ve been in this pit before, but I couldn’t remember exactly when or how.

Pulling myself out of the pit was impossible. The anxiety ran so high, the fight or flight switch got turned on. I’d try to watch something funny on television, but it was like trying to concentrate on a comedy show while your being crushed with dread. Like trying to laugh while bombs are dropping and exploding all around you, and any moment you could get hit and blown to pieces.

That’s how I felt, anyway, for what it’s worth, even while my analytical brain kept trying to convince me that I was perfectly safe, that there was no real danger. Clearly, there was a disconnect between what I was thinking analytically and what I was feeling inside.

Part of the problem was that my analytical brain was getting impatient with my emotional side. My emotions felt out of control, and my analytical brain kept trying to stuff them all down. It kept fighting for control and nothing was working.

During this time, I read countless books on anxiety. I prayed constantly. I devoured Scripture. But in the end, I realized the more I tried to control my emotions, even as a spoke Scripture aloud, the worse things got. I suffered frequent panic attacks, day and night. I was lucky if I got more than an hour or two of sleep. My body was in high alert, 24/7. Every muscle in my body felt tense. I was running off of sheer adrenaline. My blood pressure began to soar.

One of the books I read during this season of my life was The Adversary by Mark Bubeck. The book spoke to me. After soaking in the book, I devoured more books on spiritual warfare. They all seemed to make sense. I read books on spiritual warfare praying. I bought the workbook on Preparing For Battle. I asked a friend about it. She referred me to a place I could call for a spiritual consultation. I was desperate. I knew I needed help. I called for an appointment and got scheduled with a prestigious expert on the subject, who, after I spent $75 for a 50 minute session of explaining my life story and the crushing state I was in, gave me an email with a bunch of advice and practical prayers to use. My husband and I took the man’s advice, but my condition worsened, and after my husband sent frantic emails to the consultant for help, the person finally did call back, not out of compassion or sympathy, but out of sheer annoyance. His contempt was evident in his tone of voice; he asked me no questions and gave me no chance to speak. He monopolized the entire conversation. I had to interrupt him to say anything at all, and the more I tried to say something, the more irritated he became and spoke over anything I had to say. It was evident he wanted to do all the talking, so I let him have his say. He told me my parents were “diabolical”, that I should never had volunteered for prison ministry, and ventured on a long tirade boasting of his own achievements. At the end of the phone call, he gave me a bunch of Bible verses to keep in mind, and that was it. The only positive thing he said was that my husband must really love me to be so persistent. I hung up the phone, my hands shaking. Here’s the irony: his tone of voice reminded me precisely of the “diabolical” tone my parents would use on me; that prideful contemptuous tone that doesn’t give a whit of the emotional wreckage you are in but tries to pretend to for pride’s sake. It is for this reason, and others, that I gave up on “spiritual warfare” ministries to save me. I came to the realization that I was “praying” for all the wrong reasons. You have to realize something: I was in fight or flight mode. It was like a switch had been turned on and I didn’t know how to turn it off. I was in hyped up adrenaline-rushed hypervigilant mode. Survival mode. I felt like I was fighting for my life. But I was fighting for… control. I wanted control over my emotions, control over my anxiety. I just wanted it all to stop. And when I prayed the prayers of “spiritual warfare”, it was like a placebo. It gave me the illusion of being in control even when I wasn’t. instead of giving the battle to God, I felt I had to be even more ready, more in control, more vigilant and prepared for the spiritual battle before me. And it was exhausting! But, when I look back on it, it was as if I didn’t really trust God to fight the battle for me.

One morning before church service, I opened a Bible randomly and read the verses that were there. And the verses jumped off the page. It was only then that I realized the dire error of my ways. I had always been uncomfortable with the prayers of “binding” spirits, but I had been so desperate at the time, I didn’t know what else to do. And the verses of 2 Peter 2:10-12 convicted my heart. Hadn’t I been foolish? Hadn’t I been acting like an animal, submitting to the fleshly instinct of fear and self-preservation rather than to the authority of God? Jesus may have “cast out” demons, but he never asked his Father to abuse them, or bind them up for judgment. Judgment will happen, but not till the end times. If God’s mighty angels have not the authority to rebuke demons, then who are we to think we have that authority? We view our physical circumstances, and they are unpleasant to us. Thus, we conclude, this must not be God’s will. We make assumptions about the spiritual realm, a realm unseen to us, a realm often misunderstood, based on our physical circumstances. Was not the book of Job a warning to us not to make too many presumptions about God’s intentions when circumstances don’t go our way?

As the words of Scripture hit home in my heart, I put the Bible down and spent the rest of that Sunday morning on my hands and knees in deep contrition, begging God for forgiveness, within the church’s private chapel.

SEEK MEDICAL ADVICE

I advise anyone to first check for medical reasons for why your anxiety may be worse than usual. Sometimes it can be as simple as a side effect of a new drug you’re taking, or low vitamin D levels. Check your medications for side effects. Then, go to your doctor and ask for a complete physical and lab work up.

In my case, things got worse before they got better. My nurse practitioner, who thought I had lost my mind, prescribed an antidepressant that only made my panic attacks worse (I didn’t think that was even possible). After that, there were other setbacks when it came to medications. I was once given an antipsychotic medicine. I refused to take it. I was suffering anxiety, not delusions. I wasn’t hallucinating. I was just… scared. Scared out of my mind, yes. But it was a nameless fear.

I begged my nurse practitioner to check me for signs of pre-menopause. I told her my family history, that both my mother and grandmother suffered greatly from severe episodes of anxiety, depression, and emotional instability in their forties due to perimenopause. My mother’s symptoms were relieved somewhat by hormone replacement therapy, but such treatments didn’t exist during my grandmother’s lifetime. She became suicidal and was placed in a psychiatric treatment center for five years. My mother said though, at the time of my grandmother’s release, it was as if nothing had happened. My grandmother appeared perfectly sane. Could it be that I was suffering from the same fate? My nurse practitioner already thought I was off my nut. She flatly told me that she doesn’t prescribe hormones as a treatment for anxiety. After I kept pressing the subject, she finally prescribed something, but it wasn’t what I had asked for. I had done the research: medical trials showed that the use of synthetic hormones do not alleviate symptoms of sleeplessness and anxiety. Only the real stuff will provide any benefit.

I learned that being your own advocate can be an especially daunting task when your anxiety is already spinning out of control. No one takes you seriously. Everyone thinks you’re over-reacting or a hypochondriac when all you’re trying to do is to seek help. And answers.

But I kept persisting. I found out you can order your own lab work. So, I did that. And the results showed my progesterone had plummeted to zero. No wonder I wasn’t sleeping! I then made an appointment with a gynecologist. I sent a lengthy message to the doctor explaining my situation, begging for a compassionate doctor to put me on hormone replacement therapy.

SEEK COUNSELING

In the meantime, I also sought counseling. The first time I saw a therapist for my anxiety, he told me he felt what I needed was grace. “If grace could be put in a pill form, I’d prescribe it to you,” he said. “You need to give yourself grace. One pill every morning.” At the time, I thought the notion was ridiculous. How could a lack of giving myself grace be my problem? Surely, there’s more to what I was experiencing than that! How could it be that simple? I was never taught to love myself. That just sounded narcissistic. Why would I want to be a narcissist? I sought several other therapists after that. Eventually, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety. A couple years later, I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD. Personally, the CPTSD probably fits my symptoms better than any other diagnosis.

BEWARE OF ADDICTIVE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

Medically speaking, what finally brought the panic attacks to a halt was Clonazepam, but I don’t recommend anyone use this drug on a regular basis. It worked great, but I should have stopped using it as soon as the panic attacks stopped. Think of it this way: why take Excedrin if you don’t have a migraine? Or NyQuil when you don’t have a cold? Medications are great when they are used responsibly, if they are taken as needed. Unfortunately, I wasn’t forewarned about the dangers of taking Clonazepam on a daily basis. The stuff is highly addictive. While it did bring the panic and anxiety symptoms to a halt, and I am thankful for that, I deeply regret that I had not been forewarned by my doctors of the dangers of continuous use. If I had, I would have been more cautious.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes medication is necessary. I was so grateful when a doctor finally recommended Clonazepam and Ambien to take at night. I finally slept straight through for the first time in months, after taking them together that first night. After five nights of good sleep, I got off the Ambien right away (I already knew that stuff could be addictive) but I stuck with the Clonazepam. To be honest, I was scared. I was scared of that spiral of anxiety coming back again. I thought the drug would prevent that from happening. But the downside of addiction ended up being far worse.

During those two years I was on Clonazepam, I was oblivious. However, I was wise enough to know that drugs alone were not the cure to my problems. There was something deeply psychological going on and I needed to get to the bottom of it.

SELF-COMPASSION

I went to three or four therapists / psychiatrists, but I kept going back to one in particular. The same one who had prescribed “grace” as my cure. He is not a psychiatrist. He is not a psychologist. He’s a Christian therapist. And I eventually came to the realization that he had far better insight into my problems than I had originally gave him credit for. Probably the greatest lesson I learned from him was self-compassion.

My parents were never very emotionally sensitive. They were never very sensitive to our emotional needs. Their needs always came first. Even worse, they’d yell, scream, falsely accuse, or give the silent treatment, without ever stating why they were upset with us, which would lead us all into a state of confusion and hurt. As a result, I never thought my own feelings mattered. It seemed my parents always got the last word and say on everything, and this was true even when I became an adult. Their happiness was more important than mine. As an adult, I learned to accept it. I knew my place, and I knew not to trust them even when they were nice; I knew it wasn’t out of the goodness of their heart. Maybe it was guilt. Or maybe they are buttering me up because they want something from me. But it never felt unconditional.

I adapted by ignoring or suppressing my feelings. It wasn’t worth expressing them anyway. What was the point? But after 40 years of suppressing my emotions, everything started bubbling up all at once. All the hurt, fear, betrayal, anger, abandonment, frustration, and despair pushed upward, demanding an audience, demanding to be heard.

UNLOAD BAGGAGE OF SHAME

One of the first things I had to do was to let go of any shame I felt for having these emotions. For one thing, I wasn’t terribly proud of all the anger I had bottled up over the years. I wasn’t proud of it, and I had let shame push all that down. I had to let go of my embarrassment and shame and just confess to God just how desperate my state had become. I got on my hands and knees and asked God for emotional healing. And I started to open up to others, too. I asked for prayers from my Christian friends.

LET GO OF CONTROL

The next thing I had to do was to let go of control. I couldn’t control this thing. I had to accept that maybe God was allowing me to go through all this for a reason. I held on to the hope that God would heal my brokenness. I couldn’t do it myself.

GIVE EMOTIONS PERMISSION TO EXIST

Then, I had to learn how to give my emotions permission to exist. That may sound silly, but it really isn’t, not when your instinct had always been to suppress them. I had to also learn to give each emotion self-expression. I had to learn that it’s okay to cry, scream, sob, or wail loudly whenever I feel emotionally overwhelmed. These are all perfectly normal and natural ways for the human body to release pent up emotional tension. It costs nothing and there’s no side effects. I marvel at babies because they do it so naturally. Have you ever watched an infant scream when it’s upset? Its face contorts in frustration, it’s hands ball into fists, and it lets out short bursts of screams over and over again while tears run down it’s face. And I learned to do just that. To cry and wail like a baby. And it was a wonderful release!

NAME YOUR EMOTIONS

Another thing that may sound strange is that I had to learn how to identify my own emotions. When you’ve experienced your whole life without giving much regard to your own feelings, you tend to get “out of touch” with your own emotions. I would sense a gnawing feeling in my gut, a tightness in my shoulders, a restlessness in my sleep, but I would not be able to identify how I felt except to describe it as a generalized feeling of “anxiety” or “stress”. So, I started to ask myself this question, whenever I felt “stressed” and losing sleep: what am I feeling right now, right this minute? What word best describes my emotional state of mind? Is it anger? Hurt? Fear? Maybe it’s something I’m embarrassed to admit to myself. Do I feel envy? Jealousy? Guilt? It may sound bizarre, but I never asked myself those questions before! But once I started to do so, the easier the task became. And the more I became in touch with my own feelings and gave them a voice, the less scary those feelings became. I gave those feelings permission to simply… BE. In fact, it was often a relief just to identify what I was feeling!

Now, healing didn’t come right away! There were times I cried for hours before I was able to stop. I had so much hurt inside, it’s impossible to describe. There were some days I felt as if I was drowning. As the waves crashed, I’d write down my thoughts via journal writing. Writing down my feelings gave them a voice.

In this way, I endured many sleepless nights. I gave myself permission to grieve over the lost relationships I had with my parents, to grieve over the pain of abandonment. But the more I let my emotions come to the surface, and let the feelings pour out in tears of sorrow, the less intense the waves of emotions became. And the less scary they were when they came back.

THE PAIN IS JUST A MEMORY

One thing that made life very difficult during this time was that I kept feeling as if I was reliving the past, over and over again, and that was disorienting. It took the joy out of life. It took the joy out of being in the moment and enjoying myself with friends or going out and doing something fun. When the waves of emotional trauma threatened to return during moments like these, I had to remind myself that these waves are memories only. I’d acknowledge the hurt and pain by reminding myself that yes, it was a terrible time in my life, and it did hurt badly, but it’s okay now. I’m okay now. I’m safe.

Having compassion on myself to acknowledge and sympathize with the hurt that was done to me, while gently reminding myself that it’s in the past now, that this is just a bad memory, a memory of something terrible, yes, but a memory nonetheless, has helped me heal from the past, and leave it there.

DO NOT FRET OVER TRIGGERS

Which brings me to the issue of triggers. Triggers happen when the present and the past collide. It’s when an event in the present stirs up unresolved emotional turmoil from the past. They say it’s important to know your triggers. I say, that’s hogwash. A lot of times, you don’t even know what sent your emotions spinning, and when they do start to spin downward towards that bottomless pit, you don’t care what got you there – you’re just trying to find your way out! Don’t worry about what got you all spun up. In my case, it’s usually something really stupid or dumb. Something I had no control over. Something I took waaay too personally. That sort of thing. Don’t fret over the triggers. Just know what to do when those triggers are pushed. Just know what to do when you sense you’re starting to fall down that spiral again. If you spend your whole life avoiding triggers, you’ll never learn to enjoy life. You’ll never learn that those triggers aren’t dangerous. They are not a threat to you. The problem is that you have real hurt, real pain inside. And you had every reason to feel threatened. But that was in the past. It’s all a memory now. And you haven’t given yourself permission to grieve.

GRIEVE OVER PAST PAIN

Grieving takes time. And it cycles in stages. There will be days you wonder if you are truly getting better. But let me tell you, just a few months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to write about my anxiety as I am doing now. It would have felt way too difficult, too personal. It has taken years for me to get this far in the healing process.

SELF-COMPASSION DURING ADDICTION RECOVERY

One further note on Clonazepam… When it was first prescribed, I took 1 mg. After about a year, I did some research on the drug. It was then I became concerned. I asked my doctor to drop the dosage. So, it was reduced to 0.5 mg. After another year, I decided to get off it altogether. But everything I read about the drug said it is very, very difficult to get completely off of. Doctors unfortunately are no help in this area. After doing some online research, it was suggested to reduce dosage by one-eighth every week until you are off the drug. If you start to feel withdrawals, up the dosage again by one-eighth for another week before reducing again.

Well, it should have taken about a couple months, but instead, it took me six to eight months to get off of it. My doctor was convinced I wasn’t addicted, but the terrifying withdrawal symptoms I experienced proved that theory wrong. The hurricane of terrifying emotions returned. It was a terrible storm at every turn. And, sadly, I retreated back to old habits, trying desperately to suppress it all. I put on a smile even while a storm of sadness, pain, fear, anger, shame, and sorrow blazed and thundered inside me. It was awful! But that wasn’t the worst of it. After getting off the Clonazepam, it is tempting to rejoice. It is tempting to pat yourself on the back and say, gosh, that was awful, but it’s done, it’s over now! I did it! The drug has no effect on me anymore!

Not. The drug rewires the brain, and it can take up to a year or more for that rewiring to be undone. I caution anyone attempting to get off of Clonazepam or any similar drug – watch out! Take a very long sabbatical. At least a year. Remove all news, social media, or anything else that may stimulate anxiety. And I mean that! Your brain will not be able to handle much of any form of anxiety once you are off the drug because the drug wires your brain to be dependent on it to cushion any stressors. Remove the drug, and your brain is helpless to handle anything at all. At this point, it will be highly tempting to get back on the drug, even several months later, but whatever dosage you were once on, simply won’t do the trick anymore. In order to have the same effect as before, you will have to take at least twice as much, and that will only rewire your brain even further!

I wish I had known all of this! A few months after getting completely off the drug, I had the worst panic attack ever, that nearly spun me over a cliff. I became suicidal – something that had never happened to me in my life! I was hospitalized for nine days. It had been extremely tempting to get back on the drug, but fortunately my psychiatrist was very mindful of the ill consequences that would bring. He put me on something else to take the edge off, but that’s all it did. I felt like I was reliving 2019 all over again.

SELF-COMPASSION DURING RELAPSE / RECOVERY

As it happened, it wasn’t really that bad. But I felt I really did have to relearn everything I had been doing in therapy. I had to relearn self-compassion. I had to relearn these new habits; not on a drugged up brain, but on a sober brain, a recovering brain. I had to learn how to show grace to a brain that was now recovering from addiction. It wasn’t easy.

SELF-CONDEMNATION IS A TERRIBLE THING

FORGIVE YOURSELF

One of the most surprising things that happened in 2019 while I was at my worst, before I ever saw a doctor or therapist, while lying helplessly on the couch wondering when the storm of anxiety would end, was a vision or dream I experienced of Jesus’ nail-pierced hands, and words gently spoken to me: “Forgive yourself,” said the voice. I honestly didn’t know at the time what the vision or dream meant. But it didn’t seem to be something I would have foolishly imagined. Also, my therapist later agreed whole-heartedly that I was being way too hard on myself. I wasn’t giving myself grace. I wasn’t giving my emotions permission to just be what they are. I was constantly beating myself up over stupid stuff, sometimes even to the point of self-sabotage. I began to believe that perhaps Jesus was offering this statement not as a suggestion, but as a command, and not for just the moment, or for things that happened in the past, but as a way of life. Forgive yourself. Don’t beat yourself up. Forgive yourself because Christ has already forgiven you. Forgive yourself because all your sins and failures have already been nailed to the Cross. Live in freedom. Live in joy. Don’t use any reason or excuse to heap unnecessary shame on your back.

BE EMOTIONALLY VULNERABLE BEFORE GOD IN PRAYER

As I went through counseling, I prayed like I never had prayed before, being gut-wrenchingly vulnerable before God, as in the book of Psalms. I learned that God is close to the brokenhearted, that he listens when we pour out our hearts to him, that he counts our tears of sorrow. The tears we shed at night, he remembers, and will bring healing and joy in the morning. During moments in which I felt so overwhelmed I didn’t know how to pray, I’d ask Jesus to intercede on my behalf. “You know what I need,” I’d pray. “You know better than I do what I need. Pray and intercede with the Father for me, on my behalf.”

MAKE A MENTAL HEALTH CHECKLIST

On a practical level, I wrote my own “mental health checklist”. I realized I had never made my mental and emotional well-being much of a priority. So, the mental health checklist is used as tool for myself to check if I’ve slipped back into bad habits, like obsessing too much over the past, or being too negative or hard on myself, or repeating the same lies to myself. I read it daily to remind myself of these bad habits to avoid, and how to change direction if I’m slipping. I have to do this as a means of “reprogramming” my mind to learn new habits and thought patterns. Forty years of poor programming is a lot to overcome! I have had to learn to be patient with myself. Impatience will only make matters worse.

BEFORE BEDTIME ROUTINE

Another tool I’ve used is a night time routine to relax the mind. For a year or more I’d turn on some classical music and color until I felt sleepy. If I felt particularly anxious, I’d read the Bible or devotional and pray, pouring my heart out to God, and laying my anxieties at his feet. Basically, I’d do whatever I needed to do to “let go” and feel less anxious before heading off to bed. This helped me greatly, as the worst of my anxiety always seemed to occur at night.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Last year was the first time I felt like a normal human being again. We even went on an international trip, a vacation to Ireland and Scotland. What a trip!

At the moment, I don’t take any medications, except on an as needed basis. I read my mental health checklist daily, and see my therapist every other week or so.

It has been a long road, but God finally brought me out of the pit, and out into the light again! Praise God! I am finally able to enjoy being in the present. I no longer feel as if I’m stuck in the past. I no longer feel the sense of dread that I once did when the feelings of trauma get triggered. It is there, but it no longer wallops me, or threaten to sink me under. God has been good. He has never left my side. It has taken a long time, but God has been faithful. He is slowly healing my mind and spirit, and has taken me out of the pit, so I can enjoy life again!

May God shine his light on you today!

I hope my story may in some way benefit someone out there. Perhaps some of you might relate to my story.

What is your story in your battle against anxiety?