Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore ...
Recently while flicking through the TV channels, I came across a program on the topic of anxiety. It was hosted by a well-known Australian comedian who had set out on her own personal journey to find out more about the condition that she had suffered with for most of her life. Having also suffered with anxiety for as long as I can remember, I was keen to find out all I could to understand why it affects so many of us.
As part of her search she interviewed various health professionals, as well as some well-known athletes and celebrities who deal with anxiety. The show also explored some of the different therapies and techniques aimed at alleviating the symptoms of anxiety when they occur.
One particular psychiatrist suggested giving the anxiety a name, as a way of taking back some control, addressing it and telling it where to go so to speak, eg. “F**k off X – I’m not letting you take the reins today!”.
When I tried to sleep that night, for some reason all the thoughts about my own personal experiences with anxiety swirled around in my head. The first thing I thought of was what I would call my anxiety if I gave it a name. Straight away, without hesitation, the name ‘Alice’ popped into my head. I didn’t know where it came from at first, but then remembered that that was my Mum’s middle name, one ironically she hated as she said it was so ‘plain’… so Alice is it.
I began to cast my mind back to when I was a small child, trying to figure out when the simple act of experiencing an anxious feeling or thought changed into the ‘state’ of anxiety, thereby becoming my constant (unwanted) companion throughout most of my life.
As I looked back, it felt as if each individual anxious moment I had ever experienced had been stacked one on top of the other, until they formed a solid towering structure - a part, a facet of the whole of who I am.
My first day of school, I clearly remember the separation anxiety as my mother left me and I ran after her crying, tripping over and grazing my knee as I clung onto the wire fence in hysterics. Junior and high school feeling not connected, on the outside looking in, never truly feeling comfortable in my own skin. Never feeling I could measure up. My teenage years were even worse, as the peer pressure to be the same and feel accepted kicked in.
It didn’t skip my work life either, as I constantly experienced angst during my various careers and would beat myself up for not achieving things, missing out on the promotion, not standing out or measuring up in some way.
“You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.”
It was not until after the loss of my father in 2009 when more things started piling one on top of the other, that I realised I could not keep a lid on these feelings anymore. Getting through each day was becoming more and more difficult. I felt like I was hanging on by my fingernails until I eventually crumbled into a heap on the floor, literally.
I have often wondered why some of us experience anxiety and others don’t. I know I asked my husband why he doesn’t get stressed or anxious about things. He merely replied, ‘What’s the point? It doesn’t help anything’. I remember marveling at that, how easy it was for him to simply choose not to feel that way and wishing I had that superpower myself.
So, as mentioned in the documentary, I wondered if emotional reactions or conditions like anxiety and depression can sometimes be genetic? There are certainly differing opinions on this in the medical world. From my training in the therapy I studied and also in my own personal situation I am leaning towards this as a truth, for me at least, that it is another thing that we hand down from generation to generation, like the genes that cause medical conditions.
My father I never thought of as someone who suffered with anxiety or depression. Of course, there were different stressors in his life, particularly related to business and the responsibilities of being the provider for the family. Aside from that I don’t think he did, but then later in life he did become obsessed and anxious about his health. Maybe all of that accumulated pressure he had borne over the years manifested for him in that form. I remember in his later years the GP did place him on antidepressants, but I can’t recall what the specific reasoning was behind it.
My mother on the other hand is a whole other story. If I had to describe how I remember my mother being as I was growing up, I would probably have used the only terminology I knew back then and said, ‘highly strung’. She worried about everything but looking back one of her biggest worries was about safety, ours and her own. She had an awful lot of fears. I remember someone breaking into her home was a big one for her. However, on reflection, I wonder if that was an irrational fear passed down to her by her own mother. I remember her telling me how her mother would constantly frighten her with stories of the ‘boogie man’ breaking into their house and stealing her away. Maybe it was my grandmother’s way of making sure she was careful and keeping her safe, but all I know is it had a huge impact on her.
Another was the fear of doing things outside of her comfort zone, one sadly that affected us as children. We weren’t allowed to do things that she was frightened of. As a result as children, we were literally wrapped in a bubble wrap of overprotection, constantly sitting on the sidelines watching our friends do things that we weren’t allowed to. I didn’t understand it then. It just made me angry and upset with a constant feeling of missing out, of being different, of being excluded. However, it also instilled in me anxiety about trying new things out of my comfort zone and probably still does to this day.
I also remember mum telling me when she was pregnant with me that she suffered with severe morning sickness for the whole pregnancy. She couldn’t keep food down and from her account lived on oranges, one of the few things she could tolerate. Could her experience during that pregnancy, which surely must have been anxiety-provoking for her, have affected me as that unborn baby? Babies in utero are purely feeling beings. It is proven they can pick up on sounds like music or their mother’s voice and emotions.
Whilst researching this possibility I read much literature that showed high maternal anxiety during pregnancy, ‘to have a significant relation with mental disorders, emotional problems, lack of concentration and hyperactivity and impaired cognitive development of children’ (1).
Later on in life my mother was started on antianxiety medication by her doctor and it bought so much more peace to her. The constant worrying 24/7 was eased, although not completely eradicated altogether. Perhaps she didn’t realise the change in her as much as those close to her could, but there was definitely a reduction in her worry and anxiety and she seemed much less fearful.
For me the feeling of anxiety comes in varying levels of intensity, from a mild niggling thought to a full-on physical experience. Most anxiety seems to reside in a certain part of our bodies. Some people get tightness in the chest or maybe tension headaches. For me anxiety sits in my stomach, and it is as though every single muscle in my abdomen tightens up into one big ball of steel and I am unable to relax it. I can’t sit still. I can’t sleep. I can’t focus.
Thankfully, the occasions between experiencing such severe attacks of anxiety are further and further apart, as I have learnt to understand the things that trigger me, know the things that can soothe me and am able to let go more of things that are outside of my control. I have, however, experienced two or three occasions which have spiralled into what I can only assume was a panic attack.
I remember when I finally got the nerve up to speak to my doctor and the total surprise I felt when he told me the anxiety I was experiencing was in excess of what a normal person felt. I had thought that everyone felt the way I did inside, but now I know that was clearly not the case. My initial coping strategy was being put on antianxiety medication to help me through a particularly difficult time in my life, as well as attending the most wonderful psychologist I was blessed to meet, and I have no shame in sharing that. Anxiety or depression are not things that we choose. They are also not something that makes us wrong or bad or broken. They are something that ‘happens’ to us.
“Walk gently in the lives of others. Not all wounds are visible. ”
I know I inherited anxiety, and sadly, I also know that I have passed some of those traits down to my own daughter. When she was just a newborn I went through the experience of her father unexpectedly walking out the door and leaving us. The first year of her life is a blur. Surely she picked up on that as a baby. She also saw me go through another difficult period in my life, not able to understand at the time what I was experiencing as she was only a teenager and hadn’t been witness to the painful effects of my anxiety before.
That I passed that down to her is something I have battled with. The feelings of guilt and blaming myself are ones that I probably won’t ever be able to fully accept. Thankfully, with her seeing me asking for help in the times I have needed to, when she herself has felt overwhelmed she has done the same, reaching out to me or friends or a professional. It is as though she and I are fragile beings in a world that sometimes can be very harsh and difficult to understand, and it affects us in a way that it doesn’t for a lot of other people.
I think understanding is the first step forward in dealing with mental health issues like anxiety and depression, but also making it okay to talk about such things. There is nothing black and white about any of us. Some of us are just better at hiding feelings or keeping them compartmentalised than others. We are not weak. We have done nothing wrong. We have nothing to be ashamed of, we just need understanding and reassurance sometimes and most of all love and compassion.
So Alice doesn’t live here anymore … she may pop in unannounced from time to time, but she no longer has her own key to my front door.
(1) A Review of the Effects of Anxiety During Pregnancy on Children’s Health - Zohreh Shahhosseini,1 Mehdi Pourasghar,2 Alireza Khalilian,3 and Fariba Salehi4,*