Anxiety and Depression Series – (Part 3) My Story

***This is part 3 of an ongoing series I am doing here at Carryonmyheart.com. You can find parts 1 here and 2 here.

Coming face to face with my monster…

Everything I thought I knew about myself changed with my first panic attack.

I was newly married and in my early 20s, working as a legal assistant for a law firm. I was enthusiastic about my job, happily married, and had family and friends with whom I loved spending time.

There wasn’t a logical reason for me to have a panic attack; however, as I would come to find out, fear and anxiety are rarely rational.

Panic Strikes

On a random night before work, I was in my closet picking out the next day’s outfit. I couldn’t tell you now what I was thinking of, besides the enormous decision to wear pants or a skirt.

In an instant, the closet began to feel like it was closing in on me, and a creeping terror climbed up the back of my neck. There was nowhere to run from the fear that had wholly ensnared me.

My brain had been put on hyper-speed, shooting me nearly incomprehensible messages, although I felt them loud and clear;

I needed:

To run.

My mom.

Somewhere safe.

Feeling as though I could barely breathe while clutching at my chest, I left the closet to lie down on the bed. The sensation of being far away, as if outside my body, overtook me. I was positive at that moment that I was going to die.

Anxiety: My “new normal”

I began to experience severe anxiety and panic attacks daily after this initial incident.

Baffled about why this happened, I dove inward, searching and questioning every thought and feeling.

As if the answer was in my head.

Nope. It turns out that it is not a fun place to be.

Remember those fears I had as a kid? They had matured right along with me and were more fearsome than ever.

Consequently, I was exhausted and at the end of my rope. I like to assume it’s how Daniel felt in the lion’s den, except the only lions staring me down were in my head, and they didn’t have their mouths shut.

My life suddenly looked unrecognizable, and in those following months, I experienced what I would consider a complete breakdown.

Breaking apart

I couldn’t work.

Or eat.

I couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t drive.

After about a month and a half, I lost roughly 40 pounds. I learned that applesauce and scrambled eggs were useful when my stomach wouldn’t tolerate anything else, but sometimes those wouldn’t even stay down.

At one point early on in my journey through anxiety, I didn’t sleep for three days straight. It’s not your typical tossing and turning that can happen. I am talking, eyes wide open, heart pounding, terror in the middle of the night, not sleeping. Nighttime was frightening because I was all alone with my fear.

My sweet husband would drive me to doctors’ appointments and care for me on his days off. During the day, when he worked, he would leave me with my mom and grandmother because I couldn’t be alone.

I was a mess…to put it lightly.

Digging Deeper Inward

I am naturally gregarious, an undeniable people person, and a talker. I love my people, and I love being with them.

But anxiety.

It morphed me into someone I no longer recognized, and my world began to shrink. I rarely laughed anymore, and life had taken on a strange color of sadness. I lost all interest in being with my friends, and social situations terrified me.

The anxiety I experienced began to intermingle with depression. The longer I stayed in this intense place of panic, the more hopelessness developed within me that became an unintended, integral part of who I was.

I spent days, weeks, and months trying to cope, grasping for the ordinary and forgetting what it looked like. I tried desperately to live my new routine, clumsily slipping along with many, many days of breakdowns.

What is wrong with me?

I had gone to every doctor imaginable, from a family doctor to a neurologist. Someone must have an answer, and I was intent on finding one.

Yes, I was that hypochondriac patient.

During this time, I received a stern talking-to from a nurse. After checking my vitals, she placed her hands on either side of the sterile white paper I was sitting on. She leaned forward until her breath warmed my face and glared unsympathetically into my eyes, “There is nothing wrong with you. You’re completely healthy and fine, and this is all in your head!”

Tears streaming down my face, I gazed back earnestly and stammered, “But I feel like maybe there is… something wrong, I mean.” Said with an almost child-like question; the words floated in the air as she walked out of the room briskly.

I scolded myself, embarrassed by my lack of self-control, and then decided to stop searching for some elusive answer that didn’t exist. After this, I began trying to reintegrate into my pre-anxiety world, all while still having panic attacks and spiraling down through depression.

I eventually lost my job because of my inability to concentrate fully; I forgot important details, not to mention the time I missed for sick days and doctor appointments. This caused even more depression since I felt like a complete failure in life.

What on Earth was wrong with me?

The worst part was that no one seemed to have an answer. Sadly, I found that the church was not a comfortable place to discuss emotional issues such as worry, fear, anxiety, and depression.

Where was God?

Although I believed in Jesus as my savior when I was a young girl, God currently felt like a distant deity— unhelpful and far too big to care what I was presently going through.

I was doing all the “right things,” praying and reading my Bible. So, the question remained: Why was I still going through this, and when would it end?

The more I heard that worrying was a sin, the further I sank into my pit. I hadn’t heard about anxiety and depression until now and certainly didn’t hear it discussed in church. The thoughts I struggled with were horrific and overpowering.  Surely, no other Christian could possibly have such thoughts. I concluded that I was a defective Christian, or worse yet, maybe I wasn’t one at all.

Shutting my mouth

The fear in my mind overwhelmed me and led me to a place of despair. Sadly, I decided to no longer speak openly about what I suffered for fear of what people would think.

During the many years of pain and silence that followed, I came to understand why people would take their own life. This feeling terrified me most of all. From here, a belief system grew, coiling its way through my every thought, fed by numerous lies and fears that took root deep within me.

The Enemy had me right where he wanted—alone in the dark, feeling helpless and hopelessly cornered.

Thankfully, the truth of Jesus burns brightest in the darkest of places…

To be continued…

Stick with me through my journey of having walked through life with anxiety and depression and where I am today because of God’s grace and faithfulness!

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