My Anxiety Through Faith and Flashcards

How a life of trying to ‘pray it away’ led me to a therapist’s office and today, my doctor’s.

I have generalized anxiety and panic disorder

A year ago, panic was a major part of my life. It wasn’t just anxiety; it was full-blown panic. I was consumed by fears and thoughts all day long. I was working part-time as a delivery driver for Edible Arrangements, freezing my ass off driving 100–200 miles a day giving rich people expensive (and not as ripe as you would hope) fruit. I was alone most of my day, working a job that didn’t take up much mental space. This was the thread that would begin my worst anxieties.

I’ve written about my anxiety in the past, but when it really blew up last fall/winter, it revolved completely around my physical health. I couldn’t stop myself from fearing the worst — thinking that something was going to happen to my body — something I couldn’t control. Something I could do nothing about. This was causing 24/7 feelings of anxiety, and fighting off daily panic attacks. These levels of anxiety began to manifest into actual physical symptoms that I couldn’t explain…making my anxiety and panic worse.

In March, it got so bad I absolutely HAD to get help. I realized that my disorder was getting in the way of things I wanted to do, and meeting commitments I needed to uphold.

Therapy helped. A lot. I haven’t had a full panic attack since my first therapy appointment. I’d built up a lifetime of anxieties, and finally acknowledging them, being told it was normal, that I wasn’t alone, and that there were ways I could navigate through them, felt like a pressure valve released in me.

But my anxiety was still there. It’s been a monkey on my back my whole life, and a few months of therapy wasn’t going to erase that. Especially now that I was seeing it clearly for the first time, I began to see how it had affected my day-to-day in so many ways I didn’t even realize.

I’ve been in therapy for 9 months now, and the progress has been unreal to me. Comparing where I am today to where I was exactly a year ago is hard to believe. A year ago, I was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack all day long, physical symptoms were manifesting (like my eyelids twitching repeatedly throughout the day), and I spent a majority of my time worrying that I was going to have a stroke or a heart attack at any moment.

Today, I still feel anxiety every day. I’m still hyperaware of my body in ways that most people aren’t — I regularly check my resting heart rate, blood pressure, and if anything is ‘off’, I spend time and energy thinking about it, and more time and energy fighting off the anxieties that come with thinking about it. I’m not having panic attacks, I’m not completely consumed by my anxieties, but I’m fighting the same battles over and over again every day. It’s doable, but it’s not fun — there’s a lot of other things I’d rather be spending mental energy on.

A Spirit of Fear

When I was in middle school, I went to visit my mom’s family in Tulsa, OK over a spring break. I grew up in a very Evangelical Christian house. It wasn’t unusual to see people at church laying hands on each other, praying for healing from any kind of illness and disease. It wasn’t a place that rejected doctors or medicine, but it was a place where believers had absolute faith that you could be healed instantly if you and everyone around you believed it could happen. Anything you wanted to fix about your life, your health, your wealth — could be fixed if you believed, prayed, and if people laid hands on you and prayed with you.

“He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” — Matthew 17:20 (NIV)

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” — John 14:12 (NKJV)

These scriptures and many like them form the backbone of this belief.

Before my trip to Oklahoma, I had been going through a serious period of anxiety at that time in my life. I didn’t want to be alone, I didn’t want to be without my parents — I was sure that something would happen to them. Something I couldn’t control.

I was terrified for the entire week I was in Tulsa. Crying, panicking, hyperventilating. Worried that something was going to happen to my parents, something was going to happen to me. My hyper-religious grandmother saw this in me, and I’m sure it broke her heart. She wanted to help me. She wanted my anxieties and fears to leave me. So she did what she thought was best. She took me to church.

Not just any church. In Tulsa, no church is ‘just any church’. Tulsa is home to several of the largest megachurches in the country; it’s also home to several of the largest and most successful Bible colleges in the country — training future generations of Christian pastors that will spread the gospel around the world. It’s also the home of Oral Roberts University, one of the oldest modern Christian universities in America, with almost 4,000 students enrolled each year. Evangelic Christianity is, in many ways, synonymous with Tulsa.

That week, my grandmother took me to several different services at different churches. We attended an evening service at Victory Christian Center, sitting high up and far, far away from the pulpit. Then we attended a service at Church on the Move, pastored by Willie George, whose influence and organizational wealth was so large that the church bought land in Adair, OK, called it “Dry Gulch”, built an entire Western-themed town/set, and filmed years and years of Christian educational television shows and movies, all starring George, clearly living a Christ-approved Clint Eastwood dream. (Church on the Move actually just sold Camp Dry Gulch earlier this year, because it had become a major financial strain on the church and its thousands of loyal tithers).

Then we attended a large Bible study service at Rhema Bible Church in Broken Arrow, OK. I was born in Broken Arrow, my mom grew up there, and Rhema was a part of her family’s life. My grandmother and grandfather went to bible college at Rhema, my grandmother had worked there decades ago, and it was a spiritual home for all of them for years. This is the service I remember most from that week. After the service, there was a prayer call made. If you had an affliction, something you needed prayer for, you could file into an auxiliary hall and meet with someone who would hear your problem and pray for you. My grandmother insisted that we meet with someone about my problems with fear.

When I think about that week now, it’s this meeting that stands out the most to me. It had the largest impact on me, and absolutely led me to where I am today.

After a short wait, we moved into a large room with folding tables and chairs arranged around the room. Volunteers (I’m not even sure if they were pastors, to be honest) with name tags, Bibles, and pamphlets, sat at each table. Looking around the room, I saw that everyone was holding hands. Praying together. It seemed comforting, and I had hope that it would help me.

It didn’t help. I was given a few flashcards with Bible scriptures that I was to “repeat with faith whenever fear tried to attack me”. Scriptures like, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV)

I was prayed for, had hands laid on me, and heard the words of a young pastor say “Father God, in the name of Jesus, we CAST THIS DEMON OF FEAR OUT of this young man. This DEMON SHALL NOT HAVE HIM.”

Just a tip for any future pastors/ministers out there: If a kid comes to you and says they’re having daily struggles with panic or anxiety, try to avoid referring to that as ‘a DEMON that needs to be cast out’. It will freak them the fuck out FOREVER.

I left feeling like I could finally do something about my fears, but I also left feeling like Satan was literally trying to crawl inside of me through my fears. I went from being afraid of the world to being afraid of myself, and of the literal Devil.

So now, whenever I had fear, or when a panic attack would come on, I would glance at my flashcards, and repeat them under my breath over and over again, praying to God to release me from these fears. But He never did.

At no point when I was going through different phases of fear and anxiety growing up did anyone say “It’s normal to be afraid. It’s normal to have anxiety. It’s normal. You’re normal.” Instead, as an 11 year-old, I absolutely believed that Satan was attacking me every moment of the day.

Eventually, the anxiety did fade. Honestly, I think I wore myself out. I couldn’t handle the burden of it anymore, and in my exhaustion, I let it go. This would go on to become the trend for the next fifteen years. Anxiety would come in different forms, with different intensities, and I would obsess, try to fight, try to pray, and after days, weeks, and sometimes even months, I would wear myself down, I would have a rational thought (If ‘it’ was going to happen, it would’ve happened by now), and it would go away. Until the next time. And the next time.

The scriptures didn’t resolve my anxiety and panic. Fighting the demons attacking me didn’t help. Praying, having people lay their hands on me…none of it made a difference. I would constantly feel like I was failing. Like my faith wasn’t enough. Like I wasn’t praying hard enough. I didn’t know the scriptures well enough. There must be some reason God was choosing not to help me.

Which is why, a year ago, at age 26, finally it happened. A phase of panic and anxiety that was so strong and so consuming that it didn’t fade. It didn’t just go away eventually. It wrapped itself around me and couldn’t be shaken off.

In March, my therapist said “Many, many people experience anxiety and panic at some point in their lives. I’m so impressed that you’ve been able to live with this for so long and not need help. That’s an accomplishment in itself. And admitting that you need help and actually getting it…that’s an even greater accomplishment.”

That’s what I needed to hear. Someone to tell me that I was normal, that I wasn’t alone, and that I wasn’t a failure. I wasn’t being attacked by the Devil. I wasn’t fighting off demons. I was dealing with a normal part of human life, and I’d been navigating it to the best of my ability for years.

Today’s Flashcards

This morning, I sat in my doctor’s office and went through the process of letting him know what my therapist and I had talked about a few weeks ago. Therapy was working, but I needed to add a new weapon to my mental arsenal. I was interested in medically treating my anxiety, along with regular therapy.

My doctor agreed, and we talked about all of my available treatment options, along with his recommendations. We talked about side effects, timing, dosage size, should I eat it with a meal, when I could expect to start noticing results, on and on. I asked as many questions as I could think of, and we came to a decision based on what he thought would work best for me. I left with a prescription in hand, my doctor told me to email him next week letting him know how I was feeling, and an appointment for a follow up in 3 weeks.

Admitting that I needed more help than what therapy could provide took a lot out of me. More than I thought it would. I was worried about the effects it would have on me, but mostly I was worried about giving up control. Control over my body or my mind. I was worried that somehow, by seeking out a medical treatment to help combat my anxiety disorder, I wouldn’t have control over myself.

But I realized I didn’t really have control to begin with, so this rationale didn’t hold up for long.

It’s tempting to feel alone in this journey. It’s easy to do. You think you’re special and unique, and it’s hard to believe sometimes that millions and billions of people on the planet can feel exactly the same as you sometimes.

In fact, the medicine I was prescribed is so commonly used that the first pharmacy I went to was out of it, and I got one of the last few pills available at the second. Even this made me feel better. More normal and less alone.

I came home and nervously took my first anti-anxiety pill. I’ll admit, I’m scared of what it means in the short and long term. I’m nervous about how effective it will be-will it really make a difference? I know that this new journey takes its own time and its own adjustments, but I don’t feel alone anymore.

I’ve come a long way, and I’ve got a long way to go.

After I’d swallowed the pill, I glanced at my new flashcards. These flashcards don’t have scriptures on them, and they’re not meant for me to use in fighting off demons like some character in a horror movie. These flashcards are from my therapy sessions over the last 9 months; they have strategies, tools, and phrases on them meant for me to keep my situation in perspective, and help me navigate anxiety and panic at age 27.

This is the flashcard that stuck with me today:

“The plan is the plan until it’s not the plan.”