| I have been taking small steps all my life. If you know me or know of me, you might think this health gig comes easily. But that’s just a topside view. Like seeing the stillness of the ocean early in the morning. While deep below the surface things are churning, building up, breaking down and transforming.
I don’t tell this story very often. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s behind me now and not something I think about that much. But it’s what helped me get here so let’s take a trip down memory lane.
The year is 1982. I am 19 years old. I graduated from high school seven months ago and I’m a new mom to a two month old baby girl. Like most kids graduating from high school, I didn’t have a vision for what came next.
If my grown up self could give advice to my younger self I’d tell her, “Don’t worry. You didn’t make a mistake. This is going to work out so much better than you ever could have hoped.”
Instead I was left with disappointment in myself, stress and overwhelming anxiety at being responsible for a sweet soul when I had never even had to take care of myself. The anxiety was a constant, unwanted companion. It often overpowered me so that I couldn’t make simple decisions or plan for a future. And it got worse. The anxiety would often morph into panic attacks leaving me paralyzed with fear. Anxiety and panic are very isolating. We don’t tell people how we feel. We suffer alone.
The weird thing with panic attacks is you never know when or where they’ll show up. You could be going about your business and all of a sudden there it is. Sometimes it’s triggered by anticipation anxiety. The worst part for me was wherever it happened, I didn’t want to return to that place for fear it would happen again. It could be the grocery store, movies, restaurants, anywhere. No place was out of bounds for this insidious interloper. The world gets smaller as more and more places become associated with a panic event.
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