Just get over it.
Stop worrying then.
Learn how to deal with life.
It’s time to grow up.
Stop babying her.
Spank her more.
I’ve heard every one of those statements, and more, when speaking to someone about my daughters anxiety disorder. I truly believe these comments come from a heartfelt place, I have to believe that. Otherwise they would, and sometimes do, break my heart. And though those statements are hard to hear, and send a pang of sadness to my heart, I know it’s simply because they are uneducated about anxiety disorders.
So with this blog post, I want to give you a glimpse into parenting a child that has been diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, slight OCD and Dyslexia.
With an anxiety disorder, the anxiety is daily, if not multiple times a day. It can happen any time during the day, even waking you out of a sound sleep. The symptoms are countless; heavy breathing, weakness, dizziness, difficulty breathing, vomiting, racing heart, migraines, mental exhaustion. A list of symptoms that could quite literally go on for pages. Once the attack is over, physical exhaustion sets in.
I’m in these trenches daily, and I can assure you that just getting over it isn’t a possibility. If it was, don’t you think she would have chose that option a long time ago? The debilitating problem with anxiety and panic disorders is that you simply can’t calm down. There’s this stigma surrounding anxiety that it’s nothing more than fear and being nervous. That doesn’t even come close.
Many times with my daughters anxiety attacks, she has no idea what the trigger even was. She could be sitting at the table eating breakfast, lying in bed reading a book or it could wake her from a sound sleep. How do you prepare yourself for those?
Anxiety constantly lies to you. It doesn’t matter how many times you reassure them that everything is okay, and even if they know it’s true. The monster of anxiety will still assure them, louder than anything else, that everything is wrong, nothing is right, every bad thing that could possibly happen is certainly going to happen and there’s simply no other alternative. You lose your bearings, lose your vision to see any real future, and feel isolated and alone in what was formerly a safe and familiar world. Anxiety convinces you that you’ve ruined everything you’ve ever touched, that you are responsable for every problem you have, that nothing will ever change and that you will never succeed. It’s so real and in their state of panic, it feels more real than anything else.
In that panic, anxiety screams new truths and new realities that you have no choice but to believe.
Have you ever been in a temporary state of seriously elevated anxiety? That feeling that your heart is in your throat and your stomach has dropped through the ground—it’s that real to someone suffering from daily anxiety. It’s panic. When panic hits, it takes over, and invokes an immediate and overwhelming need for escape. Except there is no escape from anxiety, they just have to live with it.
Do you know how many teens are in crisis? In the throes of mental illness or depression? MILLIONS. So do the math: that means millions of parents are suffering alongside teens that are suffering.
An easy target for judgment or shame, so many families in crisis struggle alone, afraid, embarrassed or just too exhausted to reach out. Society expects three-year-olds to act like raging lunatics, but yet we don’t know what to do with a teen that has debilitating anxiety attacks.
Because we live in a society where blame has to be placed, so often parents get the side eye: What did you do wrong? What didn’t you do right? What could you have done differently? Why do you baby them? There is no parenting formula that ensures any child’s path. Families in crisis don’t need a jury of their peers; they need a community of support.
Then there is the very real reality of mental illness and emotional disorders that many teens are battling. If a child had liver failure, we would support those parents wanting to go to the ends of the earth for medical care. We would be the greatest support network, and all the earth would rally with them to fight for their health. Yet, so many of our teens are physically broken in their minds and hearts. But instead of a chorus of support, their families receive silence or judgment or disappointment which compounds grief and lays a heavy yoke on those who are already suffering.
Now, on to another ouchy part of this post.
Anxiety tends to be one of those touchy subjects that is tough to tackle from a Christian perspective. This isn’t to paint the Church with broad strokes. I don’t want to come off as saying every Christian in every church thinks this way. That simply isn’t true. I’m thankful to have a church-family that is understanding, caring and always willing to listen and learn more about anxiety. Incorrect beliefs about mental illness are throughout our culture, Christian or not.
One very popular Pastor, and college professor, actually preached an entire sermon, and wrote a blog post, on this topic:
Anxiety is one of the evil conditions of the heart that comes from unbelief.
To say that left me stunned and shocked is an understatement.
My daughter is a Christian and loves God with all her sweet little heart. But Christians are not immune to anxiety disorders any more than they are immune to cancer. One sad idea that exists in some Christian circles is that anxiety is spiritual in nature. Some Christians sincerely believe that a person should not experience anxiety if they just have enough faith and trust in God more than they do now. As you see above from the Pastors sermon topic, some Christians not only believe that but preach about it. I’m here to tell you that is simply not true. That is like saying someone with a broken arm didn’t have enough faith BUT if they had greater faith and just prayed a little harder it would be healed.
The truth is, Christians get anxiety disorders at roughly the same rate as everyone else. This should not be a surprise. After all, Christians catch colds as often as everyone else. Christians get cancer or heart disease or high blood pressure at the same rate as everyone else. No one thinks of these things as spiritual failings. Anxiety disorders are what happen to a person when the brain’s fire-alarm center—the amygdala—gets a “chemical burn” from bathing too long in stress chemicals, making it hypersensitive and over-reactive to new problems. Anxiety Disorders are not a failure of character or spiritual maturity. They are what happens when the brain’s stress-warning systems become overwhelmed and hyper-activated.
Also, as Christians, we shouldn’t discourage the use of medications in treating anxiety disorders or other mental health problems. We wouldn’t dismiss a diabetic who uses insulin or a cancer patient who uses chemo as someone who obviously doesn’t trust God enough. In the same way, we shouldn’t look at those who take medication for anxiety as somehow lacking in their faith.
Here is what you can do for a fellow Christ-follower that struggles with anxiety. Pray for them and with them. Love on them. Encourage them to seek counseling, faith-based if possible. Check in with them. Let them know that we serve a God who knows brokenness. A God who is well acquainted with pain. And since He also knows everlasting life, He is with them even in the midst of a heart-thundering anxiety attack. His presence doesn’t mean we won’t suffer hard things. Some of our struggles may never go away, but He is with us in the midst of them, keeping us, helping us. Anxiety will tell them you can’t handle this. But the truth is with God we are stronger than we think, because in our weakness He is the strongest!
I want you to have a glimpse into my world and to know what it’s like to be a Mama to a child with severe anxiety. I want you to read my words. To feel, if even for a moment, how I feel. And to try your best to understand.
It is sitting in the bathroom with your 5-year-old daughter during a thunderstorm. Reassuring her that it will be over soon. And sitting patiently with her while she vomits for hours.
It is climbing to the very top of an inside playground, because your 6-year-old is frozen in fear and afraid to come down herself.
It is your 7-year-old enduring two months of bedtime vomiting because she thinks she may have ate something that would cause her to die.
It is taking your third-grader to therapy for an eating disorder. Telling her that even though they had an assembly on “healthy eating” at school, that doesn’t mean she should just choose not to eat for fear of every food choice being unhealthy.
It is countless trips to the school to sit through meetings. Listening to her be called lazy, inattentive and compared to her older brother. Begging for years for them to listen to my mother instinct, and test her for dyslexia. And endlessly being my daughters advocate.
It is always ordering her food for her and speaking for her because of her fear of saying the wrong thing.
It is always accompanying her to the buffet because of her fear of going alone.
It is avoiding any stress that will cause an instant trip to the bathroom to vomit. It is always having a plan and a way out.
It is taking your 14-year-old into a funeral home. And when you walk in, she freezes and is unable to speak or walk. It is helping her through the funeral home until you can get her to the car.
It is scurrying to shut the TV or radio off as soon as a storm or tornado warning comes on, and hoping she didn’t hear it.
It is watching her suffer through a flair-up that lasts weeks on end because of a friendship breakup, daily vomiting and losing nearly 20 pounds.
It is listening to, and talking about, the same topic every day because her body won’t let her mind rest about it.
It is your Mama heart breaking over and over again because you feel so helpless, but wish you could take it for her. And crying silent tears into your pillow. I can reassure her. I can encourage her and prepare her for change, but I can not take her anxiety away.
It is having a front seat to her life, watching her grow into a kind, tenderhearted Jesus loving girl. A girl who has such a heart for kids with special needs because of her own struggles.
It is listening to her quote verses and telling you the night before she prayed during her anxiety attack.
It is so much more than just needing to grow up and learn to deal with life. This is our life. This is our normal.
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