Snippet of a memoir: Anxiety at the football game



Me in sixth grade.



  In the fall of 1974, I was 11 years old and in the sixth grade. I was very shy and timid. I could talk with my friends, but being around people older than me—teenagers—or anyone I didn’t know made me silent and unable to carry on a conversation.

  It was hard for me to know what to do with myself when I was part of a group. I stood awkwardly or looked for somewhere to sit that seemed safe. I felt like everyone was staring at me. I felt like everyone thought I was ugly and stupid and certainly not cool.

  I didn’t know it then, but I was probably suffering from generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety even then.

And obsessive-compulsive disorder was beginning to make stronger claims on my life.

One Friday night, my second older brother and I went to the local high school football game with a neighborhood group of kids, siblings that lived nearby. I wanted to go because I liked to hang out with these other kids, and it was fun to go on outings despite my shyness.

When we arrived at the gate to the football stadium, my brother and friends went up to the ticket counter and bought their $1 tickets.

I hesitated. I was too scared to go up to buy the ticket, not sure how to act. I had the money in my pocket, but I was too afraid to get it out and offer it to the people at the ticket counter.

Then my brother and friends started walking away, into the stadium. I didn’t want to be left behind—the idea of being alone there was frightening—so I followed them in. Without buying a ticket. Without paying my way.

I can still feel how guilty I felt, the heaviness that hung over my chest, the adrenaline that shot through me.

My brother said, “You didn’t pay. You need to go back and pay.”

“I did pay,” I said. I was too embarrassed to admit what I’d done, but I was also too afraid to go back and pay for a ticket.

So now I had a lie to add to my crime.

I didn’t watch the game. Even if I had understood football, I wouldn’t have been able to get the guilt out of my mind and my heart. Every now and then my brother would remind me that I hadn’t paid, and I would lie again.

I was near the breaking point by the time we got home. I went into my room, took out the dollar that I should have spent going into the football game, and tore it up. My reasoning was that I wouldn’t benefit from having an extra dollar.

Of course, that was just one more crime I committed that night.

I don’t know how much time elapsed before I told my mother, but I do know the sense of guilt hung on me and didn’t let go. I knew what I had done was wrong, and I was sure I was in trouble with God because of it.

One day I started crying and couldn’t stop. When my mother asked me what was wrong, I told her the whole story.

My mother did not tolerate stealing or lying. But she was gentle with me on this one, probably because I was so upset and so obviously sorry.

“Well, ask God to forgive you,” she said,” and put an extra dollar in the church collection plate.”

And I did.

I was wrong to go into the football game without paying. But this incident illustrates to me my burgeoning case of OCD.

That was the first confession that I remember giving to my mother. It would soon become the norm for me to ruminate over my sins, or what I thought were my sins, and confess them, known sins and all, to my mother.

I would desperately search for forgiveness from her and from God, praying the same words over and over, trying to get them right.

“Oh, Lord, please forgive me. Please forgive, please. Oh, Lord, please forgive me. Please forgive me, please.”

  Have you experienced anything like my football game experience because of anxiety?

Wash, wash, rinse, rinse: OCD and the dishes

I hate washing dishes.

I can’t believe that when I was a small girl, I actually liked it. That was before obsessive-compulsive symptoms caught on to what I was doing, and I could just enjoy swishing around the water and soap.

As I got older, washing dishes became a painful chore.

Push the plate down in the water. Submerge it completely. Lift one edge up. Use the dishcloth to wipe the eating side. Turn the plate over. Wipe the bottom. Turn the plate over. Wipe the eating side. Turn the plate over. Wipe the bottom. Turn on the water. Rinse the eating side. Rinse the bottom. Turn the plate in circles. Rinse the eating side. Rinse the bottom. Rinse the eating side. Rinse the bottom. Rinse the eating side. Rinse the bottom. Turn the plate in circles. Rinse the eating side. Rinse the bottom.

I was obsessed with not cleaning the dishes enough. So I compulsively washed and rewashed them. I was also obsessed with rinsing all the soap off, because if others ate soap, it would make them sick. And it would be my fault.

So I washed and I rinsed. And I took a lot of time doing it.

My mother criticized me for the time I took and the water I used. It was a waste, she said.

When I was about 12, I was trying frightfully hard to be good, though I came up with plenty of sins to confess in my compulsive prayers and chants.

I decided that I needed to help my mother around the house more. So I offered to wash the dishes for one meal a day without being asked.

What a torture I was putting myself through!

Around the same time, I stayed with one of my aunts while my father was in the hospital and my mother was with him.

I felt like I was in the way, so I offered to help by washing the dishes.

And I set about it in my usual way.

While I was washing, my aunt received a phone call. I heard her say, “She’s washing the dishes.” Pause. “Well, she’s a little slow.”

I remember that I felt like I was being unhelpful after all.

Today, I have a dishwasher that takes care of most of the dishes. But we still wash some by hand, including the cats’ bowls.

Even today, though I don’t have the same problem with the washing, I still rinse the dishes longer than my husband does. I have a holdover fear that I’ll leave soap residue on the dishes and someone will get sick. And it would be my fault.

Have you ever had obsessions and compulsions about washing dishes? What household chores did you have to do as a child?

Sick and down: How physical illness can affect mental health

I’ve been sick since last week. Not seriously ill, just a cold with a bad cough, but it makes me feel miserable.

What made it worse was that I took a couple of days of vacation to go along with the 4^th of July holiday, so I was off work last Wednesday through Sunday, and felt bad for most of that time.

I woke up Thursday morning with a sore throat and it was down hill from there.

My sinuses were stopped up, then runny, then stopped up, then half and half. I sneezed. I coughed. My throat continued to hurt.

I self-treated the best I could with Tylenol, antihistamines, hot tea, lots of other fluids and as much rest as I could get.

I’m telling you this to illustrate my next point: I also felt down.

Being physically sick usually means my mood goes down.

At least part of the reason lies in what I feel like doing when I’m sick: nothing.

I have been so miserable that I haven’t felt like doing much reading, writing, drawing, exercising, cross-stitch, crocheting—many of the things I depend on to make me feel better.

I don’t feel like doing any of the things I listed as self-care measures in a post last week.

I don’t even feel like watching TV or playing games on my phone.

I did exercise last Thursday, but I haven’t since.

My sleep patterns have been messed up. Friday morning at 4 a.m., I was wide-awake. Saturday afternoon, I was dead to the world. The rest of the nights have been spent battling a cough.

I’ve learned two things. One is that my physical health has a direct impact on my mental health. The better I feel physically, the better able I am to help myself with my mental health.

And how I spend my time and my activity level are very important to my mental health. It’s important for me to read, to write, to think, to write some more. It’s important for me to move around, to use my body as well as my brain.

In his book Depression: A Guide for the Newly Diagnosed (which I reviewed here), Lee H. Coleman Ph.D., ABPP writes about the importance of daily self-care in depression recovery: “When you’re recovering from depression, it’s especially important for you to have some routine in you life. This doesn’t mean having a boring, predictable lifestyle, but it does mean taking care of yourself by having a regular bedtime; consistent, healthy meals; and, ideally, a program of exercise” (p. 135).

I would agree.

How about you? When you are physically ill, does it adversely affect how you feel mentally?

Don't run from the animals, don't show your fear

My father taught me to never run from the cows.

My parents had a farm when I was growing up, and my second brother and I sometimes followed my father around while he worked.

One of the things we loved to do was to ride the hay wagon as he pulled it with his Farmall tractor from the stable down a dirt road towards the tobacco barn, where he had dug a silo for silage to feed his Black Angus cows.

This dirt road ran through the pasture where the cows fed, and when we stopped at the silo, some of the cows would gather around as my father used a pitchfork to throw out the feed from the silo and the hay from the wagon.

I was a timid child, and I was afraid of the cows.

My father’s oft-repeated advice was something like, “Don’t run from the cows, even if you get scared. Just walk away.”

And I didn’t run. I could stand amongst the cows even if I was uncomfortable or afraid. I could remain standing or move around slowly.

Apparently, I carried the lesson about the cows further than my father could have expected.

When I was in first or second grade, I waited for the bus alone one morning.

It had rained during the night, and there were puddles in the sandy soil where I waited. Earthworms moved around, leaving tracks in their wake.

I crouched down and reached out my finger towards one of the earthworms. I don’t remember now why I wanted to touch an earthworm.

As my finger got closer, I looked more closely at the earthworm and saw that it wasn’t solid brown like the others. It was a lighter brown, with dark brown markings on its back.

It was a baby snake. A copperhead.

I was terrified of snakes. Fear shot through me. But I didn’t run.

I remember thinking, if I run, it might chase me.

So I slowly straightened, turned around, and walked up the driveway towards the house.

I felt the eyes of the snake on my back. I was afraid it would come after me. All I could do, though, was to keep walking until I reached my mother, who had come outside from the window inside where she was watching me.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“There’s a snake down there,” I said.

My mother did not have a happy look on her face. She was probably even more terrified than I was.

But she walked back down the driveway and picked up a big rock. She took the rock and killed the snake.

Let me say that I’m not sure how I feel now about her killing the copperhead. At the time, though, it seemed like the only thing to do, to rid our driveway of this poisonous snake.

Looking back, I see a pattern I developed of trying to act unafraid, not just of animals, but of anything.

I developed ways to act like everything was fine and nothing was bothering me, even when I was afraid, or anxious, consumed by obsessions and compulsions, or depressed.

In the larger scheme of things, that’s OK. That’s a part of being competent, as I wrote about in yesterday’s post. Sometimes I need to put my head down and do what needs to be done. Sometimes it’s not a good idea to appear vulnerable.

But if no one ever knows I’m afraid or hurting in some way, then how can I get the support that I sometimes need?

When I am afraid, I can say it out loud to only my husband. I can pray it. And I can write it.

Then I’m not pretending anymore. And then I can receive the understanding that I need. We all can.

What are your thoughts about this? Do you think we learn as children to hide our fear? When is it OK to show our fear?

Down by the Staunton River

I find a lot of comfort from being out in nature or experiencing it vicariously through photographs. On this Open Tuesday, I bring you photographs of a piece of nature that soothes my spirit when needed.
I live in a small town, Altavista, in Virginia, and one of the most beautiful parts of the town is the river that borders it. It’s the Staunton River.

That’s pronounced as it were spelled “Stanton.”

The Staunton River is a segment of the Roanoke River, according to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and runs for 81 miles from Leesville Dam (about 10 miles from our home) to John H. Kerr Reservoir.

English Park, one of several parks in town, is down by the river, and Larry and I love to go down and enjoy looking at the water and the ducks and geese that hang out there.

We haven’t been biking yet this year, but that’s another activity we like to use the park for. This year, we’ll have an extended trail to explore, part of a park renovation that started last year.

I took the pictures on this post on Sunday. I walked along the bank, trying to get good views of the river.

That’s not always easy to do. There’s a lot of vegetation—trees, shrubs, weeds—that grow along the bank, so it’s sometimes hard to get close.

But I love the lushness of the growth.

There is one area that I particularly like. The bank looks down on rocks in the river. As the water runs over the rocks, it makes a beautiful sound that never fails to comfort me.

Visiting the river is one of the ways I enjoy nature, and nature is always a balm to my anxiety.

  What places in nature do you like to visit? How do these places make you feel?