All Our Secrets Are the Same

For a long time, one of my deepest, darkest secrets was that despite having a wonderful life, I could not seem to be happy without medication and felt ashamed. I shared this secret on my blog over four years ago, and, since then, depression has gradually held less power over me.

Depression is awful. It is nebulous and silent and invisible, and it is so easy to trick yourself into thinking if you just tried a little harder, you would be fine. But its conjoined twin, anxiety, is also awful. Anxiety means being in the beautiful Colorado mountains on vacation gathered with your family of origin and the family you have created and still not being able to fully breathe. Anxiety means driving through the rolling Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee and pulling off the road due to a legitimate panic attack. Anxiety means poking at your children constantly about tiny little worries that bubble up, constantly comparing them to other children and other paths and other perspectives, and wondering if you are doing everything wrong.

It is so hard for me to separate whether I still have clinical anxiety despite years and years of therapy and medication, or if instead being anxious all the time is just a personality trait that defines me in the same way that introversion does. The Mayo Clinic helpfully defines anxiety as "intense, excessive, and persistent worry and fear about everyday situations." I find this definition purposely vague, because what is "excessive," "persistent" or "intense"? Is getting off the phone with a friend of over 20 years and struggling to breathe because you may have said the wrong thing during the phone call "excessive"? Is feeling your palms turning clammy and icy sweat pooling under your arms "intense"? Is worrying every single hour of every single day about all of the things that could possibly go wrong "persistent"?

Truthfully, my anxiety ebbs and flows, but it seems to peak when I have long periods of down time. The summer is hard. Vacationing when we lack a clear plan is hard, which is why all of our trips turn into Death Marches. Driving for long stretches of time in the car on a wide-open road flanked only by wheat stalks and lulling cattle is hard.

But one thing I have learned since sharing that I am living a medicated life is all our secrets are the same. And I think if we could all be honest about our inner mess and our struggles and our inner demons, perhaps we would help others who are struggling with a similar issue to feel a little less alone. So if you, too, know what it is like to not be able to breathe, to not be able to relax, to hop from worry to worry in your mind like an over-caffeinated Energizer Bunny, please know that you, too, are so very not alone.