Tag: Anxiety

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “A Christening — Introducing Anxiety’s Brand New Name!”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

You’re invited to a …

Recently, my therapist “Rubi” suggested that I come up with an alternative name for my anxiety, a nickname of sorts. Why? Well, I’m working through this big, heavy workbook about anxiety …

Here it is, completely taking over my comfy study chair.

TIB (Truth in Blogging, remember?): I have a Love/Hate relationship with the book. Our latest spat centered on the book (it’s not even a hardback) somewhat arrogantly insisting that I begin to recognize and address my anxiety AS A FRIEND!

Seriously? Is poison ivy my friend? Is wet bread? Are the Kardashians my friends? No. And neither is anxiety. It’s my enemy. And it has that hateful “x” in the middle of its name, for goodness sake.

But homework is homework, and I’m a good student, so I dismissed the Kardashians and got to work.

First, some synonyms for anxiety: “worry, concern, apprehension, consternation, disquiet, jitters and agitation.” (Whew.)

And a few words related to anxiety: “alarm, stress, tension, anguish, discomfort, franticness and panic.” (Whew II.)

Both lists anxious-ed me!

And some antonyms for anxiety: “calmness, contentment, tranquility, ease, peace and serenity.” (Much better.)

Okay, that’s all just procrastinating. I gotta name this baby.

My first idea was “Frenemy”— you know, the joining of friend and enemy. But it felt too forced. Too trendy. Too bipolar. Like putting together Friends and CSI.

Next, I considered “Okra.” Wait, there’s a reason why! It’s so frustrating to harvest. I had to do it as a kid. Wearing a long sleeved shirt and wielding a sharp little paring knife, I walked the surprisingly tall rows of okra, slicing off the ripe pods. The sun! The heat! The itchiness! The danger of the blade! But I love okra. It’s actually my very favorite summer vegetable. I love it slimy, fried or gumbo-ed. But I like it too much to give its name to anxiety.

“Prune”? It comes close to working. It’s pretty disgusting to look at, all wrinkled and dry. (“Prune” just rudely interrupted me and asked if I had looked in the mirror lately.) But, as with okra, I love prunes! What? You don’t?! They’re so sweet and just loaded with regularity-inducing fiber. Delicious. Nutritious. Okay, maybe they’re slippery. And too yesteryear. So, no, “Prune” won’t work.

So I’m also reading this other book in my study chair …

about fungi …

I know, I know, I need to get a life. But it’s actually fascinating.

And primarily because of this book, I’ve decided to nickname my anxiety … “Truffles.”

Do you know about truffles? Not the candy—which, by the way and coincidentally, I gave to HR for Valentine’s Day …

But, no, I’m talking about the disgusting-looking mushroom which grows underground. Let me properly introduce you.

“Truffle—a strong-smelling underground fungus that resembles an irregular, rough-skinned potato, growing chiefly in broadleaved woodland on calcareous soils. It is considered a culinary delicacy and found, especially in France, with the aid of trained dogs or pigs.” Oxford Languages {You can train pigs?! Seriously?}

Truffles are not pretty.

And Oxford Languages was just being polite in their definition. My book Entagled Life: “The word for truffle in many languages translates to ‘testicle,’ as in the old Castilian turmas de tierra, or Earth’s testicles.”

Oh my word! (Literally)

“Truffles are the underground fruiting bodies of several types of mycorrhizal fungi … Truffles are spore-producing organs, analogous to the seed-producing fruit of a plant. Species evolved to allow fungi to disperse themselves, but underground their spores can’t be caught by the air currents and are invisible to the eyes of animals. Their solution is to smell.”

(Please bear with me for a couple more quotes. Think about my truffle candies I gave to Robert if it helps.)

“Truffles must be pungent enough for their scent to penetrate the layers of soil and enter the air, distinctive enough for an animal to take note amid the ambient smellscape, and delicious enough for that animal to seek it out, dig it up, and eat it … Once eaten, a truffle’s job is done. An animal has been lured into exploring the soil and recruited to carry the fungus’s spores off to a new place and deposit them in its feces.”

I had to put the book down and go outside for some fresh air for a bit after that revelation. It was simply TMI. One of the world’s most luxurious and expensive delicacies …

… begins as spores in dog or pig poop?

!

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if naked mole-rats, warthogs and aardvarks also carry it around in their poop.

Naked mole-rat

Let’s pause and …

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But oh my gosh. The similarities I see here between truffles and my anxiety!

1. Anxiety, like truffles, is simply not pretty. And I like pretty. Who doesn’t? It’s not pretty to contemplate or experience.

2. Anxiety seems to hover “underground” much of the time. Part of my issue with anxiety is that I never know when it might pop up, dug up somehow by a trained pig, and make itself known. To be honest, I know (“fear” is a much more honest word) that anxiety for me is usually unpredictable. And that’s frightening.

3. The true power of truffles is in their aroma. When I begin to be anxious, it seems to draw me almost aromatically into its web. As you may know (if you have read any of my “Hello, Anxiety” posts), I have a protocol to help me deal with anxiety. But sometimes, I confess, I simply forget to consider and utilize it. The sour smell is just too strong.

4. Anxiety grows. “There are two key moves by which fungal hyphae become a mycelial network. First they branch. Second they fuse. Truffles’ affairs quickly unspool into entire ecosystems.” And that’s another of my problems with anxiety. It can grow. And grow. It can overwhelm. Like untended weeds in a garden.

5. “Truffle” sounds a bit like “trouble.”

6. Truffles are costly. So is anxiety. It costs me time, energy, happiness, etc.

7. But on the other hand, the word “truffle” sounds a little silly too, don’t you think? Not 100% serious. Almost playful. Much “lighter” than “anxiety” (as long as you don’t think too much about the poop connection).

(Please note that I’m Trying with a Capital T to see some leaning-toward-positive attributes of truffle-like anxiety.

8. Truffles smell good to some people. I admit that I like the earthy aroma of truffle salt. Likewise, anxiety … (Okay, I haven’t evolved enough to complete this comparison. Maybe you can help me.)

9. Truffles taste good to some people. Again, I like the earthy taste of truffle salt. Similarly, anxiety … (Same parenthetical sentence as above.)

10. And even if you don’t like truffles, you don’t have to HATE them, do you? They don’t have to be Your Deadly Enemy Food. (I’m talking to myself here.) “Anxiety does not have to be my mortal enemy.”

So, after all that rigamarole, I hereby christen my anxiety “Truffles.”

My anxiety workbook posits that WAF’s (worries, anxieties and fears) are birthed out of an attempt to protect us (think “fight or flight”), but they have just gone too far, like that “friend” you somewhat accept but don’t want around all the time.

I’m not ready to call anxiety a friend, but like with my NPA—Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety—I do desire to find ways to lessen its destructive impact on my life. To be kinder to myself. And yes, to recognize that my anxiety is a part of ME, not a virus that comes from outside of me.

So, “Hello, Truffles.”

************

P. S. I believe all of the above, of course I do, I wrote it. But it’s so much easier to write about renaming anxiety when I’m not experiencing it. And to say, “Hello, Truffles!” when anxiety’s scent is nowhere to be found, deeply underground. But I know that the naked mole-rat is probably around somewhere, just waiting to provide anxiety’s spores welcome transportation. And later, the trained pig starts to dig.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “NPA —Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety” Printable Copy

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

I’ve had requests for an easier-to-print copy of my anxiety protocol. Here’s another look at the entire protocol, followed by the downloadable copy.

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NPA — NEAL’S PROTOCOL FOR ANXIETY

All strategies are done “intentionally.” For ex, “I sit in this meditation practice with the intention that my current anxious experience will improve.”

FOR BOTH THE MENTAL AND THE PHYSICAL PARTS

(How I can attend to the experience in my mind and my body.)

• Meditation — any of my saved meditations from 10% Happier, Buddify or meditation on my own without guidance.

• Slow Side-to-Side Head Movement — Noticing colors, shapes, loved items, etc.

• Inhaling and Exhaling — “Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I calm the mind. Breathing in, I calm the body. Breathing out, I calm the body.” — In through the nose. Out through pursed lips (like through a straw). — In, cool. Out, warm.

• Hot soothing teas

FOR THE MENTAL PART

(How I can attend to the experience in my mind.)

• Recognize anxiety as a part of my experience right now. Maybe even speak to it. “Hello, anxiety.”

• Assign anxiety a number from 1 to 10.

• Verbal self messages/affirmations. “I have felt this way before, and I always make it through.” “My anxiety level is at a six, but it is not at a 10.“ “This anxiety is like the tides, ever changing. In and out.” “If I keep breathing, which I will, sooner or later, I will feel better.”

FOR THE PHYSICAL PART

(How I can attend to the experience in my body.)

• Tai Chi/Qigong, Stretching, Walking, Exercising

• Warm shower/cold shower

• Tapping

• Essential oils/Aromatherapy

• Medication, including Buspirone, my Albuterol inhaler and chewable Benadryl

************

Download a printable copy here:

Neal’s NPA.docxDownload
Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “NPA —Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety — Part Three”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

NPA — NEAL’S PROTOCOL FOR ANXIETY

As you know by now, I have divided my anxiety protocol into three parts. The first deals with strategies which can help with both the physical and mental aspects of my anxiety. The second with mental, and the third with physical. Of course those divisions are academic only. The mental and physical ebb and flow into and through each other. I struggled with categorizing my strategies.

Per therapist Rubi’s instructions, these strategies should be done “intentionally.” For example, “I sit in this meditation practice with the intention that my current anxious experience will improve.”

Today’s post deals with the third and final section of my protocol.

III. FOR THE PHYSICAL PART

(How I can attend to the experience in my body.)

• Tai Chi, Qigong, Stretching, Walking, Exercising

I LOVE this category of strategies. They are just so body oriented and … immediate. Qigong especially helps me to slow down, breathe and stretch in all kinds of ways. (Google for a few YouTube videos.) Before the pandemic, Robert and I attended a Monday morning Qigong class. Hopefully we can get back to it soon. My takeaway from those classes: Slow movement. Slow movement.

But also simply WALKING can be so grounding. When anxiety arrives, and if I remember to do so, one of the most effective things I will do is to begin to slowly walk around our apartment, paying attention to the sensations of contact with my feet on the floor. Right foot down, left foot down. Right foot down, left foot down. Calming. Grounding. Earthing.

• Warm shower/cool shower

The sensation of warm (or cool) water droplets pummeling, massaging is right there, on your face, on your body. “I feel, therefore I am.”

I also like to put a shower vapor tab on the shower floor to let it release its aromatherapy. Vicks makes a good one.

• Essential oils/Aromatherapy

I love putting various essential oils in the diffuser in our study by my chair …

or in our bedroom …

… and letting the incredible aromas soothe me, calm me, ground me.

• Tapping

I’m just getting started with this strategy. Have you heard about it?

From the book: “Like acupuncture and acupressure, Tapping is a set of techniques which utilize the body’s energy meridian points. You can stimulate these meridian points by tapping on them with your fingertips – literally tapping into your body’s own energy and healing power.”

So far, I like it. Update later.

• Medications

Sometimes I need this category. For me: Buspirone, my Albuterol inhaler (to help with breathing) and even chewable low dose Benadryl for quick help.

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So there you have it, my protocol for addressing my anxiety when it shows up. I know it’s very simplistic and incomplete, but it is a great help in my life. Let me know your thoughts or suggestions.

************

And here’s a review of the entire protocol, in case you are interested.

NPA — NEAL’S PROTOCOL FOR ANXIETY

All strategies are done “intentionally.” For ex, “I sit in this meditation practice with the intention that my current anxious experience will improve.”

FOR BOTH THE MENTAL AND THE PHYSICAL PARTS

(How I can attend to the experience in my mind and my body.)

• Meditation — any of my saved meditations from 10% Happier, Buddify or meditation on my own without guidance.

• Slow Side-to-Side Head Movement — Noticing colors, shapes, loved items, etc.

• Inhaling and Exhaling — “Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I calm the mind. Breathing in, I calm the body. Breathing out, I calm the body.” — In through the nose. Out through pursed lips (like through a straw). — In, cool. Out, warm.

• Hot soothing teas

FOR THE MENTAL PART

(How I can attend to the experience in my mind.)

• Recognize anxiety as a part of my experience right now. Maybe even speak to it. “Hello, anxiety.”

• Assign anxiety a number from 1 to 10.

• Verbal self messages/affirmations. “I have felt this way before, and I always make it through.” “My anxiety level is at a six, but it is not at a 10.“ “This anxiety is like the tides, ever changing. In and out.” “If I keep breathing, which I will, sooner or later, I will feel better.”

FOR THE PHYSICAL PART

(How I can attend to the experience in my body.)

• Tai Chi/Qigong, Stretching, Walking, Exercising

• Warm shower/cold shower

• Tapping

• Essential oils/Aromatherapy

• Medication, including Buspirone, my Albuterol inhaler and chewable Benadryl

Here’s to our mental health in these trying times and always.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “NPA — Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety — Part One”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

So, I remind you that a while back my therapist gave me a homework assignment to come up with some strategies for dealing with my anxiety when it shows up, an Anxiety Protocol, so to speak.

“Don’t make it too long with too many items or strategies. Or too complicated,” Rubi advised. (I’m good at droning on and on. And I excel at long lists and complications. I’m actually kinda proud of all that.) He also told me to make sure I begin each of my strategies with “intentionality.” That I need to be deliberately attentive and to intend that each strategy or effort be effective.

Okay, no problem, I can be short, uncomplicated and deliberate, if you insist, I thought, a little peevishly on the drive back from Statesboro.

I divided my protocol into three parts. The first deals with strategies which can help with both the physical and mental aspects of my anxiety. The second with mental, and the third with physical. Of course those divisions are academic only. The mental and physical ebb and flow into and through each other. But it makes for a neat three-part outline, which I will share as a printable handout when I finish posting all three parts.

Today’s blog post briefly examines NPA Part One.

I. FOR BOTH THE MENTAL AND THE PHYSICAL PARTS

(How I can attend to the experience of anxiety in my mind and my body.)

• Meditation — Any of my saved meditations from “10% Happier,” “Buddify,” “Apple Fitness+” or meditation on my own without guidance.

I LOVE the practice of meditation. But I’m TERRIBLE at it. My mind keeps wandering far, far off: “Will Season Four of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ FINALLY address Susie’s sexuality?! Stop it, back to your breath, Neal.”

Seriously, apps actually help me tremendously with navigating the confusing world of meditation. “10% Happier” with Dan Harris is my favorite. It’s a bit pricey at $100 a year, but it’s worth it. The app offers courses on meditation, as well as single, short meditations on just about any subject you can imagine. Also podcasts and lectures. It has been a lifesaver for me.

• Slow Side-to-Side Head Movement — Noticing colors, shapes, pictures, loved items, etc. as you move your head left to right.

This short practice is so easy and simple, but incredibly effective for me. As you begin to rotate your head slowly from side to side, try to notice any items that bring joy or peace or color, etc— inhale as you move your head to one side, then exhale as you turn your head back. Simple, distracting and calming. I love it.

• Inhaling and Exhaling

— “Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I calm the mind. Breathing in, I calm the body. Breathing out, I calm the body.”

— In through the nose. Out through pursed lips (like through a straw).

— In, cool. Out, warm.

— In, yes, Out, yes

Joyful, slow, deep breathing. Calming for my mind and body.

• Hot soothing teas

I continue to be amazed at how a simple hot cup of tea can also bring about soothing calm to my mind and my body. Slowly holding the warm cup and savoring the aroma and taste and ethos help to bring about needed peace.

My three favorites: Green Tea Matcha (with toasted rice), Peppermint and Echinacea.

Here’s my Tea Carousel.

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Your thoughts, ideas, suggestions? (Was I short and deliberate enough?)

NPA Part Two coming soon.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “Briefly Introducing NPA—Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

So a while back my therapist “Rubi” gave me a homework assignment (I like homework—its completion shows what a good boy I am): “Neal, I want you to come up with some strategies for dealing with your anxiety when it shows up. You’re already doing some of these, of course. This is simply organizing them. An anxiety protocol.”

“Maybe categorize it into mental and physical parts.”

“Well, how hard can that be?” I thought.

Rubi told me to make sure I begin each of my strategies with “intentionality.” That I need to be deliberately attentive and to intend that each strategy or effort be effective.

For example, before starting a simple five-minute calming meditation practice, I might say, “I sit in this meditation session with the intention that my current anxious experience will improve.”

I have divided my protocol into three parts. The first deals with strategies which can help with both the physical and mental aspects of my anxiety. The second with mental, and the third with physical. Of course those divisions are academic only. The mental and physical ebb and flow into and through each other. I struggled a little categorizing my strategies.

But when anxiety comes a knocking, if I’m at home, I try to remember to head to my reading chair in our study …

… sit down and pull out my protocol sheet from the magazine rack nearby. (I also have copies in my calendar and online.)

If I’m feeling particularly stressed and anxious (say a 5 or more on a scale of 1-10), I have to push myself to get the protocol into my hands and onto my lap (instead of just going where anxiety leads). At that higher 5+ rating, my anxiety can even make, at first, my neatly laminated protocol sheet look pointy edged, sharp and too much trouble.

But I have worked with some of these strategies enough to know that if I give them a chance, they will not fail me.

For the next three “Hello, Anxiety” blog posts, I will examine each of the three divisions of my anxiety protocol. Please give me your thoughts and recommendations for improvements. This protocol is definitely a work in progress.

Stay tuned. But don’t get too anxious about it.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “‘Covid’s Not Through!’ Edition”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

So for some reason (denial? avoidance? embarrassment?—I excel at all three), I have been hesitant to blog about what has been going on in our lives recently. But I have decided that it will be … healthy to do so.

On January 17, HR—Husband Robert, remember?—tested positive for Omicron. Two days later, I did as well. No clue how that happened. We are both fully vaccinated with the booster. And we have tried to be so careful. We experienced relatively mild symptoms for about a week or so. Then I got better. Robert did not. He got worse. Much worse.

Initially our primary care doc thought he had a secondary infection of the flu and was given prednisone and a Z pack. He didn’t get much better. His body became so painfully achy that he started having trouble walking by himself. And his breathing got very labored, with a too-low oxygen saturation level. So much so that Monday of last week we ended up in the ER, with Robert on oxygen and a rainbow of meds.

Tests and more tests transformed the flu diagnosis into a serious case of Covid-related pneumonia, severe dehydration and a variety of complications. Robert was placed on the No Visitors Covid Floor at the hospital.

In spite of what I and everyone else would very much like to believe … Covid. Is. Not. Over.

When “all of the above” comes knocking at your door …. Let me rephrase that: when “all of the above” comes knocking at MY door, it brings along its viral buddy, Anxiety.

The first evening without Robert …

We have matching reading chairs in our study. But Robert wasn’t sitting with me.

He was sitting with Omicron. And Omicron’s sick friends, Pneumonia et al.

I was sitting alone.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I was sitting with my Anxiety and his buddy, Shallow Breathing, who more often than not shows up with him. Also trying to force themselves in for an uninvited visit: Too Many Thoughts. Fears. Negative Projections.

And I then felt TERRIBLE about being concerned with MY breathing, when my husband was in ISOLATION IN THE HOSPITAL with real breathing problems.

“Neal, you do have options here, you know. You’re not helpless.”

“You’re right,” I told myself, as I pulled out my homework from Therapist Rubi: the creation of a list of strategies to choose from when Anxiety comes a visiting.

NPA, Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety.

[By the way, my next “Hello, Anxiety” blog post is an examination of my NPA.]

From the “For the Mental Part” section: “My anxiety is like the waves in the ocean, it comes and it goes. It doesn’t stay forever. It never has.”

And from the same section: “Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I calm the mind.”

Didn’t cure. But it helped.

***************

For some reason, a communication mistake we later realized, I was able to visit Robert for two of his seven days in the hospital. With PPE and a negative Covid test.

“Sorry Robert, I can’t stay with you very long. I have other patients who need my attention.“

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I stayed concerned about Robert’s vitals. Monitors drove me crazy. Purveyors of potentially bad news.

In the darkest moments, the I-cannot-think-these-thoughts came. “Will Robert come home?”

Then yesterday, Robert‘s pulmonologist and hospitalist decided he was strong enough to go home. With supplemental oxygen and blood thinners to help make sure the blood clots in his lower legs would not be a problem.

We rejoiced, with a bit of apprehension

This morning I felt so much better. Robert wanted his 1st cup of post-hospital coffee, and he wore his Santa pants! Which has to be a great sign.

Yes?

Posted in Hello, Anxiety., Mental Health

Hello, Anxiety: “Stay in the Moment”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

As I mentioned in my last anxiety post, I nicknamed my therapist “Rubi” (for a variety of reasons, the foremost of which is that he’s a jewel, a gemstone of a therapist, even if I can’t spell “Ruby”). I also explained that my most recent “homework” has been to assign a numeric value between 1 and 10 to anxiety when it rears its head. To recognize it and feel it, but also try to come up with statements which might calm me by affirming truths about my worries, anxieties and fears. “I HAVE felt this way before, and it passed!”

Well, I had a chance to work on my homework Monday when anxiety did some ugly head rearing. Robert and I received some frustratingly unwelcome news. (Which I may write about in another post.)

Later in the afternoon I finally remembered to assign the anxiety a number. And by that time it had, of course, grown.

To a 6, maybe a 7. (I never feel exactly confident in this exercise.)

This higher level of anxiety for me is often accompanied by its two cohorts: my perceived inability to breathe efficiently and a fear of (this is disgusting) nausea and even throwing up, exacerbating the breathing problem. Probably far TMI here.

The fellow below is wearing what I perceive as my experience/problem/issue with notched-up GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder):

The headset provides him with a “virtual reality,” quite different from “normal.” Which seems a bit similar to how I regard my heightened anxiety. It tends to block out (put a red light before?) everything in my immediate experience except itself. So. Very. Frustrating. I keep “staring” at it, feeling it, and to my exasperation, I guess in a way I become my anxiety. And it becomes my reality. Not my blog’s most often see-how-happy-Neal-is version.

GAD’s version of Neal.

I texted Rubi to tell him the news Robert and I received. Well, that was the presenting reason I messaged. I also wanted, I suppose, SOME IMMEDIATE HELP. He’s a therapist, for goodness’ sake.

After some soothing, warm empathy and encouragement, Rubi helped me see that there was actually a little green light right there on the side of my anxious “headset.” Maybe not an instant out, but a way around or through. Easy for him to say, he was looking from the outside. See how clear it is from that perspective!

“Just stay in the moment. Anxiety is all about what hasn’t yet happened.”

Rubi gave me a little jewel.

When I’m not wearing the headset, I too can easily see the green light. But when the contraption is strapped so very tightly on my head?! Hmmm.

Also when I’m in the moment of strong anxiety, I tend to forget that there are other things in the moment as well.

* My breath.

* My bodily sensations grounding me to earth and to life.

* My personal truth statements waiting to remind me that I am resilient and I’ve gotten through all this before.

* The sudden epiphany that Rubi’s homework level is a 6 or 7 and NOT a 9 or 10.

* My even-with-anxiety dignity.

Anxiety too often has me looking straight ahead, in a dark place, at red-light fears which haven’t even happened yet.

Good therapy teaches that I can raise my hand to find the green light switch.

Confession: I certainly like saying, “Goodbye, Anxiety!” (pretending that it is gone for good … “I’m so fixed!”) a whole bunch more than “Hello, Anxiety” (not quite so welcoming and definitely without the exclamation point).

But don’t tell Rubi. That will just mean more homework.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “‘A Christmas Memory’ and My Therapist(s)” Part Two

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

[Today’s post is an overdue continuation of “Hello Anxiety: “‘A Christmas Memory’ and My Therapist(s)” Part One, from a couple of weeks ago: https://nealenjoy.com/2021/12/30/hello-anxiety-a-christmas-memory-and-my-therapists-part-one/]

After finishing my teary-eyed reading to Robert of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, and seeing my own quirky parallels to the story, we finally arrived in Statesboro for my weekly therapist appointment. And I was ready to “BE FIXED!” As I am at every session. And come to think of it, as I am every new morning. Isn’t that what I’m paying for?! And living for?

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I really love therapist Lori Gottlieb’s beautifully humorous and heartwarming examination of therapy in Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.

Hmmm.

Which, okay, I’ve read three times now, so my copy should be called You Should DEFINITELY Talk to Someone. In the book, Lori (first-name basis now) explains to me that … “One of the most important steps in therapy is helping people take responsibility for their current predicaments, because once they realize that they can and must construct their own lives, they are free to generate change.” She goes on, “A therapist will hold up a mirror to patients.”

Oh gosh, that sounds like far too much work. And the mirror is not one of my best friends.

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It’s a bit of a challenge to drive to my therapist’s actual office, at least if you’re arriving from the main avenue out front. You see, he shares this beautiful, slightly crumbling but genteel old white house with several other therapists (Oh, if walls could talk!), and when you turn onto the paved driveway, a little narrow wooden garage appears straight ahead, or what you think is the garage. If this is your first time, you are a bit confused about the layout because the garage doesn’t seem to have a back wall. “Should I keep driving through? Surely you don’t park in a carport with no back wall and where the drive seems to continue.” You slowly inch forward, trying your best not to bring the entire old structure down by grazing the rickety walls. Your effort finds you, slightly exhausted, finally pulling into the mostly-dirt-with-a-little-gravel parking lot out back.

Whew! You haven’t even darkened the therapist’s door yet. You wonder if there’s a trick entrance there as well.

And then it hits you. At least it hit me: I just drove through wooden metaphorical therapy! [TIB (Truth in Blogging): it didnt hit me that first day, but weeks, maybe months later it did.]

Negotiating through therapy can be a confusing and hazardous drive.

You think you know where you’re headed, but then the lane narrows and you find yourself in unexpected, unsteady and unexplored spaces. “It’s too tight in here. Even breathing can be a struggle.” But effective therapy shows you doors you may not have noticed before, in unanticipated places … avenues through. Even if the ways aren’t paved, perhaps covered with dirt, challenging and uncomfortable to push through.

I can’t just keep referring to my therapist as “my therapist” ad nauseam. And I can’t just tell you his real name, because then you might try to go through the garage to see him and claim him as YOUR THERAPIST. And we patients (consumers? clients?) can get very possessive and territorial.

So let’s call him Rubinstein, Rubi for short.

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Today, leaving Robert and “A Christmas Memory” in the car, I open the back screen door and walk through the porch into the practice’s common waiting area. I sit down, albuterol inhaler in hand, onto one of only two small, ancient, uncomfortable and rickety-squeak ladder-back chairs. (Don’t get me started on metaphors again.) Soon I hear Rubi walking down the steps from his second-floor suite to fetch me.

Metaphorically Climbing the stairs, I position myself onto the left side of the little couch (everything’s not quite right yet), arrange the oversized throw pillow into its weekly fit behind my back and sit into the session.

Rubi has this simple yet Superpower ability, without saying a word, to slow down and ground my rushed, shallow breathing by making eye contact and then deepening and lengthening his own breath. I follow. It works every time.

After therapist/patient chit chat, I ramble on about the drive, my reading of the Capote story, Robert’s response to the story, my tears and my dysfunctionally functional, alcohol-soaked family backstory. (HOW does he listen to people like me?) And of course I get moist eyes for the second time in an hour.

One of Rubi’s most practical and helpful pieces of advice is to “assign a number level to your anxiety when it comes, Neal. Attend to it.”

Most of the time, however, when anxiety raises its head, I forget ME and just see HIM/HER/IT. “I must fight this monster!” But Rubi is teaching me that anxiety is not the real enemy. It’s how I try to “manage or control” my anxiety.

I have such difficulty “owning” my anxiety as a part of my lived experience because I often get so caught up in the belief that anxiety truly is my great enemy, instead of perhaps an overprotective friend trying too hard to help.

“It’s all about noticing what you feel, instead of just feeling what you feel,” Rubi explains. “And it’s SO important what you tell yourself about what you feel.”

I usually tell myself that I’m weak, that I need to try harder, that other people don’t deal with these crazy issues. And, by all means, to put up a good front! Be “the best little boy in the world.”

So I’ve got some work to do, and obviously some tight garages to drive through, some ladder-back chairs to sit on and some stairs to climb.

My “homework” assignment from this session is to continue giving a numeric value to my anxiety. To attend to it. To see it. But casually, not too intensely, he emphasized. (I tend to overdo homework.)

I think Rubi is holding up a mirror.

Until next time.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello Anxiety: “‘A Christmas Memory’ and My Therapist(s)” Part One

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

My sometimes tumultuous relationship with anxiety is not an easy subject for me to write about. I certainly don’t like experiencing anxiety. And I don’t even like thinking about anxiety, much less writing about it.

It makes me anxious.

I consider myself an optimist at heart and am generally viewed as a positive, upbeat sort of fellow. At least that’s what people tell me. (Has everyone been lying to me all my life?!)

And holidays can be for me (for most folks, I suppose) both joyful and somewhat anxiety ridden. I SO want ALL to be well, including (INCLUDING!) the decorations, my sweater and the Christmas cookies—or this year, the fruitcakes. If you don’t struggle with anxiety at the General Anxiety Disorder level, you may not understand what I mean when I say that the candlestick’s placement, as well as others’ reactions/responses to the candlestick’s placement, is so paramount.

Do you think they’re too close together?

Last week, a few days before Christmas, Robert drove me an hour north of our home in Savannah to Statesboro, for my weekly visit to my therapist. No, not physical therapist, though I’ve gone to those. Robert does most of the driving on these (and nearly all) car trips, and I usually read aloud to him (we just finished our 139th book together!—Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food).

On this short trip, I read Truman Capote’s wondrous autobiographical-ish short story, A Christmas Memory. I LOVE this story, featuring seven-year old Buddy and “special” sixty-ish Cousin and their best friendly shenanigans, culminating in their homemade fruitcake gifting to a wide catalog of folks, including President Roosevelt (!).

Soon after I began the story, and long before a single fruitcake had been baked and soaked in whisky (the partaking of which might have helped me considerably), Anxiety decided to pay me an unwelcome visit. Some folks would suggest that I allowed it, or even invited it, or simply didn’t manage it very effectively. And maybe, they are right. I’m still trying to “understand” my anxiety, to “negotiate” my walking-on-eggshells steps through its territory. (I usually crush the eggshells to smithereens.)

If you’ve read A Christmas Memory, you may recall that narrator Buddy understands and helps the reader understand that even though Cousin is in her sixties, “She is still a child.” And I don’t know how your mind works, but characters and events in stories often remind me of people and situations in my own life. And most of the time, that is perfectly fine. Even fun, or funny. But not on this drive to the Boro.

For on this day Buddy’s Cousin immediately and painfully reminded me of my Aunt Charcie, one of my favorite relatives growing up, who was a little “special” as well. She was my mother’s youngest aunt who lived just up the hill from us. “She wasn’t right in the head,” according to my Granny, her sister.

But Aunt Charcie was able to get married and lived with her alcoholic and abusive husband. As a boy around Buddy’s age (maybe a little older), I hated and couldn’t really understand those times when Mama and I (yes, I was a mama’s boy), would be down the hill at Granny’s and my aunt would walk slowly through the door with a bruised face.

“I’d like to kill that S.O.B,” Granny would roar. I thought that I’d like to kill him too. But nobody did anything except give Aunt Charcie an ice pack and a warm shoulder. Several years and too many similar episodes later, that uncle suddenly died. I can’t remember how … or, weirdly, even his name. But I do remember, with only a little embarrassment today, how perhaps inappropriately happy we all were at his death. Bruises met their end as well.

Before he died, Mama wouldn’t let me go up the hill by myself to visit my aunt. And I knew it had something to do with how sour the uncle always smelled.

As I continued to read the quickly souring A Christmas Memory to Robert, simultaneously recalling the story of my dysfunctional family history, Neal’s Anxiety Dual Symptoms quickly made their presence known: teary eyes and breathing problems. I realize that breath is always with us as long as we are alive, of course it is, it IS us, but that’s just the issue with me and anxiety: in the anxious moment, I don’t believe there is enough oxygen, enough air, to keep me going, to keep me alive. To keep my “Is-ness” “Is-ing.”

With the teary and frustratingly labored breathing came a rush of mental (emotional?) reasons to be anxious: “Life isn’t fair. Why has alcoholism and its deadly consequences woven their way through my family? Will if affect the next generation, the grandchildren? Why are people so cruel? Will Covid ever end. Etc. Etc. Etc.”

Robert (poor loving Robert, aka Therapist #1): “Neal, make room for it.”

I hate and love that advice. I know, at least I academically know, that anxiety is just a part of my experience at this moment, not my entire experience. But how can I remember ANYTHING when I “can’t” breathe?

But I took Robert’s words to heart (if not to my lungs immediately), grabbed my albuterol inhaler, and had a second remembering. After Aunt Charcie’s husband died, she moved into a tiny trailer by herself (blessedly). My mother, Granny and I would visit often. For several Christmases I would take along a wire coat hanger on our visits, walk into the slash pine woods behind the trailer, break off some pine boughs and holly if I could find it and fashion a cheap, scrawny and probably ridiculous looking Christmas wreath for my aunt’s trailer door.

“Neal, that is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” And I believed her, for in that moment, it was. And all was well. And I’m almost certain that, as Aunt Charcie, Mama, Granny and I looked at the wiry wonder, all our breathing issued forth smooth, steady and clear.

**************

Part Two will introduce Therapist #2, the one with the credentials waiting for me to finish A Christmas Memory and show up for my appointment.