Saturday, August 29, 2009

General Anxiety Disorder -- My Experience

(Pictured . . . inside the Hatteras lighthouse)


I'm going to spend a couple of postings (I hope it is not any longer) describing my experience with a generalized anxiety disorder. I still invite others who what to discuss their mental health thorns in the flesh. Just write it up and submit it to me a christianmonist@comcast.net

I wanted to continue this thought on looking at my anxiety from the inside out with special consideration of a (my) Christian perspective.

First of all, I am a great believer that we are all unique . . . I’m thinking snowflake here. Not only has God created us unique to start with, but the influence of the fall, through our genetic make up and live experiences has added to that uniqueness. So what I say about my experience only applies to myself and not to others with the same diagnoses. The old Tim Lahaye, Spirit-Controlled Temperament, dose not fly in my opinion. It was one of the “Christian” milestone books (back in the 70s) on psychology, which put people in boxes, categories or personality types. While modern psychology does catalog mental illness (as I referred to earlier as the DSM-IV), and I think that is helpful, we can not paint people with too broad of brush.

What is the cause of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)?


First I will give a basic answer (which may apply to everyone), then my own personal answer.

I do believe that GAD, is a “disorder.” It is not part of the great “order” in which God created the universe or intended. It is an aberration of how God intended us to be. That view makes a great impact on how we, who suffer, view our problem. God didn’t create me this way for some special reason. It is, like Paul said, a thorn in the flesh. No human, in my opinion is without their own personal thorn. Of course God is sovereign, however, He is not the great manipulator . . . creating us with certain idiosyncrasies which makes our lives much more difficult . . . in order to achieve some specific divine purpose.

This particular disorder, like most, can be a product of, 1) ancient sin (the fall of Adam) and influence us through genetics, 2) recent sin, the influence on us of other peoples’ sin, especially when we were very young or 3) our personal sin. This is very, very different from Nouthic counseling (Jay Adams brand of Christian psychology) which only believes in # 3. Nouthic counseling also ignores the physical brain which is the real “battle ground” in the case of # 1 and can be influenced by # 2 and #3. They believe (in a Dualistic way) that the problem is in a very fluid, dynamic and changeable spiritual realm. Go back to my previous posting and click on the title for a very good, and simple, explanation of how the brain is involved in this disorder of GAD.

So anxiety disorders can develop if you are born with brain malfunctions, such as deficient of a particular neurotransmitter, or the actual number or connections between certain neurons. You can also acquire an anxiety disorder through early childhood experiences, trauma (anytime during your life) or even brain injuries. I’ve seen patients develop extreme anxiety after a particular type of brain injury including a stroke.

Of course, decisions that we make can influence the magnitude of these disorders. But I believe that the Church has created a huge amount of unjustified guilt by suggesting that all the mental health disorders are the fault of the sufferer. It would be the same if a person was blamed over and over for being born (or injured) and became lame, or blind.

My personal origins.

I have done a lot of retrospection and I don’t have all the answers, however, there is no reason for me to waste anymore of my time and energy trying to figure it out. You can certainly become too obsessed with your own faults.

I know that my GAD started at a very young age. Was I born with it? Maybe, but I’m not positive. My mother suffered from a severe anxiety disorder all her life. The question becomes, did I inherit the disorder from her or did she teach it to me when I was very young? I honestly don’t know.

I can remember as clear as if it were yesterday, the first time I realized that I was different. I was five years old. I was with a large extended family group visiting the lighthouse on Cape Hatteras. The group (of about 14) started climbing the spiral iron staircase inside. It is the kind where you can see through the steps to the floor below. As we went up beyond 20 or 30 feet I was overcome by terror (acrophobia is one small part of my syndrome). It was so bad that I froze. My mother couldn’t even carry me because I was in a panic. The whole family made a big deal out silly I was and how much of a baby I was. Finally my mother took me back ground to the door and I sat outside on the big sandstone steps that lead up to the lighthouse while she and the others climbed it. I felt so embarrassed and I hated myself. My brother had laughed his head off at me, but the terror was so awful. The only reason that I felt terror, so I reasoned, was because I was a very bad person.

I had some early influences in my life that . . . if didn’t cause my anxiety . . . made it much worse. But I am often hesitant to even tell these stories because when I’ve attempted to before, I’ve had Christian friends suggest I was, “making excuses.” I am not. I’m just trying to objectively explore and understand. Those who accuse us of “making excuses” are usually people who have never suffered with this problem. Their thorns in the flesh may be that they are assholes . . . but then that makes them a thorn in someone else’s flesh doesn’t it?

The other influence was that I had a brother who beat the crap out of me almost every day. He hated me. I was seven years younger than him and he was always insecure, which made him very jealous (with me being the baby). He dealt with it by constantly telling me I was crap and physically hurting me with every chance that he could. It created a constant feeling of low-self esteem and fear.

The other great influence was a neighbor kid. He was the stereotypical bully. He was four years older than me and heavy, weighting twice as much as me. He loved to torture me, and I’m not exaggerating. From about age 3 until I stabbed him in a horrible act if self preservation (around age 6) there wasn’t a day that went by that he was tying ropes around my neck coking me, burning me with matches, setting my hair on fire, forcing me to do kiss and expose myself (in great humiliation) to little girls on our street. It seemed like it would never end.
Finally my brother got drafted to Vietnam and I stabbed my neighbor in the head, sending him to the Emergency Room. But after living through this for about five years (and impressible years) I was a nervous wreck.

My parents didn’t help me because (I know now), 1) my dad was suffering from PTSD from Normandy and 2) my mother had been so severally abused as a child by her father and step-mother that she didn’t have the emotional fortitude left to help me.

So I really don’t know when my problems started and if I would have had them even if I had experienced a warm and nurturing childhood. It may have been all the results of nature.

I will continue on with my story later, how it manifest and how I’ve struggled to over-come it (but mostly hide it).

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure that your neighborhood bully and big brother would have been enough, especially for a kid who was more sensative to anxiety. On the other hand I've seen kids sensitive to anxiety getting loved and nurtured with plenty of encouragement at home grow out of anxiety or at least learn to cope in healthy ways.

Anonymous said...

I haven't posted before, but have enjoyed reading your blog for some time now.

I'm pretty sure my son suffers from some type of anxiety disorder. He is currently in a drug/alcohol treatment center and I really believe he has been trying to self-medicate himself for some time now. He is 19 and has a long road ahead of him. I look forward to reading more of your story and how you have dealt with it.

~Tammy

MJ said...

Anonymous #1, Yeah, I've seen it too. Kids who were abused far worse than me who seemed to have turned out without much baggage, and then the other way around. Don't know what it is in those cases unless it is genetics.

Anonymous #2, You are certainly right about the alcohol. I think it is the most common (unfortunately) treatment for both anxiety and depression. I hope your son gets some good help.

Jaz said...

If you’re like so many young people who become involved with drug and alcohol abuse, you may find that you’ve fallen behind in your education goals. Addiction might be causing you to place less emphasis upon things like goals in general, affecting your willingness and capacity to learn and retain information while you’re using or recovering from drug use.

James Christerson said...

I have been greatly struggling with how I feel people view me because of my anxiety... Thank you for this... So often the voice of the opressor is so much louder than that of a friend...

I have only a few people in my life who think my disorder is caused by me, and for some reason I can never get them out of my head.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you for this...

BTW, I googled "GAD and Christianity" and i found you... THank you

Anonymous said...

I am a Catholic but want to share my frustration in accepting my anxiety. I HATE it!! I am a 52 yr old male and it has ruined my life. I have prayed constantly for some help but it is still there. I just don't understand my Cross. No one, unless they struggle with it themselves, understands anxiety disorder. I have tried meds, therapy, groups etc. and they don't help in the midst of an anxious situation. St. Dymphna is the Patron Saint of nervous and mental disorrders and I am praying to her regularly for some help and guidance.

Unknown said...

I think there are many for whom anxiety has ruined their lives. In my more recent posts I hope to get into a discussion about treatment and why treatments fail. There is no punch line. I'm not going to unveil some secret treatment that works for everyone.

Unknown said...

A Generalized anxiety disorder treatment as well as (GAD) is really a state of mind in which your anxieties in addition to fears occur so much which they hinder your health so much that you can not operate or maybe take it easy. Smaller points and big items likewise allow you to fear extremely by what might happen as well as could happen. As a result enables you to concern yourself with one thing for the remainder of your day regarding absolutely no genuine explanation. In addition, it impacts you physically. One's body is certain to get fatigued coming from all the particular emotional anxiety as well as strain and your muscular tissues will discomfort, you'll not have the ability to sleep, and become exhausted on a regular basis.

lar said...

Been a sufferer most of my life as my Mother was, worst part about it is it attacks my belief that God loves me. This has been a battle for me, blessed are the weak, I count on that.

Unknown said...

Lar, I think if you look at it, the way most people do as "this is the way God made me" it would make you question God's love. But I think it is more healthy to look at it in the way that God has made this wonderfully complex machine (machine is not a good word for us) and in our Fallen state, sand has been thrown in the gears. For some of us, that "sand" is a natural emotional alarm system that malfunctions and causes us to be alarmed all the time or alarmed at things that shouldn't alarm us (phobias). So, I don't blame God for my defects . . . nor should we blame ourselves, unless we did something to cause it, or didn't do something to help it.

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