On Angst

I don’t know if angst is really the topic I should be considering right now given my current state of mind about my own life, but the word came up this week in conversations with my kids and now I am thinking about the concept of angst.

In the context of discussing the inner turmoil of a young Peter Parker, better know to the world as the super hero Spider Man, one of my kids asked me to define angst. While I knew it has similar roots to anxiety, I was pretty sure it was of a deep pull than anxiety. So I looked it up.

Angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, and insecurity. Yes, it is anxiety, but it is paired with these other words that give it a little twist…like a feeling you just can’t shake. The first definition I read was that offered by Google….”a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general.” In my own life, anxiety is often tied to a specific event or person. Angst is that all over apprehension and insecurity you just can’t quite get your finger on and that makes it much harder to find your way out of it.

Enter some interesting history of the word. Its use in the English language can be traced to the 19^th century and psychology (think Freud). That makes sense. The interesting part, at least to me, was that It had much more widespread use in general society in the 1940’s and 1950’s….when the world got a lot scarier with the atomic bomb now in play and the Cold War beginning. This is when the world was in crisis and quite scary, but most people couldn’t really DO anything about it. Enter angst. Deep anxiety about the world in general. Actually, sounds pretty reasonable.

I would argue that at this same time, we are faced with the new widespread information age with many homes starting to have television. Before this time, most people could worry about local events, but the world beyond that we were not getting anything in real time. News had a delay. Now all of a sudden, it is possible to have real time news in your home, but you still can’t DO anything about it. This is the breeding ground of angst.

Now fast forward another 60 or 70 years and it isn’t just when we go home and flip on the T.V. The news is in our very pockets. We can get real time updates on any political event anywhere in the world. Sure, some we can do something about, generally in a fairly slow way….send money to help in a crisis, vote for a different candidate, try to enact a policy change. Yet largely we are inundated with information we can’t DO anything about. On repeat. Every day. And then as it builds up, we don’t know why we feel anxious, our immediate lives and people are doing ok, but we have this deeper feeling of dread about everything.

This next part is hard. Is there anything we CAN do about this? Because living with a deeper feeling of dread is kind of poopy. I don’t think I have the answers. I would like the answers. Well, I have a couple things I have tried over the years that do help, but it probably isn’t the whole answer.

To start, I honestly believe this is where prayer comes in. We don’t have within our limited power the ability to fix every part of the world. We are called to pray for the world. This isn’t a last resort, this should be step one. And while we are there, we can pray for the peace that surpasses all understanding for our hearts and mind, too. We don’t have to live dread; we can give it to God.

My second one, is that I got a lot less angsty when I stopped following the news multiple times a day. I am not advocating burying one’s head in the sand here, but I don’t think we need a blow by blow of each crisis, especially in U.S. national level politics. Read a newspaper once a week and you will get the biggest take-a-way’s without the daily despair. Definitely limit news you get from social media as we all know the accuracy of that! When I was a child, a family we were close to did not have a T.V. The didn’t get the paper. They just didn’t want a daily influx of crud dumped on them. I never thought they were ill informed. And my guess, although I never asked, is that in the case of September 11^th they probably found out pretty quickly without even having access to media in their home. When trouble is big enough, word spreads fast. Don’t worry about missing something, if you need to know, you will.

That is really all I have for my own ways of avoiding angst in my own life. It isn’t much, but in a world where there is an onslaught of anxiety, apprehension, and insecurity, every little step helps.

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts about a little word with a big feeling!

Giving up to make it through

The last few weeks have had circumstances that individually would have made life challenging. But these were not nicely lining up and waiting their turn, no, these circumstances were all punching at once. One friend asked how I was doing and I replied with “slowly losing the will to survive.” It was dramatic, of course, but I just could not get above the hits. Because I struggle with chronic depression, I am very careful about becoming overwhelmed. I have a lot of built in stops and self-care to manage my mental health. I couldn’t even access a good number of those given the circumstances.

One thing that I know about myself is that my first reaction to struggle is to try harder. This is almost a part of my DNA. I was raised by people with this attitude and I was raised in a culture of this attitude. Not only do I try harder on whatever is going on, if that isn’t possible, I try harder in other areas to hope to compensate in the area where I feel stuck. My most recent example of this was actually during the last week. I was literally stuck at home (too much snow to leave) with a sick baby and two other kids and I was sick myself. So what did I do? I finished painting Isaac’s room. No joke. I figured that even if everything else fell apart, I would have one thing accomplished. Truthfully, it did feel good and it helped me later in the week to have that done. So I won’t say I shouldn’t have done it, but it does sound funny to say I did that in the midst of all that was going on.

Sometimes when I am in these places, though, I end up creating extra work or anxiety just to feel like I am “doing something”. Last week, I tried a different approach to see if it would help with anxiety and mental health. I gave up.

I came up with the idea when I was thinking about the military term “embrace the suck”. The idea there is that you can’t change your circumstances, so embrace them and get through them, rather than fighting against it as you go. I couldn’t change the snow. I couldn’t change my child being sick. I couldn’t change myself being sick. I couldn’t change being “on” all the time. I couldn’t change my husband being out of town. And, really, there wasn’t much to do.

Normally in that time I would find something to do, and I did in the painting, but that didn’t take long. So I would turn to “well I can read and study for work I have coming up”. But this time I didn’t do that. I decided to give up on it all and read a novel. Just lose myself in a book as much as I could. Let the kids watch TV and sit next to them and read.

I started to think maybe I needed to give up to make it through. I had a mental picture of Devil’s Snare from Harry Potter….that struggling could actually make it worse. That I just needed to relax everything to get out of this space. I stopped reading non-fiction and finished 3 books last week. I didn’t make a real planned dinner for over a week. And this season of circumstances is still not over, but I do feel like I am making it. I can do this. Our routine will reemerge in the coming weeks. All the tasks will get done. My kids will eat regular dinners again. I will get my work and study done. But for now I am going to go read a book.

Be anxious for nothing

Be anxious for nothing.

I am a naturally anxious person. It is just something I struggle with. I have a child with a diagnosed anxiety disorder…I don’t exactly wonder where he got it from.

It is nine days in to the new year and those have been some pretty anxious days. I want to say they have been anxious regarding things outside of my control but the problem with that is the control. What exactly is in my control? That might not be nearly as much as I want to believe, so maybe it is time to address the anxiety rather than the control.

This came up with my therapist this week. He said, to my face, I was an anxious person. Ouch, but fair, and not exactly a news flash. I just don’t like people saying it because that means my façade of control has slipped. He actually went one further. He said “she is anxious and probably copes with her anxiety by planning”. Hmm. It hit me that was a nice way to say “she likes to control stuff”. And I really, really do.

Much of my coping as a special needs mom is planning and controlling what I can. And to be fair to myself, there is a lot to plan and coordinate, but I may go overboard. Maybe. Ok, fine. I do.

And then something comes along that can’t be immediately planned and organized and I am a HOT MESS. Or maybe it isn’t mine to drive. I have to support instead. There may still be a role for a planner, but it might be slower than I want.

What then? My anxiety coping plan doesn’t exactly work well in those conditions.

It is dawning on me that I need to refocus and make some changes. I need to go back to the roots of the anxiety. I need to go back to “be anxious for nothing.” Not by planning but by applying more directly the next verses in the Bible….and, while I am at it, the one right before it, too.

After all, it is the very first Bible verse I can remember memorizing!

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4)

I think rejoicing is the first step in being prepared to “be anxious for nothing”.

Today I was reading Max Lucado’s book Anxious for Nothing and this is where he starts and this line knocked me back on the couch: “We are urged to ‘Rejoice in the Lord.’ This verse is a call, not to a feeling, but to a decision and a deeply rooted confidence that God exists, that he is in control, and that he is good.” Full stop. Am I living this? If I am coping with anxiety through control, am I living this? Probably not, much as I dislike even typing that. He goes on to write “anxiety increases as perceived control diminishes”, yet “we can’t take control because control is not ours to take”. Well, that shoots pretty straight at the matter. I get the feeling God nudged me to read this book today, in the middle of this week, at the start of this year where anxiety is trying to strangle me in just the first 9 days.

For the last many, 10ish I would guess, years I have tried to have a word of the year. Some worked better than others. I wasn’t exactly feeling the idea this year and I don’t like to push something “just because I have always done it” so 2019 didn’t have a word. Today I realized that it doesn’t need a word, it needs a whole phrase!

“Be anxious for nothing”

And then I need to work on changing what I do with anxiety, how I approach it, how I acknowledge the sovereignty of God at work in my family.

So, stay tuned because, of course, I can’t learn something new without writing about it!!!

Falling apart and what happens next

Many people tell me that they are amazed at my calm and humor and grace in the middle of life as the mom of the Bennett crew. And, because I am working on not having a self-depreciating attitude, I will say that they are right. I am good at generally keeping it together in what is a pretty high stress mothering environment.

That doesn’t mean I don’t fall apart sometimes. Sometimes I fall apart in a big big way. It would probably be a bad sign if I stopped falling apart because there are days life is seriously awful and if I wasn’t falling apart it would be because I had stopped feeling anything at all. So sometimes I do fall epically apart. Mostly in private because of my personality, but sometimes even in public I just lose it.

I had a such a day two weeks ago.  It had been a rough 24 hours with our oldest son. It was time to get to the bus and he wasn’t having it. His anxiety and disruptive behaviors were at a premium. It took the whole village that is my neighborhood to get him on the bus. I had no idea what I was going to do if he didn’t get on that bus. I was panicked. When the bus doors finally close, with him safely on board, I broke down in tears. My neighbors gave me hugs. I cried all the way (super late) to my double preschool drop offs. I cried through drop offs. I cried clear through the Starbucks drive thru window.

What happened next, though, is the important part. I stopped crying. I did my next things and while I did, I started to deconstruct the morning. I asked myself a lot of questions. What triggered the child? What made me feel the most upset? What could have changed? What couldn’t change? Where could I call in some resources? Who could help me? And with those questions I started to create an action plan. A plan of people to call, places to go, a plan of what I was going to do for my own spirit after it had been so totally stomped on that morning.

With those thoughts, the clouds in my head and my heart started to clear. My soul was coming back to where it should be. To be honest, the problem wasn’t solved. I had no clear answers or promises that this wouldn’t happen again. Getting the answers to my questions and getting a plan in place took a few days of hard work, and it took some not taking no for an answer.

All the while I still was doing my regular next things of parenting and life. The taking a deep breath, the thinking through the events, the analysis and refocus, those I would argue are the healthy result of falling apart. Now, it would have been easier to give up on that day. To go home and eat a bunch of junk comfort food and watch a movie or bury myself in a book. Those are the not healthy responses to falling apart, those responses take you from falling apart over one thing to a life falling apart and a depressed spirit, if I may be so bold as to say.

We don’t have to put on a wonder woman face to the world, we don’t have to have it 100% together, we can, and should, fall apart sometimes. Where we go from there, though, can have a huge impact on our souls. So, I will keep falling apart AND I will keep putting myself back together. Hopefully an even better version, a wiser and new lesson learned version, of myself.

Lecture Review: Anxiety and ADHD by Dr. Chris McCurry

Thanks to my parents (for paying for the tickets, and watching the kids), I was able to attend a lecture by Dr. Chris McCurry last night titled "The Rise of Anxiety and ADHD: Solutions for Your Family. It was a chock full of interesting information and good ideas for anxious kids (and their sometimes equally anxious parents!). Let me just say, I used most of the tips Dr. McCurry gave between 8:03 and 8:57 this morning!!

A couple basic comments about ADHD and anxiety. Dr. McCurry said he thinks there is more overlap in symptoms than are usually given. The best side note he said about ADHD was that "it is something you do, not something you have". The behaviors are things you do, not that you ARE ADHD. This makes it more external to the child, and really, we all have the behaviors at times, right? He also said that the name wasn't accurate, because a lot of ADHD diagnosed kiddos can actually hyper focus on a preferred activity. It is more accurately named "Attention Allocation Disorder" and more importantly it is an "Intention Deficit Disorder". Their intention is lacking the right focus.

He also discussed feelings. That you don't really get rid of feelings, like anger or worry; what you really want is to teach children to be brave and courageous when they have those feelings.

I can act my way into feeling better sooner than I can feel my way into acting better. - O.H. Mowrer

We can help kids by helping them change their actions, not necessarily their feelings.


So what do we do to help anxious or ADHD diagnosed kids?

Dr. McCurry suggests we change the process of interacting with our kids. Remembering that they regress in the moment to a younger age ("I don't know how to be ten years old, but I know how to be four years old") and we don't want to regress with them!!

Changing The Process
1. Increase awareness - Everyone take a deep breath. Distractions (of all kinds) will happen for anyone.

Parents can remember this acronym to help them be mindful in the moment.
S.O.B.E.R.
Stop
Observe
Breathe
Expand - what are the possibilities? or contract if we need to (let's not worry about the whole homework)
Respond - Once the parent is calm and has thought of the possibilities, they can respond rather than react to the child

2. ‎Change the focus of attention ("Change the Channel")
Breathing exercises - Belly breath, ferris wheel, Darth Vader breath
Problems and conditions - which is it? Problems need solutions, Conditions need coping. We can change the focus from looking for a solution to a condition that we really just need to cope with.

3. ‎Make decisions leading to values-driven action (older kids like 7/8)
Choices (big) and Decisions (little stuff every day that support or don't support the choice) . All of your decisions then can tie to a value goal. The most important thing is to remember the most important thing. Helping a kid remember that can help them keep their focus and do even the undesirable task. In some cases the kid may not "want" to, but could they be "willing" to get to the values and choices they desire? (Example is not "wanting" to do homework, but "willing" because their choice and value is to be a good student). Dr. McCurry referred to this as "wantingness" versus "willingness".

Also in values he talks about "two sides of the same coin" and to teach kids (even with a visual of a coin) that is they want the "good stuff" they need to do the "challenging stuff".

The last big take away was validation. "All behavior is a message, and a behavior won't begin to change until the person knows his message was received". We can validate the child's feelings, let the know we hear them and understand the feelings, before we even go to the work of changing the process.

Overall, I was very happy with the new information we learned and I will definitely be checking out Dr. McCurry's book very soon!