Thoughts While Running #019

i have anxiety and running helps...

…except for when it doesn’t.

Dougie has this book called ‘Why Is Blue Dog Blue?’ that he loves. My mom (aka grammy) bought it years ago on a girls’ trip we took to New Orleans and when she was still teaching first grade (she’s long since retired). It was written by a local artist named George Rodrigue, and in it he explains why he always paints blue dog blue. Except for when he doesn’t. Because blue dog is always blue. Except when he’s not.

I remember having my first panic attack when I was 12. I was sitting in class, sometime after lunch and while I can’t recall what we were studying, I can (on brand), tell you exactly what I was wearing : an oversized black t-shirt, green enamel frog necklace I had gotten from Claire’s (because you have to kiss a lot of frogs) and I had just gotten a haircut that could best be described as a q-tip. It also happened around the same time my parents were going through a divorce.

I didn’t know what it was at the time and I didn’t experience another one until many years later. The fun(ny) thing with my anxiety is that it isn’t always present, which makes it easy to forget it even exists. It just sort of hangs out in the background, quietly waiting for things to seem ok until one day you can’t catch your breath and suddenly you realize things haven’t been ok for a while and now they’re so far from ok it’s hard to see how they might ever be ok again. The next panic attack I can remember having was when I was 25, living in New York, working as a designer for a company that can only be described as incredibly toxic. This was the early 2000s, Gen Z hadn’t make work/life balance a thing yet and creepy managers (esp in the fashion industry) were a given. I had come back from a hot yoga class in the middle of an August heat wave and called the free nurse hotline on my insurance card because I was pacing my apartment and couldn’t catch my breath.

july 7, 2017 at a birthday dinner for my mom (who looks adorable here). do i look like i just had a panic attack? no on knew except my now husband (far right).

As I’ve gotten older the anxiety has become more present, although it still likes to come and go, showing up unannounced, the uninvited guest no one wants at the party who then irish goodbyes. It’s constant and yet easily forgotten as the severity of it ebbs and flows, triggered by external factors such as stress (starting a new business), workplace instability (getting laid off) or hormones (PMS). In its milder forms : checking on Dougie every night before I go to bed, double checking to make sure the door is locked before I leave the house, kissing Dougie one extra time before he leaves for school. In its more extreme forms : pacing the house, an inability to relax, shortness of breath.

Running helps keep it at bay. Usually. The mix of endorphins plus the benefits of being outside in the sun usually will relax me, giving an outlet to the build up of energy anxiety, tiring me out and helping me sleep better at night.

Except when it doesn’t. If I’m already stressed, too depleted, it has the ability to wear me down even further, too far until I find I can’t catch my breath, my cortisol levels too elevated, and I struggle to sleep while my nervous system fluxuates between tired and alert, which is what happened to me the day before we flew out to Hawaii.

I had run myself too low, packing for both myself and Dougie alongside all the other prep/mental load that comes with preparing to leave on vacation when you are responsible for someone other than yourself. I also wasn’t aware that because my hormonal cycles are shifting, the number of days between periods getting shorter, that I was also experiencing the start of PMS as these hormonal fluctuations tend to sneak up, unsuspectingly. Be it either age or post partum, after having my son when my period finally returned I was caught off guard by the sudden severity of mood swings I began experiencing prior to my cycle each month. In the beginning it was depression : I was so sensitive, crying for absolutely no reason, questioning who I was and what I was doing with my life. It would come on suddenly and for no apparent reason, leaving a few days later as quickly as it came with the onset of my period. For the most part now it’s been replaced with anxiety; sometimes mild, sometimes severe.

And like blue dog isn’t always blue, sometimes my anxiety isn’t related to hormones. It can be anything that creates an instability in my life, my routine, my foundation. This might make it sound like I’m rigid, adverse to change which isn’t true. It will, however, make me cancel plans last minute if I’ve been feeling off and they occur late in the evening, possibly making it harder for me to sleep at night. (If I’ve ever done this to you, I’m sorry - it wasn’t you, it was me). Something like starting a new business, for example, can cause a constant, overwhelming and ever-present anxiety. The monetary investment, the mountain of unknowns. The only part that is grounding is knowing I’ll like my boss (me, ha). This anxiety won’t prevent me from moving forward with my goal, but it will encourage me to take more care around the edges.

I hate that I have anxiety and while I’m not ashamed of it, it doesn’t mean I like it. It makes me feel weak, like I can’t trust my mind or my body because they’re both betraying me. My mind telling me something is wrong, my body manifesting the fear and feeding it back to my mind. It’s an endless cycle. Running helps stop it. Except when it doesn’t.

When it’s really bad, softer movement is required. Preferably out of the house, in a studio with people and preferably pilates or yoga, something that focuses on breath alongside movement. A physical activity that can still be an outlet for my pent up energy but one that is easier on my body, that won’t wear me out any further, and will remind me to breathe with every movement. And if movement doesn’t help, something even softer yet : physical touch, a massage. (My love of a bougie spa was born from a need to calm my anxiety during a time in my life when it was incredibly high.)

do i look like i was having raging anxiety? me at around 4 mos pregnant w raging anxiety.

When I was four months pregnant, I experienced about six weeks of intense anxiety, triggered when Dougie began breathing on his own in utero, creating a surplus of CO2 in my body that triggered a constant feeling of ‘breathiness’ (I later learned at my 20 week check up this was normal).

I began to worry there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to Dougie because it felt like I didn’t have enough oxygen myself. This was also May 2021, when the world was still very much COVID-y and barely 6 months ago I had had COVID myself, experiencing shortness of breath as one of its symptoms. At the time it was terrifying to feel like I couldn’t breathe, to be unsure if/when to go to the emergency room and what that might even look like in the midst of a global pandemic. The very normal ‘breathiness’ of pregnancy brought back all the fears I had while sick with COVID, triggering my anxiety while the raging hormones of pregnancy spun it out of control. My anxiety quietly raged, until I found myself pacing the kitchen late one night in tears, convinced I needed to go to the ER because something was wrong with Dougie. My anxiety eventually left, one morning I simply woke up and it was gone, after I’d had my 20 week ultrasound and been reassured everything was ok, after I’d spent 10 days in Hawaii, relaxed and rested.

Looking back on my life with anxiety, I’m jealous of my younger years when I was oblivious to it. I’m not sure if it wasn’t as prominent or if I simply wasn’t as self aware as I am now but there’s a naivety to that time period I’m envious of. It could also be that my life carries more responsibility now than when I was in my early twenties. I have far more financial obligations, and I have far more identities to tend to : I am a mother, wife, entrepreneur and business owner.

This might feel a bit inconclusive, and if it does it’s because my relationship with anxiety is an ongoing one. I’ve come to accept now that it will always be present in some way, shape or form in my life. It’ll ebb and flow, worse before better, better before worse. Always reminding me to be present and aware, to pick up on subtle clues so I am not caught off guard when it spikes, don’t forget about it when it’s quiet. I am fortunate to have a fantastic therapist, acupuncturist and a list of bougie spas at my disposal, alongside a husband I can talk open and honestly with when things get challenging.

And running helps for the most part. Except when it doesn’t. But movement always does and so does remembering to breathe.

*k