Wildfire

While I’m aware I’ve chosen a title that has a real and heavy meaning in the wake of the wildfires in Kelowna this past summer. People I love, and people they love, touched directly or indirectly by the devastating fires. I won’t pretend to know what that was like. My sister, an eloquent writer herself, can write that story. Despite what the word might bring up for some, it is the word I will use here to describe something with shared qualities.

Today Marisol asked me what I was working on. I told her, an article. She asked what I meant by article so I explained, “like I used to write for my blog, What Connects Us”. Her response stunned me. “You had a blog? First I hear of this!” I had to look at the date to of when I last published to realize she would have been about 5 years old when I shared my writing on What Connects Us. I cannot believe I have not published an article in over 6 years. Those 20 or so blog posts, read and re-read by friends, family and complete strangers. A fully formed book outline complete with back cover and table of contents, and big dreams of publishing one day all faded into the background of my life as my career shifted, losses were grieved, and life picked up. Storytelling and working through through my writing used to be a big part of who I was, and how I healed the things that hurt. Writing was how I connected with myself and with others. The longest thing I have written in these last 6 years was my mother’s eulogy…. This makes me so sad. It makes me sad that my youngest daughter doesn’t know me as a writer, and that I have all but stopped doing something that mattered so much. Out of practice and feeling a little all over the place. Here I am writing again. Bare with me, and thanks for reading.

I am often told how calm I seem, or that I have a calming effect on others. This feedback repeated since childhood. These qualities, the foundation of a career that has spanned 2 decades. The truth is though, those who calm are rarely calm inside. Ask any mental health professional. We do what we do because we know, that for some, calm takes work. People closest to me might describe me as patient, loving, or slow to anger. But those same people know that when I feel, I often feel all the way, which is not always easy for them or for me. Would they describe me as calm or relaxed? I don’t think so. Anxious? Yes, sometimes. People who experience anxiety are quite good at masking it, but the very close to me see it in my rigidity. Feel it in my buzzing around, in my overdoing or overthinking. And while my people might understand that I get anxious from time to time, they still may not get what it really feels like. So here it is. What does my anxiety feel like? It feels like a wildfire…. Burning out of control, caused by intersecting environmental factors, starting from one small fire that spreads, or from a single ember of worry swept up by the wind igniting a blaze… When my anxiety is bad, it feels scary, and difficult to tame. It rips me away from my steady self and sweeps anxious me into the fire. Once there I feel the need to rescue, fixate and control. One worry leads to another worry, and then pulls in any, and all worries, past present and future. They don’t even need to belong to me. I will worry about your worries like they are my own. Whether you want me to or not. Anxiety does not discriminate. It is not linear or logical. It feeds off itself, and cares little about real or perceived threat. It doesn’t matter if I should be worried about x or y. It’s not rooted in fact or backed by evidence. When the wildfire comes, I feel trapped, alone, and afraid. A fear that feels so real, making my heart beat hard, my breath shallow and my chest constrict. Fear that pushes my « must protect button » even when there is nothing to protect from. Thankfully my anxiety is not always this intense. It takes breaks, can be well managed, and even goes completely away once in a while. It also doesn’t live in every area of my life. Thankfully. Despite choosing a career in helping, professionally I rarely feel anxious. In fact, at work, others worry does not impact me or activate me like it does in my personal life. I seem to know what to do with the fear and worry of others as a clinician. How to hold it. How to be present and calm no matter the wildfire the person is caught up in. In fact I can firefight with confidence, seeing the familiar and having a lived sense of what might be helpful. Personally, my anxiety can sometimes even feel like a weird superpower, enabling me to see risk that others don’t see. I tell myself it allows the people around me to worry less because they know I will always worry more. But I know this isn’t true. Anxiety lies. The good news is the fire isn’t always burning, and I don’t always believe what my anxiety tells me. Sometimes I really am ok and there is no wildfire. I share my vulnerability here not to worry anyone who cares about me. I share now to help you understand what feels so hard to explain most of the time. A worrier does not need your worry. Something I know well but completely disavow when it comes to worrying about my loved ones who worry. It’s like I can’t bare for them to be in their own wildfire alone. Anxiety makes smart people do stupid things. It makes us feel disorganized and irrational when we are often very rational and thoughtful. Having anxiety doesn’t make me weak. I have had to be stronger because of it. As most people with anxiety can attest, you become very accustomed to feeling this way, you learn to compensate, and manage, as it becomes ingrained in your operating system. Thankfully I have learned what helps. If I exercise it helps. If I avoid alcohol it helps. If I eat well and skip late night snacking it helps. If I loosen my grip on things it helps. If I live in the now it helps. If I ask for help it helps. If I have good boundaries and respect the boundaries of others it helps. If I write it helps. This same list though, when not done consistently, or at all, are anxiety fire-starters. The kindling that turns a spark into flame. Every single day I can choose to help or hurt myself. Every day I decide to either do what makes me feel better or feel worse. I either douse the flames with fire squelching habits, or set myself on fire. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s all my fault or all my doing. Situational stressors, life events, and things that are beyond my control affect mood and anxiety. I didn’t choose to lose my mom to cancer. I didn’t choose to live without the person whose love extinguished every blaze. But this is not about her, or my grief. I felt anxiety long before any of that. I felt it as a child. I felt it before I had the words to explain it, or even knew what « it » was. It is part of me that can feel like all of me. Part I have control over despite how all consuming, and out of control it can feel. I can always help myself feel better. I am so grateful that I know this. I can practice gratitude daily, learning that fear and gratitude cannot co-exist. It allows a sort of taking turns, and a welcomed reprieve from worry. I don’t have to believe the stories fear concocts. I can change my thought and decide where I put my attention. I can take care of myself, helping put out the smaller flames before they turn everything to ash. Sometimes what I do hurts more than helps. I can pour myself into work, cycle between overdoing and avoiding, I can micromanage, and worry about things that are not mine to worry about. At times I can feel so pulled to help and fix… even when helping or fixing is not needed. In fact, sometimes my helping or fixing is the problem. Like trying to choke down the lump in my throat when I feel like crying, or trying to ignore my grief in the hopes that I won’t feel it. Anxiety only loses its power when I face it and then do something helpful about it. Otherwise, it is there scorching the earth beneath my feet. The very worse impact of anxiety is seeing how it can infect a home and a family. When worry is how I love it robs my loved ones of the confidence that they can help themselves. It threatens their sense of safety. It makes them think I don’t trust them when it’s about me not trusting myself enough to let go. When helping is how I love I can feel powerless when I can’t make things better, and crushed when my helping makes things worse. I don’t need to help or worry to love or be loved. I wrote this today for the same reason I wrote 6 years ago: To help myself through, to heal the hurt, and to connect with others. I wrote this today as an apology to those I have loved through worry, and whose worry has been magnified by my own. I wrote this so they know my anxiety has nothing to do with them or my belief in their capacity. Anxiety is just one part of me. It is not all of me or who I am. I am so much more than anything this fire can touch, and so are you.