Reaching the Opposite of Anxiety
The first time I had an anxiety attack, I was 19.
Through high school and my first year of college, I worked at a summer camp in the mountains of Idaho. Before working there, I spent eight summers attending as a camper. Being a part of that camp, at the time, was deeply attached to my identity.
During my second year in college, I received a phone call from the camp’s director. He told me they didn’t have a place for me and wouldn’t be hiring me back for my fifth summer. They had told me something completely different in person the week before. I was furious.
I didn’t realize at the time that I was having an anxiety attack — I just remember feeling livid and tight. Too angry to think properly, I laid down and had trouble breathing. It was the first time in my life that I had an expectation for the future and it didn’t go as planned.
Which, for me, is the root of my anxiety. I’m a planner. I plan. The planning doesn’t cause my anxiety, just my expectations.
I attributed the tightness to my anger, but in hindsight, it was something more. Laying in bed, I let my anger go, but the tightness remained. I couldn’t sleep. I had to do something, anything to make it go away.
So I planned a 7,000-mile road trip to take that summer. I never planned on following through — I just wanted the plan to exist. I wanted to do something to make myself feel better.
That’s the first time I remember self-medicating my anxiety.
My vices, whatever they may be at the time, all serve my anxiety.
That’s a terrifying realization to make, and only one I’ve made within the last few weeks. All the things I do for fun and enjoyment can slip very easily into becoming a balm for my anxiety. Even that doesn’t ring true.
I serve my anxiety; I just use my vices as the means to the end.
A good friend of mine told me many months ago, during an extended bout of anxiousness, “Anxiety is the opposite of mindfulness.” What we’ve gone on to talk about regularly since then is that anxiety doesn’t come from an external source. It’s within me. It’s my decision. I’ve never actually dealt with my anxiety; I’ve only pushed it back down.
I’ve hidden it. Drank it. Fucked it. Smoked it. But I never let myself feel it.
While I’ve only had three full anxiety attacks, I’ve lived with an underlying current of anxiety for almost the past decade. I don’t have an anxiety disorder. At least, that’s what two medical professionals have told me over the years and I believe them. I’m just anxious. I’m scared of being vulnerable with myself, my feelings, and other people.
It was held at bay through high school by learning to cook — so well that I didn’t realize I was anxious until recently. My best friend at the time and I would make elaborate dinners and eat until we burst. We don’t speak now, but I still use cooking as a coping mechanism.
When I lost my summer job and my anxiety bubbled to the surface for the first time, planning that road trip was the first thing I did. I ended up taking that trip, and it lasted 10,004 miles. I left my anxiety somewhere on the road in Utah and didn’t look back for three months.
After that, I medicated with cigars. A friend I met on my road trip introduced me to cigars. He told me an anecdote that I took to heart. “Every problem can be solved over the course of a good cigar. If you fuck it up and can’t solve it over the first, just have another.”
Then came alcohol. That was short-lived, with one binge weekend. I decided I’d rather be anxious than an alcoholic, so I controlled my drinking instead of my anxiety.
In the months that followed, I eventually found something to hold it down while still using alcohol — learning to craft cocktails. My anxiety didn’t leave me then, but it became more manageable. Shortly after that, I moved to Portland, and my anxiety stayed on the beach where I left it.
For a while, at least. But, as always, it came back.
The second time I had a full-blown anxiety attack, I was working support at Big Cartel. The weekend shift was especially brutal for me one week, and I fell behind. Instead of asking for help and tackling the problem as a team, I tried handling it on my own and failed miserably.
A week or two later, it compounded until I was laying on the floor of my apartment in Portland, breathing through my nose in an attempt to calm myself down. I called my boss and mentor as soon as I could sit up. I could feel the heightened, anxious energy bouncing through me — it felt like it was going to explode out my eyes and my fingertips, taking everything that makes me me with it.
I asked him if he knew of any meditation techniques for anxiety since I knew he actively practiced. “Not for during the attack. Meditation is for helping to prevent them, not stop them.” He sent me a few links and we talked until my nerves boiled down to normal.
Eventually I worked through that spell with the team. I still remember the group call we had where I told them, “I’m dealing with terrible anxiety and it’s a real motherfucker.” While I parted ways with Big Cartel later that year, I remember that moment fondly.
It was the first time I talked about my anxiety with people; the first time I was vulnerable about my anxiety.
This last year was especially hard for my friends, family, and myself. I didn’t notice at the time, but I was keeping down the anxiousness with my 365-day project. It worked wonderfully — not because I was self-medicating with photography, but because I was taking time daily to walk, relax, think, and do something for myself.
I took time to be aware, to be in the moment, to process.
On January 1st, I shifted away from daily photography, and back came the rush of anxiety. I realized it quickly and worked on fixing it. My answer was casual marijuana use and an active practice of mindfulness meditations. I did a 10-minute meditation every day and a 30-minute meditation weekly.
The worst part about my being anxious, besides not being available to the better parts of life, is that I double-down on ego. I fall into the trap every time.
Since talking about it with people helped once, I figure I’ll just discuss it with myself. I’ll work it out, and then I’ll be fine. I can do this on my own. It’s depressing that I know that’s false, but I believe it anyway. It’s easier to struggle alone than be vulnerable with people. Being vulnerable is terrifying.
I’m not original in my use of ego — I know the answers so I don’t have to be anxious — but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. Pretending to have the answers has stopped me multiple times from actively talking about it. If I talk about my anxiety, I’m admitting I don’t have the answers, and vulnerability, not unlike anxiety, is a real motherfucker.
The opposite of anxiety isn’t not being anxious. It’s understanding my feelings and allowing them to be just that — feelings. Anxiety is not a rational fear. It’s a manufactured possibility because I let it be one. Being afraid of vulnerability isn’t a rational fear either.
That doesn’t make it any less scary.
Earlier this year, my self-medication stopped working. The scales tipped from daily meditation to occasional meditation and from occasional marijuana to daily marijuana. I still haven’t been able to figure out what caused the shift or the anxiety — but a month after the switch, I had my third anxiety attack.
I’m getting married in eight days, and the weeks leading up to it have been stressful. By the time my anxiety builds to a level that can cause an anxiety attack, it’s actually been around for a long time. I’ve just been hiding behind whatever vice or hobby I’m enjoying at the time. Two weeks ago, I felt it.
I started to have an anxiety attack, but instead I went on a hike.
I took time to be aware, to be in the moment, to process. I sat by a waterfall and let myself feel every feeling. I let it arise and let it pass. I saw it as its own contained thought — my consciousness stared at it while it floated up and down. I was vulnerable with myself.
Once it was gone, I made photographs. I slept in the sun. I wrote about the experience.
Then I sent it to a printer.
Now I’m being vulnerable with you. I created Available in Response, my latest photo zine, to have an honest conversation with myself about my anxiety. This essay and the zine are the byproduct of that honesty.
