If you take a straw and bend it carefully, you can make it curve gently. If you bend it too hard, then the straw will crimp and bend sharply in one spot. After the straw has acquired a crimp, you can no longer achieve that gentle curve, because the straw responds to the stress by bending sharply in the one spot rather than gently over the whole length of the straw. Minds and bodies are like straws in this respect. They develop learned responses to stress. Sometimes we can turn this to our advantage as when we use exercise to teach our muscles to be stronger. A muscle that has once been strong is easier to make strong again. If a writer teaches herself to write every day, but then falls out of the habit. That habit will be easier to pick up again than it was to make new. Unfortunately these learned responses are just as often to our detriment. We turn to comfort foods that are not good for us. We find that the injured knee is never quite as strong as it was before.
Early in September of 2007 I crimped myself. There was one day in which we learned that the guy who had been doing layout for the Schlock books was not going to do any more. We also learned that a large chunk of investment money was never going to come back to us. That represented a loss of income as well as the investment capital itself. Those were the final pieces, but also part of the stress load were:
Being invited to participate in a writer’s group full of very professional writers. (A happy thing, but still stressful)
The Blank Label Comics split (It was amicable, but still required careful handling)
The low balances in all our bank accounts
The last finishing touches on Tub of Happiness
Impending book shipping
Looking forward and seeing that 2008 was already packed to the gills with convention appearances
Wanting desperately to have more publication credits before some of the convention appearances
The, still incomplete, Hold on to Your Horses project
Picking up a roleplaying game for the first time in a decade (fun, but still energy gobbling)
Conflict with a very good friend who was also under a huge stress load
The kids were starting school again and all of them were in transition grades
Teaching a once-per-week creative writing class for 4-6 graders. (This project took more of my time the longer it continued)
Being a cub scout den leader once per week (and being told that I couldn’t bring the young ones, they were too disruptive.)
And all the normal family and household maintenance tasks that are never ending.
At first I thought I was sick. I was shaky and cold. My heart raced and thumped in my chest. It was like being afraid, but it made no sense for me to be afraid while sitting at my computer doing accounting. My concentration was shot and I could barely keep track of what I was doing. Every small challenge was magnified and I imagined how they could end up with the direst possible consequences. I had to get up and walk away from the accounting. A nap and some reading restored normality, but it all came crashing back the minute I sat back down to do the accounting. And accounting wasn’t the only time. I feeling this way multiple times per day in all sorts of situations.
In hindsight I can see that I was suffering stress-induced panic attacks. I just didn’t recognize them as such because to me “panic attack” mean curling into a ball completely unable to function. I could function, it was just really hard. Everything took longer either because I was working despite the fog of an anxiety state or because I was trying to stay mellow to avoid triggering an anxiety state. Being terrified that something was physically wrong with my heart and adrenal system did not help. Neither did being terrified that I would be physically incapable of accomplishing the hundreds of tasks necessary to keep the family and business running.
The worst of it ended when we opened pre-orders for Tub of Happiness at the end of September. Once again we had money to pay our bills. Several other stresses ended in October which reduced the anxiety states even further to only 1 or 2 per week. I learned what steps to take to soothe the anxiety away. I also learned how to sense one coming and preempt it. Over the next few months we simplified our lives and the attacks became increasingly less common and less severe. Until one day I realized that it had been months since I’d had one.
It has been almost a year since I’ve had an attack as severe as those I experienced last Fall and Winter. The effects linger though. When I am under stress, I start to feel shaky, cold, and my heart rate increases. The good news is that I’ve adapted. I know how to recognize the signs and take a break from the stressors. The other good news is that most of the things that were piled on me last Fall are now gone. I’m more careful about what I commit to doing. Knowing my own limits is a good thing. It is also a good thing to realize that I can keep going even when doing something that makes me anxious. Twice I’ve had to walk away from this entry. Once I nearly deleted it. But I’m going to post this anyway because having anxiety is something everyone deals with. I will only be an anxious person if I allow my anxiety to dictate my actions.