Catholic & Anxious.

It was a life changing phone call.

I was in a random parking lot, on the phone with a friend, basically having a break down. The weird thing is, I couldn’t really figure out why I was having the break down. There had been a lot going on in my life that possibly could have contributed, but none of the pieces quite fit together. Then, my friend took a deep breath, and she said something I was terrified of hearing. “Tony, you need to see someone for help. I think you have an anxiety problem. You deserve more than feeling this way all the time.” I have to admit, I was horrified. I was embarrassed. Something was wrong with me, and I didn’t like it. I wasn’t okay, and that wasn’t okay with me. And yet, at the same time, when I heard her say those words, I felt like I could breathe. So, I accepted it and decided to take her up on her advice. I’ll have to admit—part of me was hoping that admitting it and accepting it would make it magically disappear, but things usually don’t work that way. To be frank, it kind of sucks

I have anxiety, and it sucks. It sucks, because I can’t really explain to you what it’s like.

Sometimes, it’s being completely exhausted at the end of the day, and looking forward to nothing more than climbing into your bed—one with freshly washed sheets and a memory foam topper—excited for a good night’s rest—then, finding yourself both utterly exhausted and utterly unable to fall asleep.

Sometimes, it’s getting in your eight hours of sleep—for several nights in a row—but no matter what you do, you are indescribably exhausted and physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually drained.

Sometimes, it’s being in the midst of a wonderful day, and then you remember something stupid you said on March 14, 1997 at 8:47pm, and you are convinced that not only does everyone remember it—but it has completely defined how they have treated you from that embarrassing moment on.

Sometimes, it’s hanging out with really close friends—friends that are more like family—and constantly having an argument with yourself—constantly feeling like you have to impress them—constantly feeling like you can’t simply accept that they love you, because how could someone else possibly love someone like you? Sometimes, it’s coming home after hanging out with them or hanging up the phone after a wonderful conversation, only to be followed by hours of wondering if they actually even like you, or if they just feel bad for you.

Sometimes, it’s sitting in your car in a random parking lot, or in a store bathroom (preferably one of those one-person bathrooms), or even in the corner of your room—crying. You don’t really know why, but there you are—tears streaming down your face and snot running out of your nose, and you feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest.

Sometimes, you feel like you’re literally going to die.
Sometimes, it’s waking up angry that you woke up—not that you wished you were dead or anything of the sort, but—you just weren’t ready to have to face another day quite yet.
Sometimes, it’s standing in the drug store talking to the pharmacist, praying that they don’t say the name of your prescription too loudly, because all too often when people find out you have this, they treat you differently—and you don’t want to be treated differently—you just want to be—you.

Sometimes, it’s questioning if God even exists—and if he does, how he could possibly love someone like you, or why he lets things such as this happen.

I have anxiety, and it sucks, because no one can really ever know what it’s like. It sucks because when you describe it, people often times don’t believe you, because I’ll be honest—a lot of what I wrote just above is completely illogical, but sometimes it’s how you feel, and feelings aren’t always logical and can have more control over us than we expect. I have a few friends who also suffer from anxiety, and although we both suffer from the same thing, we suffer from it in different ways. My experience is often times totally different from theirs. But, at the same time, we realize that no one really can know what it’s like, so instead of trying to fix each other, we just walk with each other. I have to admit, part of what is hard is when people try to help—because you genuinely appreciate their good intentions—but sometimes someone saying that they are there for you isn’t enough—sometimes you need someone to grab you and pull you out, and if they aren’t familiar with what all of this is like, then often times, they simply aren’t in a place to be able to do just that.

I have anxiety, and it sucks, because it’s trendy. It is as if the people of my generation are unable to function unless they have anxiety. Yes, statistically, we are the most anxious generation that there has ever been—probably stemming from a combination of having both everything handed to us and expected of us, meaning that pressure is put on us to be the absolute best at whatever we are doing—no exceptions. If that pressure doesn’t come from the outside, well, then, we will surely put it on ourselves. So, yes, we are an anxious generation—but, there is a distinction, an important one, from diagnosed anxiety, and trendy anxiety. Diagnosed anxiety can keep someone from being able to properly function—it can keep the from living their lives day to day. It doesn’t just come and go—it’s always there in some form or another. Yes, it’s finals week, and you’re stressed and anxious, but so is every other college student. Outside of that week, everything is fine? You most likely don’t have a diagnosable anxiety disorder, so please, stop saying that you do.

It seems that anxiety has become one of the latest things to be a central focus of the “list” articles—the ones we like to pretend are news—from the likes of companies like Buzzfeed. As I said, I don’t know about the experiences of others, but I don’t find a list of the “top twelve ways to overcome your anxiety,” that does little more than call me brave, tell me to take up yoga, drink organic fair trade tea and change my breathing habits to be all that helpful. I don’t find solace in sharing it on social media telling everyone how doing such things is going to transform my life, to be followed by a litany of comments calling me strong and brave—because, the reality is, I’m not all that strong and brave. I’m actually quite weak—I don’t want someone to tell me to breathe and that it’ll all be fine. I want—I need—someone to listen to me, take my hand, walk with me, and know that it’s okay if they don’t understand. They don’t have to fix me.

Okay, that might sound judgmental. If it is, I’m sorry—but like I said, I can only speak from experience, and it can be quite annoying when something you have been embarrassed of for so long and struggle with suddenly becomes as trendy as the latest multi-colored drink at Starbucks. If others find comfort in these things, then I am genuinely happy for them, but it doesn’t work for me, and it doesn’t work for my friends I know that have similar problems with anxiety. I don’t want to see this as something trendy, because trends fade, and when the trend of anxiety fades, I don’t want to be disappointed if my own problems don’t fade along with it.

To see some good in the fad of anxiety, though, I think it has encouraged some people to reach out for help—to realize that, at least on the surface, they aren’t alone. Anxiety is an extremely isolating thing to experience, and for many, including myself, shameful to admit. Hopefully, if any good can come out of the trendiness of anxiety, it will be that people feel like they can ask for help—that it is okay to admit that you aren’t okay.

I know that after my writing against the trendiness of anxiety and the presence of so many “articles” about it, writing on the topic myself may seem contradictory, conceited, or just plain pointless. Yet, my intent here isn’t to try and fix anyone or claim that I know more about this topic than anyone else, or even to draw attention to myself. My intent here is simply to share my experience and what I have learned through that experience. I’m getting to that

I have anxiety, and it sucks, because I’m Catholic.

To some, that might make sense. Well, Catholics are supposed to feel bad and guilty about themselves all the time, so yeah! (That’s not actually how Catholics are supposed to feel, by the way). To others, it might make no sense at all. What does being Catholic have to do with having anxiety? Well, keep reading, and you’ll find out.

Being an anxious Catholic sucks, because of the risk of feeling that God doesn’t love you. As Catholics, we believe that we have a special and intimate relationship with the Lord in receiving his very Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Every day when I go to Mass, I walk down the aisle of the chapel and look at the crucifix on the wall—at the most profound example of love that we will ever be able to see, and one that we certainly can’t completely wrap our minds around. Then, I receive him who loved me enough to die for me—him who hung upon the cross, completely able to save himself—him who could have stopped it all, but then my name came across his mind—my face was visible in his mind’s eye—and he kept going. I receive him in faith, and yet, my mind still rages in argument with itself—that in receiving love himself, I am receiving one who may not even love me. Once again, illogical—but, that’s how anxiety works.

Being an anxious Catholic sucks, because I risk over-spiritualizing my experiences. I risk either thinking of this all as some sort of punishment for my sins, or to the other extreme, the cross that I’ve been asked to carry, and so I need not seek help. The thing is, though, that if it is my cross to bear, which I believe it is, why would I not ask for help? Christ didn’t bear his cross alone, so why should we? (More on this to come.) I could also risk putting myself up on a spiritual pedestal, claiming that I’m simply in a dark night of the soul, and that someone should go ahead and start preparing the prayer cards for my canonization that will surely come from my dealing with such turmoil. I can over-spiritualize the medical reality of a mental disorder that I completely leave out the role that God can actively be playing in my life—through the knowledge he has bestowed on doctors and therapists, through the miracle of medicine, through getting over myself and praying that he will help me sort this out. I can get caught up in my own pride and forget my need to rely ever more fully on him and him alone—and that includes taking advantage of the gifts he’s given us to help work through such things.

So, yeah, being a Catholic and having anxiety can suck—but I’ve found that in working through this, I am indescribably thankful that I am Catholic.

I’m glad I’m Catholic, because I have anxiety.

Being Catholic changes everything about my life. Being Catholic defines who I am. This is a challenge in today’s culture—being Catholic means so much more than the ways in which we are free to worship on Sundays. Being Catholic means that everything about me—how I think, how I make decisions, how I speak to others, how I behave in public and in private—everything is and must be through the lens of my faith. It must be this way—if being Catholic was simply about appearing in public and worshipping once a week, and nothing at all about the rest of my life, my life outside of those church walls, was impacted by what I experienced, then what is the point of it all? The blood of the martyrs would have been spilled for no purpose and I am simply wasting my time if none of this means anything. People in other countries would not walk for hours to get to Mass if it means nothing—the Church would not have survived through wars, oppressive regimes, scandalous leadership, and the sins of men had what Christ did and continues to do means nothing.

If being Catholic defines who I am and how I approach things, then being Catholic must also define how I approach my anxiety. Being Catholic—being a child of God—must be how I first and foremost identify myself. The anxiety that can at times plague me does not define me, for what defines who I am is the love flowing from the pierced side of Christ through the instrument of a priest into the bread and wine transformed into his very presence, received by the faithful and reserved in tabernacles around the world, all so that we may never be alone—all so that we may experience the light of this profound love cast out the darkness of what plagues us—the darkness of anxiety that the evil one uses to convince us of the lie that we could not possibly be loved, that we could not possibly be worthy of such an intimate relationship with so mighty of a God. This love present with us—the same love we experience in the waters of baptism, in the words of absolution, in those tear-filled moments of reconciling and anointing those about to die—this love is the only thing worthy of our devotion and our defining of ourselves.

I am grateful that I am a Catholic, because in my anxiety I stand alongside others as an innocent person in hell, a hell which Christ, without hesitation, descends into for the sake of our salvation. I thank God I am a Catholic because we learn the redemptive value of suffering—we have the example of the Saints as our guide—men and women closest to God who at the same time experienced profound sorrows, anxieties, and depression, yet allowed nothing to come between them and their Creator. In my anxiety, I can connect with the sufferings in the sorrowful heart of Jesus, an encounter that can only give my suffering meaning and my life hope. I am confronted with the truth that in uniting my sufferings with those of Christ crucified, I can only grow closer to him, because he said that it was only in taking up our cross that we may truly follow him, and so in uniting my sufferings to his, I embark on a path of increasing in holiness—in embracing this part of God’s plan that I do not yet, and may never, fully understand, I set foot on a path toward my very salvation. I stand in a place to recognize that people are worse off than I am, and need my prayers—need the graces flowing from offering to Christ what troubles me. I stand in a place where the Lord gives me the opportunity to be his instrument to show others the beauty of a life with him, no matter what comes our way.

A couple of quotes come to my mind in regards to embracing this suffering:

“Suffering without Christ just hurts. Suffering with Christ can change the world.” –Fr. Mike Schmitz
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” –CS Lewis

Part of me feels that these can stand on their own, with no need of explanation.

And yet, God does not want us to constantly feel isolated, to constantly suffer. Part of embracing the cross of anxiety for the Catholic, then, is the hard work of going through the trial and working toward coming out on the other side. Part of this is being practical—it’s going to a counselor and being completely open—it’s going to a doctor to get medicine to help—it’s doing the seemingly silly things that your counselor asks you to do, like compliment yourself each time you take your medicine, or leave a sticky note somewhere you’ll see it with a positive message. It’s the work of changing how you talk to yourself about yourself and how you think others think about you. But, of course, there’s a spiritual side to it all. It’s going to God in prayer, sometimes just sitting in silence—sometimes, it’s asking him to help you know that you are loved by him—sometimes it’s telling him what completely and utterly sucks and just handing it over to him—sometimes it’s getting angry with him for making this part of your life. It’s talking about it with your spiritual director, to try and navigate how God is working through all of this, or coming to terms with the reality that you really don’t know how he is working and working to cultivate trust in his plan. It’s diving into the Mass—it is coming to the realization that if we believe that God can make the miracle of turning gross bread and cheap wine into his very self, then he can certainly do amazing things with our lives, no matter how broken we are or feel—and that through seemingly ordinary or not so good things, beautiful and amazing things can happen. It’s taking the chance to offer our sufferings at the sacrifice of the Mass—to bring our pains to the altar. It’s doing that ‘old Catholic thing’ of “offering it up,” of offering up the times when we can’t sleep, or when we feel like we can’t focus to do anything—offering up the tears, the work of the day that we feel like we simply cannot bear to get through.

For me, what has been most helpful is the cultivation of Christ-centered friendships. Since I’ve entered the seminary, I have had the blessing of cultivating friendships, both in and out of the seminary, that are centered and focused on Christ—on our mutual love of him and his love for us. These friends aren’t the ones to affirm everything I do—they’re the ones to call me out on my crap—to challenge me to be a better follower of Christ, each and every day. They show the importance of Christian community. Most importantly, though, they’re the ones that remind me that God loves me in the moments when I feel like there is no way he possibly could. They are the ones who cultivate such a relationship with him that when they come to me in my own sorrow, I can only see Christ, I can only feel his love of me through their love of me, because of their love for him. They are the ones who allow themselves to be his instrument. They’ve been the ones to drop everything to pray with me when I’ve needed it—or to drag an unwilling me to the foot of the Cross—to see the love before me and to leave my sorrows there. For me, it is the support of Christ-centered friendships, paired with everything else I’ve listed—prayer, counseling, spiritual direction, medicine, Mass—all of it—that helps me through to the other side.

I could probably write more—I could write more, because as I’ve been writing this, I’ve been realizing more and more just how in love I am with the Lord and my Catholic faith—and how in working through all of this what a difference my faith and relationship with the Lord have made in overcoming my struggles—what a blessing! And yet, part of me feels like I shouldn’t write more, partially because this is already quite long, and partially because I should probably be like the Blessed Mother, and “ponder in my heart” what remains of my thoughts.

To end though, I’d like to share something I wrote. It’s a poem, but for me, really, it is a prayer. It is quite personal, but I think it can give a perspective, maybe even greater than any of the words I’ve written above, of what it really is like to struggle with this, and what a difference a life of faith, and friends who share that love of the faith, can make. I am never quite confident in what I write, so it’s quality may not be anything grand or worthy of applause, but that’s not what I seek—rather, I seek to share what was on my heart in a moment of profound struggle with my anxiety, a time of panic, a time where my thoughts weren’t clear and I didn’t know how to get through, and how the love of Christ, through a friend, made all the difference. So, here it goes:

----

He’s back—that guy, over there—my friend dressed in black.
Well, he’s not really a friend,
but, he’s around as much…more…than one would be.
Yet, unlike a friend, he doesn’t bring me joy, only distress and
anxiety.

I hate it when he comes.

He comes and traps me.
He shoves me in a room and slams the door.
The darkness of the room is as black as the hole where his heart should rest,
and as terrifying as the feeling that my own will burst out of my chest.

Why is he here?

Not only does he shove me in the room and slam the door,
but he burdens me with the chore of trying to break out of his chains.
The chains?

They’re heavy, and they’re made of lies.

Lies like:

“No one loves you”
“You are a failure”
“You are a disappointment”
“Your friends hate you”

“Remember that stupid thing you said? Well, how about that embarrassing thing you did? Well, now you do—and guess what? So does everyone else.”

Even if it’s not reality—nothing more than an alleged abnormality,
he controls my brain with the chains made of lies—
with the guise of a mask covering my eyes.

I can’t tell what’s real.
It’s like sitting in Plato’s cave and hearing over and over again
what my high school teacher said:
“Perception is reality.”
The chains are reality.
His lies are my reality.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough torture,
he pulls out a weapon of more distortion.
He takes my breath away,
he brings tears with no explanation to my eyes,
and he makes me feel as if I’m about to die—
and even if I tell myself that I’ll be fine,
he says it’s a lie, that I’m going to die and that no one will help because no one can!

I panic.
Sometimes it’s a couple of minutes.
Sometimes it’s hours.
Sometimes I’m alone.
Sometimes I’m not—but I still feel so—
Have you ever felt completely alone in a crowd that’s looking at you
like some kind of freak show?
And even if they’re not—he leans in to whisper in your ear, “They are.”

Then, he puts locks on the chains.
The locks? People who don’t get it,
people who flippantly say “it’ll all be fine!”
and refuse to understand why that doesn’t fix my decline.
They don’t get that they can’t know what it’s like
to fight for a good day and then have the spike
of the lies that he tells me pierce my heart,
and a lot of times, they never wanted to understand form the start.

Then, he throws out the key.
He gives the key to people who say I’m not fit,
that because of him—my friend dressed in black—I can’t possibly be worthy—
that because of this—I’m nothing but a bother that doesn’t need to be understood
or even deserves mercy.

Then, he puts people on the other side of the door—
and they say the clichés that are supposed to make me feel cared for.
“I’m here for you”
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do”
“It’ll get better—you’ll get through this”
as if it were only those words that could bring my soul bliss!
But, it’s not that easy, you see,
because my mouth is covered with the duct tape of my dark friend—anxiety.
He brings the depression that causes the suppression of my desire to call for help,
because if I do, he screams more lies,
“STOP BOTHERING THEM! They have better things to do!”

And they stay there, on the other side of the locked door—
That is, until they get tired of knocking—
Not realizing that…I can’t even answer.

But no matter the lies he tells me,
there’s a truth that I will always believe—
that two thousand years ago, a man was nailed to a tree,
that he allowed himself to die that I might be set free,
That when he was tempted to spare his own life,
I crossed his mind—and he kept going.

There’s a truth that captures my thoughts,
that when he said “I Thirst,” it was for my soul that was despairing and lost.
That he thought of me, trapped in the chains and in the room while he hung on that cross.

On the Cross, he gave the world his mother,
but he gave me a brother—a friend, a messenger, his instrument.
He sends his messenger from the cross to my door,
bearing the message that life can’t be just this, because Christ desires so much more.

His messenger isn’t one to stand there idle and text me some quote from the Bible,
because that’s not what Christ himself would do.
He comes to the door to find it locked,
He backs up so that he can run, and instead of a simple knock,
he runs to the door with all of his might and he breaks the door down.
And with a torch in his hand he begins to drown
my friend dressed in black out of the room.
He takes off the mask so scales fall from my eyes,
he breaks the locks and removes the chains,
so that I can escape the pain and find the truth.

But he doesn’t stop there, because that’s not what Christ would do.
He grabs me by the hand and pulls me out of the room,
And with the torch of Christ’s love as our guide, his very presence by our side,
we walk the journey—we walk through the parts that are murky and the moments that are blurry.
We journey to the Cross, so that we may satisfy a God who is thirsting,
not for a sip of water or wine,
but for a soul that’s lost and scared—a soul that’s—mine.

His messenger brings me to Christ on the Cross,
the place where I can never be lost.
The eyes of Christ lock with mine,
and he fills my soul with a love that fulfills the fourth cup of wine.
He looks to His messenger with a nod that says “well done,”
then lifts his head one last time,
takes one last breath,
and uses it to cry out to the Father
“IT IS FINISHED”
because he knows that, at least for me, he has won.

Saint Dymphna, pray for us.
In all things, may God be glorified. Amen.