Anxiety
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How I Wrestle Confused, Anxious, and Irrational Thoughts
Every day I face challenges with distorted thinking as a woman with schizoaffective disorder. For about fifteen years I was helpless, a victim of delusions and paranoia with no way to think rationally. I was committed to psychiatric wards again and again because even though I was prescribed Zyprexa, I took almost none. Why not? Because well-meaning Christians insisted that I did not have a mental illness, that it was just spiritual oppression and I just needed deliverance. Gullibly I decided if I was not really mentally ill, I didn’t need my medication; I only needed to trust in God and He would deliver my mind. My mind always returned…
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Conquering Anxiety Over Feeling Incompetent
Failed work attempts…trying and failing again and again; how am I going to go about conquering anxiety over feeling incompetent? What did I do when I failed to do well in my work assignments? I quit, gave up, and decided it wasn’t meant to be. The pain of failing has left me in a state of depression. I figured, why try? Growing up, my verbally abusive mother belittled me and criticized me for every fault. She reinforced the message that I was an incompetent failure. I stayed stuck for twenty-two years after high school, unable to make progress, working dead-end menial jobs and enduring abuse from impatient managers who also…
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Struggling Through the Stress of Social Anxiety
It never fails. Every time I am invited to a social gathering, the stress of social anxiety works overtime. I worry about what I’m going to say when people actually talk to me. Can I just duck in the kitchen and hide, pretending I am really hungry? I try to sneak into church without being noticed, but inadvertently some people see me and call me over to catch up with each other. After church ends, I am one of the first ones who rush out the door and make a beeline for the exit, hoping to avoid the afternoon social small talk that is so common with the church members.…
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How I Trust God When Anxiety Attacks
You know the feeling…your heart speeds up, your pulse quickens, and you start breathing faster and faster. You start to panic. What if ______happens? You know you should trust God when anxiety attacks, but a spirit has whispered threats into your mind. As the panic gets worse, you imagine all kinds of terrifying scenarios. I have heard these kinds of threats all my life. When I was about eight years old, my dad became lost, and terror gripped my heart. Next, the fight-or-flight response took over. I did not have faith in my dad to get us safely back home. Later, when we did arrive home (this was before GPS…