The Great Undertaking of 2017

2016 was my Year of the Great Emotional Purge.

I spent 13 months facing old relationship baggage: digging into the mess of dirty laundry inside to figure out why I had packed it so full in the first place; tracing the roots within myself that led me to choosing the wrong people, over and over again; acknowledging my patterns as what they are so that I can let them go. In the process, I remembered boys I had forgotten, made peace with the girls who made my preteen years hell (which turned out to be more about accepting my preteen self), and faced one truly awful truth about my first adult relationship that's still processing four months later.

I did a darn fine job purging it all. It was a hard, grueling year emotionally, and it was absolutely worth it. 

Here in the third (how did that happen?!) month of 2017, I've realized something. 2017 is going to be my Year of Addressing All the Health Issues I've Been Too Poor/Poorly Insured to Deal With Before.

Almost 1 in 5 people in America suffers from an anxiety disorder, but only 10% of them receive adequate treatment. Many of us refuse to believe our symptoms are that bad. Often, we go to significant lengths to hide them. I've spent over two decades learning to control the outward expression of my anxiety, to the extent that I can now have a moderate panic attack detectable only by heart monitors. I've been called cold, distant, and stuck up, even by people who've known me a long time, because of behavior that's really just me, trying to keep a handle on my anxiety. 

But last summer, in the midst of grieving an old friend and making peace with one of my big fears, I decided I was done hiding. Done pretending. Done keeping secrets. Secrets drive anxiety like a big rig at a monster truck rally. They don't care what relationships get in the way or what good things in life they roll over for their own protection; they just plow straight on ahead. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a small sense of satisfaction in keeping them. There has to be, otherwise why do it? But I've discovered in twenty-plus years of putting secrets in the driver's seat that they really just eat us alive.

So, even though it goes against so many years of my own experience and self-training (and even though it scares the living stuffing out of me), I'm going to share my experiences as I seek the healthy version of me. Doctor visits, panic attacks, thought patterns--it won't be pretty. It may come across as whiny and self-indulgent (since culturally, we are taught that talking about health and especially mental health is a mild taboo). It'll probably be dreadfully obnoxious to people who don't want to hear about it. And that's totally cool. I'm not sharing it for those people.

I'm sharing it for people like me, who spend so much time hiding their anxiety (or other health condition), they forget they're allowed to have all the other feelings outside of it. Who have sacrificed big chunks of their lives to keep their problems a secret. Who answer postpartum depression questionnaires with false answers to avoid detection, even though they know they're hurting themselves. People who've lived with it for so long that any other kind of life seems impossible and terrifying.

I'm also sharing my experiences just in case someone needs to know they're not alone in their health and healthcare frustrations. Because some people have quick and easy diagnoses, and I've heard from many of them how much better life is afterward. But I've also heard from just as many people who, like me, have suffered from symptoms that defy diagnosis. The despair that arrives at the end of doctor visits is real. So is the depression. I'm at the beginning of my fight to find underlying causes, and that's a good time to start recording.

But largely, I'm doing it because it's self-supportive. Because it forces me to be brave and strong when I feel at my weakest and most broken. Because allowing myself to share (in writing, my most comfortable form) is an act of love and self-acceptance.

With my arms overflowing with specialist referrals and the sun shining in my window, today I assert that I will do better. For me. Because I can, and because I deserve to live a real, full life. We all do.