You Are Not Your Anxiety

Just a few months ago, I was convinced I had some mysterious medical condition. That was as much as I could tell you really. In my hours of extensive research on WebMD and consulting expert advice on Google, I was left with no clear answer as to what I was suffering from. 

Maybe it was because no search engine could understand the words I was using to articulate what I was feeling. Sometimes, I forget that I can’t just type in, “Why does my nose get red, hot, and tingly but also feel kind of numb at random times?” or “Why is half of my hand cold and white but at the same time my ears are burning hot and visibly red?” and expect to get a diagnosis. 

It wasn’t like I thought I was dying or anything. I try not to be too dramatic. It was more that I was annoyed with not knowing what was going on in my own body. As I tried to pin down the cause, I kept a notes page on my phone to track what was happening, when it was happening, and where I was when it started. Unfortunately, this gave me nothing to go off of.

I could just be sitting on the couch scrolling through my phone when suddenly, my nose would tingle, and the mirror would reveal that it had become bright red. Sometimes, it took a few minutes to feel relief; other times, it took hours for my nose to return to normal. Then, there were moments when I would be hanging out with friends, and I would catch myself relieving the fiery feeling in my ears by holding them with the fingers that had gone ice cold. These moments of strange bodily responses were so random there was no finding a rhyme or reason. 

Thankfully, my parents are certified on-call doctors (not actually, but so far in my life, they have accurately diagnosed 99% of my health concerns, which would later be confirmed by my doctor). So, I consulted them about my issue and started by describing my symptoms. “Maybe it’s Raynaud’s,” they suggested, sending me links to articles that reflected many of the symptoms I was experiencing. We did some more digging, and sure, it seemed that some of my symptoms were indications of the common condition, but I wasn’t fully convinced.

“Do you think maybe it is anxiety or stress?” they asked me, seeing as one of the triggers for Primary Raynaud’s (a very mild form of the condition) was, in fact, anxiety or stress. “No, I don’t think so… it must be something else,” I replied, explaining that the symptoms did not exclusively occur when I was anxious or stressed. Unsatisfied with the proposed diagnosis, I decided the best course of action for addressing my issue was ignorance, and since my symptoms were not concerning enough to see the doctor, there was no need for me to confirm the results this time.

The thing about parents is that they often play many roles in our lives. So, while they sometimes played the role of on-call doctors, my parents graciously lent their open ears to me for the last 20 years, serving as unpaid therapists, too. They truly knew everything about me, which meant they knew I had a history of spiraling down a never-ending list of anxious thoughts because, lucky for them, they got to hear at least 70% of the list, so their hypothesis wasn’t totally out of left field.

I can acknowledge that I had a tendency to be more anxious than most, but at this season in my life, I thought I was finally learning how to handle my thoughts and stress better. I was feeling the best I had felt in a long time, so it was hard for me to understand how anxiety could be the mysterious condition I had been searching for. 

I felt defeated. 

For so much of my life, I let anxiety, worry, stress, and fear consume me and eventually define me. The lack of control I felt over my thoughts led me to accept the idea that “I am just an anxious person.” In my mind, there was nothing I could do to be less anxious, it was just a flaw in my personality because no matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t seem to overcome the feeling. 

But life was different now. Everything was going good. My classes were great, I found balance at work, and my relationships were thriving. I was feeling the best I had felt in a long time. 

The thing is, anxiety does not care whether you are feeling on top of the world or at your lowest. It will knock on your door and walk right on in when you least expect it. If your guard is down, the door is open.

Philippians 4:6-7 reads, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Identifying with anxiety and saying it’s just who I am was an excuse I used to avoid having to take responsibility for dealing with what I was feeling. If anxiety was who I am, then I would have something to blame each time I let it consume me. But these are just more excuses because the truth is I didn’t want to be the one to blame. 

I wanted to remain ignorant of the all-consuming guilt and shame I felt each time I fell victim to anxiety because I didn’t want to face the lies of the enemy that manifested in my thoughts each time I let my guard down.

I felt guilty because I let the enemy use anxiety to convince me that my God, who promises to hear my every cry, would not be listening this time. To use worry to convince me that my God, who promises peace, wasn’t enough to guard my heart and mind this time. To use doubt to convince me that my God, who sent his only son to die for my sins, would not redeem me from my brokenness this time. 

I felt shame for letting anxiety push me so far from God that instead of crying out to him in my hurting, I let the voices of the enemy put me to sleep. The voices that told me my anxiety was proof that God couldn’t help me. The voices that told me it had been one time too many that I let anxiety rule over my heart and mind, so there was no way God would want me this time.

I felt guilt and shame because I let anxiety convince me that the God of the Bible wasn’t the same God who walking with me. So, instead of running to him when I needed to most, I let my guard down and ran away from the only one who could save me from the lies I was drowning in.

Proverbs 3:21-26 says this, “My son, do not lose sight of these— keep sound wisdom and discretion, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. Then you will walk on your way securely, and your foot will not stumble. If you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror or of the ruin of the wicked when it comes, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.”

It is when we lose sight of God that the enemy uses anxiety to fill our hearts and minds with lies about who God is. But the God of the Bible, who is the same today as he was then, is not a God who fills those who follow him with fear and anxiety. He is a God who promises that if you walk with him, you will walk in his safety and confidence, and he will bring you rest. 

Our anxiety consumes us when we believe in the lie that we are what we feel. God never says that we should live according to our feelings. Quite the opposite, he warns that if we live a life led by what we feel instead of setting our path on the truth that is in his word, then there is no doubt that we will suffer at the hands of the enemy who uses our feelings as tools of manipulation. 

While it can feel like we are too deep in our anxiety for God to make a way, please know that he is the redeemer of all things, and he is calling you out of your hurting and into a life of truth and light in him. Answer his call. I promise he hears your cry and wants to bring you peace so you may be steady on your feet as you walk on the path God has set before you because he is the only way out of your brokenness, and he calling you now. He is calling you to drop every anxiety, every lie, and every doubt and surrender it all to him so he can set you free. It is time to go all in.