Over a year ago as I traveled up I-65 from Nashville to Indianapolis, the spring weather worsened and my white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel grew tighter. As water pooled on the edges of the highway, I passed cars that had hydroplaned beyond the shoulder of the road. I drove through Louisville with hazard lights on while semi-trucks sprayed sideways sheets of water on top of my 16-year-old Highlander, making it nearly impossible to see. I called my mom, sobbing hysterically.
At the risk of sounding dramatic, for about 200 miles I was terrified that I wasn’t going to make it home. I was pleading with whoever might’ve been running the show up above.
Ever since that trek, I’ve had a hard time braving the driver’s seat any time it rains. At the same time, other anxious tendencies—not just limited to downpours—started to resurface. And since a therapist I reached out to had a four-month waiting list, I decided to try to explore this paralyzing fear on my own.
Worry has been a companion since I was young. As soon as I realized that adults couldn’t always be infallible protectors against all evils, I started to personalize scary events I saw on the news and double check the locks before bedtime. I began to worry less as I grew older, as faith became a protective, weighted blanket; however, moving away from family and into the unknown of young adulthood paved the way for uninvited fear to crawl back.
Four months ago I was asleep when an emergency alert on my phone shrieked around half past midnight. Minutes later, an EF3 tornado was heading straight for an elementary school a few miles north from where I sat in bed. The next morning, I woke up to multiple missed calls and concerned texts; the tornado devastated different Nashville neighborhoods, a close-by suburb, and counties to the east. Lives were lost, homes were leveled, and small businesses were decimated. The community’s immediate response was to help.
Little did I know, a more silent storm in the form of a deadly pandemic was brewing. In the weeks to come, life as the world knew it changed quickly—unfortunately, our government’s immediate response was not to help. Instead, certain leaders chose to save their own financial stocks while refusing to act and feeding the concerned public lies, leaving our most vulnerable populations helpless.
The fear of uncertainty, of anything harming my loved ones, was enough to keep me emotionally locked down. It sometimes feels like talking about worries out loud will somehow breathe life into them and make them come true. I had been worrying constantly, as if that anxious energy is going to power different outcomes or prepare me in some way. It’s not going to. But telling a worrier not to worry is like telling my dog not to bark at the mailman. It’s going to happen, because worry is a response to a threat, as is barking at the stranger who visits the house every day. The thing that’s hard for me to realize is that the “threat” is a projection of my anxious imagination, just as the threat of the mailman is a projection of my protective dog’s imagination. (Unless he knows something about the mailman that I don’t…)
On that treacherous drive home last year, I felt my tires disconnect from the ground and could barely see three feet in front of me. Right now, in this time of uncertainty and low visibility, it feels similar. During that drive, while I felt no trace of bravery, a desperate kind of trust presented itself. The only thing to do was breathe and remember my boyfriend’s practical voice: keep both hands on the wheel and lift your foot from the gas if you feel yourself hydroplaning. Eventually, at some point in southern Indiana, the sky lightened and the rain eased.
Storms of worry will continue to shake me—I worry so intensely because I have people I care about so incredibly much. We experience fear and worry because we experience the immense kind of love that we can’t imagine living without. On the days where the clouds seem darkest and my worried mind can’t find traction on the road, those same people are there to remind me to keep my hands on the wheel and go easy on the gas; the skies will lighten up.
Author’s postscript: I’ve kept this unpublished on my laptop for a while, changing the timeframe from “a few months ago” to “a year ago” as my mind slipped deeper into a pit of fear. Recent events haven’t been explored here, including our country’s necessary confrontation of deep-rooted, pervasive systemic racism and white supremacy–mainly because I believe the need for voices of color to be amplified instead of mine on the subject.
Since writing this, I’ve realized just how profound my worry had become and subsequently visited with a mental health nurse practitioner. You can’t always yoga or write or Bon Iver your anxiety away, and since talking to a professional and taking medication as a pillar of support, a profound weight has been lifted. I realize access to this is a luxury when it shouldn’t be. I encourage anyone reading who feels swallowed up and weighted down by anxiety to seek assistance and lean into whatever support you can.