I Was Always Anxious

I look back at my life and think it is so obvious now that I was always anxious. Always. And yet, I never thought that I was anxious. I think there are some clear reasons for this. 1. Diagnoses for mental health issues that fell below the threshold of general “functionality” weren’t common at the time (1980s). 2. You often can’t see something that is part of the air you breathe and seems so very “normal” to you, especially if many people in your family have the same issue.

I was so busy dealing with my anxiety, so busy making sure that no one thought I had a problem because I was good at everything, I was practically perfect, I was “Mature Mette,” that I disguised my anxiety from almost everyone, but especially from myself. I was the kind of student who would start working on the final paper for a college class the second week of class. I would take it to the writing laboratory twice, then to the professor as many times as the professor would allow. I didn’t think of this as “anxiety,” I thought of it as “being a good student.” And I was a good student. Because I was anxious, I never forgot deadlines. I never missed assignments. I always did the reading. And I thought other people wished they could be like me.

Further back in my life, in my elementary school years, my anxiety manifested a little differently. I was always trying to follow all the rules. I was afraid of the teacher not liking me, so I tried to make sure that I sat in the front row, answered every question, and helpfully corrected the teacher (this wasn’t always taken well, which I learned later). I tattled on other students not following the rules (also not always taken well), and I was quiet when I was supposed to be quiet. I also was so afraid of other kids that I rarely made friends, or even made eye contact with them.

This is not meant to ask for sympathy. It’s an attempt for me to write a clear description of who I was and still am because I think there are a lot of people like me out there. I may have been born anxious, though abuse in childhood probably didn’t help. I have siblings who don’t appear to have anxiety, especially not to the level I do, so I think it might be nature rather than nurture. Or some combination.

As a parent, I can see now that I had children who were born anxious and I wish now so desperately that I had been able to use that term clearly to help others see their needs more clearly and to advocate for them to be given what they needed and not punished or mocked for them trying to get their needs met. I heard a lot of people saying that “labels” were damaging for kids and encouraging me not to have my children formally diagnosed with anything (starting from ADHD and moving onward) because then all they would ever be was the label. And yes, it’s a problem that this is the way that society treats people who are clear about their needs. But I still wish that I’d understood.

One of my children was so anxious that they would start crying if a stranger even looked at them. Another was so anxious that I couldn’t leave them with anyone outside of the family without them crying for the entire time I was gone. I mostly felt embarrassed about this, and annoyed that I couldn’t do anything. I wish that I’d been able to treat this problem with more compassion and directness. I wish that I’d seen that there were ways I could slowly work toward accustoming either of these children to being around strangers. And I wish that I hadn’t been so embarrassed at some perceived idea that I was parenting badly that it hadn’t gotten in the way of me seeing my children clearly and advocating for their needs with other adults who interacted with them.

Labels are just so useful, you see. I sometimes wish we could all just get them tattooed on so that we didn’t have to explain it to others every time we meet. But then again, probably not. I don’t always want to disclose all my issues on first meeting, either. Because that’s a sensitive topic that I need to be treated gently, just like my children did.