I’m … buzzing. Humming. Fizzing… Trying to find the words to express the sensation of every internal muscle still tense and thrumming as a result of social anxiety… that began more than 20 hours ago.

Take a deep breath in and out, count to four… is now a good time to roll out the yoga mat and listen to my favorite teacher remind me that yoga is a great time to practice being calm in difficult situations? My naturopath tells me I can stop taking her recommended vitamins if I can ever find a time in life when I’m not so stressed…

Um. So – when eye contact is stressful, when eating in front of, near and around others is stressful, is her recommendation that I go live a hermit’s life in a cave high in the mountains? Dedicate my life to prayer and hide away from people forever?

Anxiety is debilitating. A kind of disorder that paralyzes a person; fight, flight, freeze or ingratiate become the only options. For me it’s always been combination of freeze and please, flee when necessary.

I was invited to join some incredible human beings for dinner with our parish family; for days I wondered… should I use every excuse in my very legitimate playbook to find reasons not to go? I have two (older) kids, I may need to do stuff for them; I have my full-time job – and graciously, I have enough work there to keep me legitimately focused and busy for weeks; I have stomach issues stemming from an overly-active-anxiety-organ (Having found every reason to skip high school biology, I swear that anxiety is a physical organ somewhere located to the right of my spleen); all legitimate challenges, right? But then, oh, to have the honor of spending an hour in or around individuals who have a calling to the Lord and spreading His word of love and acceptance, of all the meals to skip – this isn’t the one.

So, anxiety firmly packed into my back pocket, I worked my way there. Found opportunities for an amazing conversation that I wish I could say I could relax into, but there was food on the table to eat… I don’t eat in front of people I don’t know, but I also was truly hungry – and, omygosh there was lamb. Yum! So – attempting to politely eat, enjoy and have a conversation like a normal person and … put aside all the voices in my head reminding me how clumsy I am; that my dad “eats like a pig” and hence, so do I (yep, my ex said that line rather too often to me); that I’m not worthy, worthless, messy, unkempt and unlikeable. Ad nauseum, and on repeat, quietly in the back of my head. You just want to pause and slam that door shut, but in the meantime, you really want to focus on the amazing conversations you get to hear, observe, partake in.

Then there’s eye contact; whew – dear fellow humans – if I avoid eye contact with you, it’s because in you, I truly see you and am very often overwhelmed by everything that implies. Like my children, I’ve learned many effective ways in this life to avoid looking people directly into their eyes; and it’s not from lack of wanting to, it’s that there is an intense intimacy of seeing a person so deeply and fearing that they may also see into me with the same depth. However, on this evening, the people I was with were so special and safe to be around, that I intentionally tried to not hide and to connect.

In my anxiety-bound world – that is food for the beast – ramping up the anxiety and the wonderings for the next several days.

So, I had a wonderful time; but couldn’t shut my brain down until nearly midnight – replaying every conversation, gesture and mistake. Finally sleeping, and waking to… yep, you betcha, replays of every social mistake I perceived that I made.

I can’t seem to pray away my anxiety and fears; I offer them up to God every chance I get. In the very near future I have an invitation to join my parish sisters and brothers in several days of healing workshops and Masses. I’m petrified.

I’ve had a few opportunities to join a healing Mass and receive an anointing, or being prayed over. When I do doors have opened in my head that were long closed and padlocked over, and probably cemented over, too. Memories I don’t want to remember are suddenly standing there, looking boldly at me, having taken on shape and form, and I am so lost. What do I do with this particular skeleton that is supposed to be completely chained up deep into my internal mental closets? How do I navigate today?

Father John Riccardo from the ACTS XXIX team, in his third video or chapter of the Rescue series talks about the Enemy. I watched it with my kids. I should NOT have watched it with my kids. Listening to what Father John has to say, I was left, mouth agape… in complete shock. Why would the enemy bother with me? Yet so clearly, without knowing me at all, Father John described my life… pursued by the enemy from very very young. Why? No wonder I’m such a mess. I had no defenses or walls or structure to frame any kind of understanding for the things that have made me into the very overly anxious adult I’ve become; I simply shut memories behind doors and turned the key – the best defense any child or young adult really has… the problem is, having never, ever, EVER let any of those experiences out – never letting people know they happened, keeping my mouth shut tight resulted in…

yep. a whole giant window through which the evil one could easily reach me. Nightmares plagued my childhood, so real and vicious they seemed more real than our waking world. And, without any sort of healing or awareness by those who should (and would, had they known) protect, I continued to make the wrong choices about the types of people I should engage with. I made some amazing friends, but I also dabbled in the occult; tried out witchcraft – even howled at the moon a few times with a group of girlfriends; I explored Buddhism, and was open to every other option that came through my door. It wasn’t until I found the Catholic Church (and, oh man, did I walk through the doors of the Church with a lot of prejudice and stereotypes and suspicion and judgement…), it wasn’t until I knelt in prayer and truly let go, that peace and a sense of wholeness began to work its way into my heart.

So, thinking about attending a healing workshop is rather, ironically, very anxiety inducing.

And. enticing.

You see, here is what I’m learning. I think too much about this messy person I call ‘me’. A lot of people have done a lot of awful things in my world (none of whom were family to me, let’s be clear – I have a gorgeous and amazing family). And so what? A lot of people have done a lot of awful things. Period. To everyone. All the time. It seems to be a very human thing – to hurt, and to be hurt. It takes strength, work, patience and focus to step back and acknowledge those hurts and intentionally – very, very intentionally, chart a different path.

So – I accept my anxiety. I accept my fear that I embarrassed myself by talking too much, saying the wrong things at the wrong time, bringing up weird anecdotes that made sense in my head for the first 30 seconds and stopped making sense about 1/3 of the way into my sentence; or that my shaking hands gave me away that I’m super uncomfortable eating around people. I accept that I am the sum of my parts, and I trust in God that the people I’m around understand that I’m doing my best to be there, and not simply judge me as wanting and as a failure of a person. Instead, I pray, that people who spend time with me, understand that I have a lot to offer once I get past my fear of being around them.

I also know, that making these choices is important because I am trying to chart a different course for my little family. If trauma scars our DNA, leading to future traumatized generations, then with that knowledge, we need to step back and say, collectively, okay – what do we do so our children live a healing life? A loving life? A safe life? I believe the right answer is here with our Lord God, with the people of the Church who are accepting and loving as Jesus was, who would join the woman at the well and drink her water and help her with her burdens.

This…this was a long one. Run on. Definitely don’t hand this particular post into my English teacher from High School. Zero structure; 5-point essay failure. But, I hope you get me from this. I hope in me you see yourself, and say… yea. Okay. I get that, sister.

I’m going to end this in a prayer. You don’t know my voice, so as you read this, try to hear your own voice saying this, or hear the voice that means the most to you, a mother or a sister, for this prayer is for you…

Heavenly Father, my Lord God,
Thank you for the sun that rose today.
Thank you for every breath that I take, saying Your name.
Thank you for being loving and merciful, seeing all of me and all of us.

Lord, have mercy for the choices made out of fear and anxiety. I offer my fears and my anxieties up to you Lord. Please open the doors I have closed in my mind and my heart and help me to see and to heal.

Lord, I open the doors of my heart to you and your everlasting Grace. Through you I know I can be whole again, and with the Holy Spirit’s help, I can support others like myself.

Lord, I pray for others who have experienced hurt, sadness, pain and trauma; I pray they find the strength to turn to You to be healed. I pray they find the strength to be humble and ask for healing.

We all need to be healed, my Lord God. We all need Your mercy, Your grace, and Your love. Thank you for being patient with us as we find our footing on the path that leads only to you.

Amen