A Roadblock to Recovery

"What am I doing in Dallas?" I asked myself the question almost daily for the duration of my stay there. Not that there was anything wrong with Dallas. There’s plenty right with it. It’s just that I was homesick for the Michigan – for family and friends, for familiar sights. After only a couple of months in Texas, I was ready to go home.

I had finished one semester of grad school in nearby Denton when I decided to quit and enter the job market. My wife was working inhuman hours at the hospital to get me through school and support our three kids. Enough was enough. I was going to give her a break.

Trouble was, I bristled at the idea of staying in Dallas. In the back of my mind, I think I really hoped no one would hire me. A job means roots, and I didn’t want to plant roots there.

There were some symbolic attempts to find work -- a phone call here and there, an occasional interview. But soon I was spending consecutive days doing light chores at home rather than job-hunting. And I was getting depressed, because I knew I was shirking responsibility.

It was only a couple of weeks later when a jolting panic attack turned my life inside out. I was stunned. For days, I woke up every morning terrified at the prospect of another day. Those days became weeks. Then a month passed without any improvement in my wretched condition. "How long is this going to last?" I wondered. "How long CAN it last before I lose all of my marbles?"

Of course, looking for a job was a low priority at that point. I was in serious trouble. My life was ebbing away as I watched in bewilderment. My wife was scared. She agreed to pack up and move back to our home town – my safe haven.

Why am I relating all of this? To make a point. Many people with anxiety problems have a vested interest in staying anxious. They have a disincentive to get better. Their anxiety is an unhealthy investment that pays dividends in one form or another. For me, it was a ticket back home. It precluded my getting a job and staying in a town that I didn’t want to settle in.

Was I consciously staying anxious so I could gain these things? No. But the joyous prospect of moving back home proved a hindrance to my recovery from this episode. What I really needed was to get a job, not pack up my family and move across the country again. Had I entered the workplace, I believe I would have felt better before long. It’s possible I would even have adopted Dallas as my new hometown, and done so gladly. Instead, I retreated to the Michigan, whipped, defeated – and still anxious.

Other sufferers, I’m convinced, have their own disincentives to recovery. Maybe their anxiety furnishes an excuse to avoid doing something unpleasant. It routes them away from a challenge they’d rather not face. And so they slacken a little. They don’t do everything they can to get over their problem. They’re not entirely in earnest about moving forward and getting through it.

Are you one of those people? Are you holding back in your recovery efforts because you see anxiety as the lesser of two evils? If so, it is time to face that thing you would rather not face, whatever it is.

Be assured that any gains you or I derive from anxiety will all prove losses in the end.