Anxiety vs Spirituality - doesn't mean I have no testimony.

 I struggle with attending church because of my General Anxiety Disorder coupled with Social Anxiety as well as Major Depressive Disorder.  I have strong faith in God.  I feel his presence but being at church sets off all my warning systems.  Many people downplay what I say with words like, "You can get up on stage and perform for people, how can it be any different being around people?" (Remember stage is scripted, I know everything I'm supposed to do from tons of rehearsal. It's muscle memory)

There are lots of reasons but let's go back to the disorder itself and figure it out. 

The amygdala:

What is the amygdala?

Your amygdala is a small, almond-shaped structure inside of your brain. It’s part of a larger network in your brain called the limbic system. When it comes to your survival, your amygdala and limbic system are extremely important. These are parts of your brain that automatically detect danger. They also play a role in behavior, emotional control and learning.

Fear is the main emotion that the amygdala is known to control. That’s why your amygdala is so important to survival. It processes things you see or hear and uses that input to learn what’s dangerous. If you encounter something similar in the future, your amygdala will cause you to feel fear or similar emotions.

However, research shows that the amygdala contributes to more than just anxiety or fear. It also plays a role in the following:

 

·       Aggression.

 

·       Learning through rewards and punishment.

 

·       Handling and using implicit (unconscious) memory, which allows you to remember how to do certain things without remembering how you learned them (like riding a bike or tying your shoes).

 

·       Social communication and understanding, including how you interpret someone’s intentions from how they talk or act).

 

·       Emotions that relate to parenting and caregiving.

 

·       Emotions we connect to memories.

 

·       Learned behaviors related to addiction.    

 https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24894-amygdala

In the case of someone with my disorder, the amygdala works overtime.  It doesn't shut off properly when other parts of the brain are supposed to take over.  This leads to an almost constant state of "Fight or Flight" syndrome.  So, it's not a tiny worry or a little anxiety.  My brain thinks attacks are imminent at almost any time.  Very few situations allow me to feel truly safe.  My home, for example, feels safe almost all the time.  My dear wife, particularly when I'm alone with her, makes me feel safe.  My children and grandchildren do but to a slightly lesser extent and partly due to my constant worry about how to help them be the amazing people I know they can be.

 

So why then does church make me feel anxious and extremely fearful.  I'm old enough to have been in many different congregations and met many good people.  However, many people at church feel the need to display their righteousness on their chest so to speak.  Church is supposed to be a hospital for the soul, but most people see it

as a place for "good" people to gather.  This leads to a subconscious need for people who don't seem to conform to be judged.  Because church has developed their programs and culture around their beliefs, the culture and programs become a litmus test for perceived righteousness in other.  This changes the feeling from one of welcome and love to one of distrust of anyone different.  This can lead to a feeling of hostility towards someone who looks or acts differently.

It doesn't make the Church itself untrue or not righteous, but it does destroy the welcoming nature of the people with in.

For someone who has a mental illness this is like being immunocompromised and walking into an isolated quarantine zone with no protective gear.  You pick up each little sideways glance, each passive aggressive comment even if they aren't directed at you.  They cut like knives, and you feel the need to run.

It's also a place for small talk.  Small talk is essentially social exercises that people do to show that they want to talk to you but only on a surface level.  It makes the person who engages in it feel like they've tried to be nice.  But it's also mostly insincere. 

"How are you?" Is a common phrase used.  But the person asking it doesn't expect a list of good AND bad things in the answer.  They want to hear.

"Fine! How are you?"

They might talk about the weather, which is easily seen if one looks out the window.  It's useless.  And for most people it's harmless chatting and innocuous.

For someone who is stressed to extremes by every social interaction, it's a type of torture because not only are you fighting the urge to run away at every moment, but this conversation is also totally unnecessary and leading nowhere.

A church leader who I have talked about my mental health to and even sent an email several years ago to, stating that I very much needed to be given space, ignores what I’ve asked and forces me to engage in such conversations.  My dear wife has also told him that HE, personally, makes me anxious but he doesn’t stop.

Before he was called to be a leader in our church, he never spoke to me.  But it seems that he decided that I was a special problem that he was going to fix himself.  My first interview with him he began with methods of guilt and manipulation mostly by telling me how much the congregation needed me there.  Making sure that I knew that I was letting them all down when my fears kept me from attending.  I desperately tried to explain what it was like in my mind to him, but he just kept circling back to how much everyone else needed me there all of the time.  At this point he decided to up the pressure by bringing my wife in and trying to tell me how much I was letting her down.  This was my private interview with my church leader.  He was tearing me down for my brain being broken and my difficulty being able to overcome it.  To finish he began to tell me that if I came more to church and read my scriptures and prayed enough, I would be cured.  This was his real point.  He was saying all along that the only reason I had these problems was a lack of Faith.

Faith is what saved me from unaliving myself in 2013.  Faith is what keeps me from succumbing to those depressive thoughts every day.  I knew who I was but now I knew that this church leader would never consider me worthy.

In the months after I struggled worse than before and actually came to a point where I needed to be given some space so that I could build up the strength to try to make it to church.  I wanted to be there but I needed to feel as invisible as possible to do so.

I composed an email to this leader saying that I needed space.  I CC’d a few other leaders.  It was sent late at night so it wouldn't be seen until morning.

Sure enough, the leader in question showed up on my doorstep unannounced the next day with his counselor.  This was my safe space.  It felt like an invasion, or an ambush.  It was the opposite of what I'd asked.  I hid in my bedroom with the lights off and the covers over my head and my dear wife turned them away.  After that he began to try to create special mini meetings with just him to try to teach me and rebuild the testimony that he believed that I had lost.  He'd do this and then say, "No pressure."  Anytime you say, "No pressure." You're too late.  You already put the pressure on.  So, I went long stretches not able to attend because now I wasn't just afraid of the regular people talking to me.  Now I was afraid of him.  He is trying his best but somehow can't see what he's doing to me.

During a period when I began to develop a tic from one of my medications, I made it to church.  I was sitting by my wife.  He saw me and shot straight over to me.  I politely shook his offered hand.  He tried to build me up by saying how strong I was to be there. Over and over.  Extending the interaction as long as possible.  All the while my leg began to bounce (my tic) harder and harder.  I had to put my hands on it to try to keep it from jumping so high.  My wife added her hand to mine to try to help too.  All I needed was for him to say “Hi” and shake my hand and go but in his mind he needed to have a full conversation right up until the start of the meeting.  I know that from his perspective he NEEDED that so he could feel like he was doing his job.  But it took none of what I'd said to him into account.  It showed no empathy for what I go through every day.

To him and others, I'm not active in church. 

To them, that must be due to a lack of spirituality on my part.  They don't see me getting ready every Saturday evening.  Showering, shaving.  Making sure I have clean dress socks and a clean and ironed shirt.  Sometimes I pull my clothes out and hang them off my dresser to make it easier the next morning.

They don't see me lying there trying so hard to sleep each Saturday night.  Almost never being able to do so because of how fearful I am of being among the people there.   Even the kind ones make me afraid, but this particular ward is also full of many people who have looked down on me for being a stay-at-home father.  Their kids have treated mine terribly since we were put into this ward.  And the kids likely learned this from hearing their parents.  As they've adjusted the boundaries, we've been isolated geographically from anyone who lives near us.  We are at the end of a tiny peninsula of land that ends with us.  Just our side of the street for several blocks.  On the opposite side of the street is another Stake entirely.  Our backyard neighbors are in a different ward. 

My grandfather served on several stake realignment committees and explained that the first thing they try to balance is how many Melchizedek Priesthood holders are in each ward.  Then families and youth etc. are considered.  So, 1.  Me.  They drew a tiny peninsula around my side of the street because they wanted one more Melchizedek Priesthood holder in their ward.  My wife who goes with the flow usually and doesn't complain, she has cried because of how isolated we feel.  She wants to move but because of how long it took us to climb out of the debt we incurred from my failed business, housing prices are simply too high for us to responsibly move.  Plus, we have 8 and a half years left of our mortgage.  I'm 50 and Tina is getting close.  Taking out a new 30-year mortgage would be financially irresponsible.   This is where we're staying.

 

Recently my wife told this leader that HE makes me anxious.  Still, the next time he saw me at my son's play at high school he rushed to talked to me.  I answered his how are you question and tried to walk back to my family, but he pursued me.  More small talk.  One question was so unnecessary.   He asked, "Are you excited to see your son?"

 

What was I going to say?  It's obvious I was because I was braving the crowds just to be there.  If I had replied, "No, I came to watch him fail miserably." He'd have been shocked.

 

He was asking me questions because he needed to feel like he was doing his job as my church leader.  Fulfilling his needs.  I finally managed to break away, but he didn't stop looking over at me.  You could see in his eyes that he was compelled to try again. 

He did.  He walked over to my 2nd son and shook his hand.  My son now attends church at a young single adult ward. After briefly talking to my son, he turned his attention back to me. And forced me to endure several more minutes of circular small talk about the play.

I was in full panic attack mode.  The whole play I clung so hard to my wife's hand.  I was afraid that I might have hurt her I squeezed so hard.  Most of the time I tried to make myself small and put my head on her shoulder.  This made it difficult to see the play.  Luckily, I had done this play before and knew when to look up so that I didn't miss my son's parts in the show.  That's why I was there.  But my night was destroyed.  By a man who had an agenda.  A man who never spoke to me before he made me a special project or goal.  I believe that he may think that he alone is capable of curing me or that somehow his position in our church makes it so he has a special relationship with me that no one else has.  But one thing he doesn't have is empathy or the ability to listen. 

 

Even at this moment I have been up all night writing these things down.  Trying to work through them.  I've shaved and showered, my clothes are ready, but I don't know if I will be able to find the strength to put them on. 

 

I took a sleeping pill, but my anxiety and fear are so strong that it has been completely ineffective.  It's 5 am.  The dread gets worse as each minute rolls by.  If I make it, will I be able to get in and out safely or will I be cornered and put on the spot.  Who will stare at the strange stay-at-home dad (A bad thing in the culture of our church) and wonder what's wrong with him.  The same ones who said, "Oh, it’s great what you're doing with your kids staying home" but ignoring me and my boys for play dates unless my wife called them to arrange it.  Ignoring me in the PTA when I signed up for committees and only calling me when the trucks for the fundraisers needed to be unloaded or the book fair needed to be set up.  Making me just a donkey.  Fighting to finally let me help with the book fair itself.  Many of those people are in this ward.  You can see it in their eyes when they see me.  Then there are the ones who are nicer but only want that on the surface small talk.  That's OK if they want to just wave or say “Hi” but they extend it into a conversation about nothing that makes me feel like I'm lighting myself on fire.  And since the ward leader says I'm needed so badly what he's really asking is for me to light myself on fire to keep the rest of the congregation warm.  Maybe, when they ask how I'm doing, I should tell them.  "I'm completely stressed out, there are too many people here.  It feels like being trapped in a room full of bees and I’m one mistake away from them swarming me and stinging me to death."  And then watch as they suddenly become uncomfortable having to listen to my struggles.  But that's not right.  That's impolite to ruin their day.  Or the worse thing is for me to finally be pushed too far and instead of retreating in "flight" mode I become angry and berate someone in front of everyone, losing all control and ruining the spirit of reverence that should be at church.

 

I can't let that happen. I can't destroy the atmosphere with my broken mind.  So, we'll see.  Maybe in the hour or two left I'll finally sleep and gain enough strength to make it.  Because despite all of this, I still have faith in the gospel.  I still believe in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us.  I want to take the sacrament.  I want to hear the words over the pulpit.  I just need to do it as unnoticed as possible.