Is Your Anxiety Speeding You Up?

For those that don’t know me, I was a professional athlete. I played on the FSU Men’s Basketball team, and went on to play internationally in Spain. 

In college, one of my favorite places to play was the Cameron Indoor Stadium. 

If you’ve ever walked into the stadium, you know that it’s not the nations best...It honestly looks like a building a university would host a class on medieval literature. The court is 94x50, but for some odd reason it seems so much smaller...all thanks to the Cameron Crazies.

Up to a week before each game, the Crazies will camp out on the outside of the stadium in a makeshift city called Krzyewskiville getting ready for the big day. From the time you walk on for warmups it seems like the Crazies know everything about you. They have handouts for EVERY PLAYER on the opposing team. They scour your instagram and find all the dirt they can on you. As we’re playing, Duke students are yelling things out about our girlfriends, our families, and even throwing McDonald’s cheeseburgers on the court during half-time. (Yes, this is real life.) 

That’s exactly how Duke plays. They pick you up 94ft and deny every pass. Their whole goal is to speed you up. With the surroundings of their team, the Crazies and a legendary coach on the sideline, you don’t realize how fast you’re playing until you’re 7 minutes into the game and completely out of breath.

That’s exactly how anxiety pushes. 

When you’re in a room talking with others about a topic you don’t necessarily agree with, do you find that you get nervous and quick to defend your side? 

Here’s an example of how that’s played out in my personal life: 

I struggle with depression and have struggled with suicide my whole life. Because my wife is the most incredible woman I’ve ever met (hey, Wendy) my struggles affect her deeply. 

Through the beauty of therapy, I have gotten the help I need and I’m moving forward. But, anyone that has struggled with mental health before knows that healing and treatment is not a straight line. There are good days, and there are bad days. 

My wife has witnessed the bad days. She has witnessed the days were I contemplated taking my life. She’s witnessed the process of medications and trying to figure out what my body needs to function the way it was designed to. She’s seen it all, and although I’m generally in a good place 90% of the time, when I have a moment in the 10% - it hits her and she responds out of PTSD. She responds out of a place of fear, knowing that the feelings and emotions that run through my head are real and I often can’t control them.  

When I see her respond in that way, it speeds me up. It causes me to say things like:

• Can’t you see how much I’ve grown?
• I’m just having a bad day, just give me a minute.
• I just need to be alone for a few hours.

I get frustrated, unable to understand why my wife doesn’t have faith in me or my growth. 

But my therapist said to me once:

“You have to have empathy, because this is how you make amends for the way your mental health affected her in the past.” 

Just as my moments in the 10% pain me, those moment’s pain my wife for fear of losing me and I’ve had to learn how to close the gap. Instead of me reacting out of my anxiety, I need to have empathy.

Empathy closes the gap and makes room for authentic and meaningful conversation and change.