Whitney Rose

It is just days before my thirty-fourth birthday. Thirty-four trips around the sun. Thirty-four years of anxiety. Thirty-four years of smiles, laughs, love, joy, adventure, experience, learning, and growing. But mostly, anxiety.
From the first moments that I can remember, I was anxious. People would often say, “She’s just shy. One day she will come out of her shell.” Or, as my father used to say, “She just needs to ‘get over it’ and then she’ll be unstoppable.”

Growing up, there was no trauma in my childhood. There were no extenuating circumstances that would lead doctors to believe I had an anxiety disorder. I had two amazing parents, Barry and Susan, who were happily married. My father was a successful, seasoned businessman, who often traveled for work. My mother had been an animation and illustration artist before having children. When we were young, she stayed home with us and decided to go back to work in retail when we were a little older. I was the middle child of three children, each born in the summertime, three years apart from each other. We lived in a safe, upper-middle-class small town in the suburbs of Boston, MA. I was raised in a happy, loving, and deeply spiritual family.

One of the biggest saving graces in my life was being brought up in a spiritual household. My parents started meditating in 1971 when they were twenty-one years old. Their practice followed the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement. They traveled to Italy with Maharishi where they learned the sacred technique of teaching TM. I was taught the meditation technique at a young age and carried it close within me as I grew up. However, the true depth and understanding of spirituality and expansion of consciousness didn’t start to fully awaken until November of 2002, when I was seventeen years old, and met the Satguru, Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi). Growing up in this environment created an unwavering faith in the universe. The kind of faith that held me tight with the promise that no matter how slippery and unsteady the world felt with anxiety, everything was going to be OK. There was always the omnipresent support of nature.

Everything in my life was safe, secure, and surrounded by love; nevertheless, as far back as I can remember, I felt debilitating anxiety. My childhood was spent being nervous, fearful, and afraid. I watched my siblings and friends walk into school every day with smiles on their faces, feeling comfortable and safe. I watched them go over to friends’ houses for playdates, sleepovers, and birthday parties with excitement. I watched them take art classes, music lessons, play sports, go to summer camps, blissfully enjoying the freedom and fun of childhood. I felt safest watching from the sidelines.

Back in the late 1980s, early 1990s, anxiety was still taboo. You didn’t walk into a doctor’s office and have them tell you that your child was suffering from a generalized anxiety and panic disorder. It was still believed that in order to have anxiety, something terrible and traumatic had to have happened to you. I had no word to properly describe the insidious disorder I would spend my whole life battling and trying to conquer. I was not introduced to the term “anxiety” until I was fifteen years old—not by a doctor, but by a police officer.

Looking back, sometimes my anxiety was generalized; not linked to anything, anyone, or any specific event. The best way to describe it would be when someone jumps out from around a corner and yells, “Boo!” Your heart starts to race and your stomach jumps into your throat for a split second before your brain makes the connection that there is no real threat and your body starts to calm down and relax. With generalized anxiety, that “Boo!” feeling is constantly there; your adrenaline pumping, the fight or flight mechanism in your brain always turned “on.” As a young child without the understanding that this feeling was anxiety, I timidly walked through life full of caution.

At other times, my anxiety would be directly related to something specific. When I was young, nighttime was a big trigger for my anxiety. The anticipation of bedtime was always an ominous cloud that hung over my head. The more the sun set, the more my anxiety awoke. Every night my mother had the arduous task of putting me to bed. She would tuck me under my covers, turn off the lights, turn on the nightlight, and sit on the corner of my bed softly rubbing my back for a few minutes to help me relax into sleep. As she left my room, the door would have to remain wide open. I would lie there with my eyes squeezed tightly closed, pulling the covers over my head and curling myself into the tiniest ball I could possibly create. Like clockwork, the feeling would slowly start to creep into my chest. My heart would start to race, pounding out against my folded knees curled to my chest; feeling and hearing my heart rapidly beating in my ears. My hands, arms, legs, and feet would go tingly and numb. My breathing became shallow and short. It would be at that moment I would jump out of bed, run down the stairs, find my mom and snuggle up next to her. My mother, halfway expecting and waiting for my nightly appearance, would gently take my hand and walk me back to bed as many times as it took for me to stay there and fall asleep.

In addition to having an anxiety disorder, I struggled with panic attacks. Having a panic attack can be one of the scariest feelings your mind and body experience. Someone that has never endured a panic attack before could easily be convinced they were having a heart attack and dying. It can strike out of nowhere and for no particular reason. At other times, there is a direct cause. There have been multiple occasions where I found myself in the emergency room trying to convince the doctors and nurses that something medically serious was happening to me; as if they were overlooking or not finding the real issue. Every single time it was proven to have been a panic attack.

The experience I’ve had with panic attacks is that it starts and escalates faster than you can blink. There is a feeling of disconnection from my body. My heart races and pounds so fast and hard, I feel as if it could explode. There is a gripping, tightening in my chest that can be suffocating. I can very easily start to hyperventilate. My surroundings can morph and contort causing a spinning dizziness. Sounds can become distant or the opposite, becoming too loud and intense to handle. My hands and feet can tingle and go numb while stiffening and tightening so much so I’m unable to move them. All of these happen simultaneously. Talk about feeling out of control of myself!

Today, new technologies allow doctors to administer brain scans sophisticated enough to read and analyze which parts of the brain over or under function during episodes of anxiety. The disorder is understood much better. Alongside the advancement of medications, proper diet and exercise, tapping into spiritual awareness and practice, and knowledge of self-healing, tools to manage anxiety have become more readily accessible.
The human brain loves patterns, routines, and predictability. The more you train your brain to react a certain way, the more it will default back to that reaction; whether it be anxiety or pure bliss. The brain doesn’t discriminate which feeling it will send out to the rest of your body because it looks for the created patterns. It was impossible for me to recognize at the time because I was undiagnosed and untreated, but every time I reacted in a state of anxiety or panic, I was wiring my brain to default back to an anxious, reactive state. Many of my current, existing anxieties were small events that my brain clung to and over time created a snowball effect; growing both the anxiety and pattern of reactive anxiety every time I was exposed to similar situations. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties and met my current therapist, that I learned techniques of rewiring and retraining my brain out of a constant, anxious state.

The Beginning

Attending school was one of the hardest daily tasks to accomplish. One of my earliest anxiety memories was when I was four years old and my mother dropped me off at the church nursery school. We pulled up to the church in my mom’s old 1980s dark blue Volvo wagon. I was quietly crying in my car seat. “Please, Mommy. I don’t want to go! Don’t leave me here!” I felt as though the whole world was about to crash down around me. The fear inside my little body felt like a monster clawing its way out of my chest. I knew that once we entered the church doors and walked upstairs, my mother was going to hand me over to the nursery teacher and she’d be gone. My mom walked over to my side of the car, opened the door, and while unbuckling my seat belt said softly, “I always come back for you. You’re going to be OK.” For a brief few seconds, I felt a sense of calm, relief.

As we walked up the long, paved walkway leading to the main entrance of the church, a tidal wave of panic washed over my body. I must have squeezed my mom’s hand a bit tighter because she leaned down and picked me up to carry me the rest of the way inside. We made our way up the red-carpeted stairway, past the big stained-glass cathedral windows. I looked outside, over my mom’s shoulder. I could see our car parked at the curb and wanted nothing more than to be back in my car seat, and safe with my mom. But we kept walking up the stairs, down the long echoing hall, and into my classroom. With tears streaming down my face, my mom placed me down, and I immediately hid behind her legs.

The teacher, (who in hindsight was a sweet and patient old lady, but at the time was the devil taking me away from my mother) came walking over to greet me. She kneeled down to my level and said, “Good morning, Whitney. It looks like you need some extra love today.” Looking up at my mom, she added, “You can go. I can handle this.” And with a loving smile, gently removed my white-knuckled grip from my mom’s jeans, turned me toward her, and hugged me tight while my mom left the room. “Now, doesn’t that feel better? Now you’re ready to play with your friends!” As soon as her grip loosened, I ran over to the third story window to watch my mom strolling down the walkway, get into her car, and drive away. The universe was swallowing me whole.

Protest and Testing

During my fourth-grade year, I protested going to school. An absolute refusal every morning. Day in and day out, my parents tried to get me to vocalize why going to school was so difficult. I wasn’t sure how to describe the way I was feeling inside, so I would get overwhelmed and shut down. I would shrug my shoulders and say, “I don’t know,” to all their questions. At times I would not speak at all. After so long trying in vain to get me to school and explain why I was so adamant about not attending, they decided to look for professional help.
My general practitioner referred me to a specialized clinic that tested for learning disabilities. The office where the test was administered consisted of a single long white desk in the middle of a room with two chairs on either side. A tall, spindly man took a seat across from me. “There are no right or wrong answers during this test. There is no need to be nervous, OK?” he smilingly said, peering over his round, rimmed glasses that sat on the tip of his large, triangular nose.
I nodded my head to acknowledge I’d heard him and watched as he sorted through a stack of laminated papers. I didn’t feel nervous or anxious. Anticipation always got the best of my anxiety; however, in the actual moment, I always performed my best.
The man fished out one of the laminated papers from the stack he held. Printed on it was a forward-facing number four, and next to it was a backward number four. He placed the paper in front of me with an erasable marker. “Can you see a difference between these numbers?” he asked, as he popped the cap off the marker and handed it to me. I grabbed the marker from his spidery fingers and circled the forward-facing number four.

“Very good,” he said, as he held up another picture and told me to memorize the objects on the page. He placed the picture face down on the desk, picked up another one, and asked which object(s) were now missing or added to the page.
He had me read short paragraphs out loud and in my head, then explain to him what it was I had just read. He would say a sentence or two and have me repeat it word-for- word back to him. The test continued this way for some time, and at the conclusion, he sat with my parents to discuss the results.

He believed I had a slight auditory processing disorder; meaning it was difficult for me to retain information when being spoken to. I retain information best visually and doing it hands-on. He thought this may be adding to my protest against going to school; however, he didn’t think it was the root cause. His job was to test me for cognitive, developmental, and learning disabilities, and he did just that; therefore, not mentioning anything about an anxiety disorder. In the end, he recommended my parents take me to a child psychiatrist so they could determine if my protest was due to emotional distress manifesting as behavioral rebellion.

I was a good child. At that stage of my childhood, there was nothing rebellious about me. I was too anxious to act out in any way.
In young children, logic is not developed in the brain yet so they function from an instinctual, gut-feeling level. To me, school felt scary and unsafe so I didn’t want to go. It was that simple to me, and I couldn’t understand why my parents didn’t get that; much like my parents didn’t understand why it was so difficult for me to get up in the morning with my siblings and go to school every day. It was a frustrating battle on both ends.

A few days later, I found myself in a child psychiatrist’s office with both my parents. Straightaway, I felt uncomfortable, nervous, judged, talked about, and looked down upon. As my parents shook hands with the pompous-looking man, I sheepishly took a seat on the couch, peering around the room. The office was not ‘kid-friendly’ but rather a bit intimidating. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with psychology and self-help books. The white walls held his framed credentials. His desk was neatly arranged in a minimal fashion with a flat desk-calendar covered in sticky notes, highlighted appointments, and a single photo of his family. His wife and children looked like perfectly manicured robots posed for their family portrait; with their polo shirts, and cardigans over their shoulders, their khaki pants, penny loafers, and plastic smiles. I didn’t like this guy.

As soon as my parents sat to join me on the couch, I snuggled up close to my mom hiding my face in her lap, curling myself into a tiny “safety-ball”. As though, “If I can’t see them, then they can’t see me.”
In a mocking tone the therapist snarked, “Well, I guess Whitney won’t be joining us today.” Followed by a fake, guttural laugh prompting my parents to join in.
I gritted my teeth, clenched my jaw, and squeezed my body tighter. “What an ass hat!” I thought to myself, still curled up next to my mom.
Anxiety started to take over. A wave of adrenaline rushed through my little body. I wanted nothing more than to get up and run out of the room away from my own self, leaving the anxiety behind, trapped in that room. I listened to what my mother was saying, trying to shift my focus away from the relentless anxiety pumping through my veins.

She started the conversation by explaining all that led us to be in his office, emphasizing the protest of not going to school. She explained everything from how she felt there was something beyond me just being shy, to how I had been virtually attached to her hip since day one.

The psychiatrist asked questions like, “Does Whitney go to friends’ houses to play? Does she engage in any extracurricular activities? Is she able to go outside and play on her own? How is her overall attitude toward life? Does she get along with her siblings?” My parents’ summary to all the doctor’s questions was that I was a happy child, but a scared child. I wanted to join in with what my friends and siblings were engaging in, but something was always holding me back.
The psychiatrist paused, and I could feel his attention shift toward me. He tried speaking to me again but to no avail. Still hiding my face in my mother’s lap, curled in my safety- ball, I could hear my father defeatedly say, “This is what happens at home when we try speaking with Whitney about something she doesn’t like. There is no communication.” My dad was waving his white flag. He didn’t know how to help me and was surrendering to the doctor for help.
Along came another drawn-out, dramatic pause from the psychiatrist. I could hear him tapping his pen against his notepad placed on his crossed-legged lap. After letting out a long, unnecessarily loud exhalation, he broke the silence.
He told my parents I was simply choosing to be defiant and testing my boundaries with authority. He said my parents were being too “soft” with me. He told them they had to take control and break the cycle I had created of thinking I was in charge. He told my father to physically remove me from my bed in the morning, if need be, to get me out the door and to school with my sister and brother. He promised them that once I got into an everyday routine and understood the boundaries of authority, I would start attending school without a fight.
I was silently screaming on the inside that the doctor had it all wrong. I wanted to yell at him and my parents that I was scared and afraid all the time and I didn’t know why; that I wanted to be normal and feel like all of my friends and siblings. I didn’t want to be afraid. I wanted someone to help me. I was not choosing to be this way. But nothing came out of my mouth.