If anybody else had the distinct privilege of reading The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka as a child, then you understand the reference in the title of this post. If not, allow me to expand your literary horizons. This children’s book includes many “fairy-tale” like stories that are branded “fairly stupid tales” as they are ridiculous with their characters and subject matter. Case in point – the stinky cheese man replaces the gingerbread man in an eerily similar story courtesy of public domain.

This is the perfect analogy for the self-talk of someone with Anxiety. Instead of the narrative of what’s actually happening in a situation going through our head, it often turns into a narrative that it slightly changed to be less pleasant, but only slightly so that it’s still believable. And thus, we wind up with stinky cheese instead of gingerbread, and I don’t have to tell you that those are two vastly different flavors and not exactly pleasant when you’re expecting the other.

How many of you have felt personally victimized by Anxiety?

Mean Girls reference for any of you who missed it – thank you Tina Fey.

Well my hand is raised. I’ve had the “honor” of experiencing not only generalized anxiety and anxiety attacks, but social anxiety as well. Triple the fun! So let’s talk about these:

Generalized Anxiety – You know that feeling of unease when you’re walking around after dark? No? I’m sorry, you must be a man. Let me rephrase, you know that feeling when you’re walking through the forest with known grizzly bear sightings nearby after dark unarmed? If not, imagine it. Our bodies can actually do really incredible things in this state as it was designed to protect us from those bears, dinosaurs, what have you. We’re faster than we normally would be and have more stamina to help us get through the fight of our lives. Literally. However, prolonged stress in this state is not good for us and can take years off our life. Gee thanks evolution for not putting in an off switch that’s easily accessible… Anyway, generalized anxiety comes from our brain telling us that we need to still be in this fight or flight mode but it won’t tell us why. If it did tell us why, then we might be able to realize there’s not a good reason for it. However, our brains also don’t like things being unfinished or ambiguous, so we’ll tell ourselves stories to make sense of a situation. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll just short circuit – hello anxiety attack. Those are fun. More on those in a minute. Generalized anxiety also leads to an intense desire for control, for just about every aspect of life. Because if we can control it, then we can limit the unknown and thus there’s nothing for our brain to autofill with stinky cheese stories. Extremely severe, uncontrolled versions of this lead to OCD.

Anxiety Attacks – These are physiological responses to heightened states of anxiety. Sometimes they have a trigger, sometimes they just result from your anxiety reaching critical mass. For those of you lucky enough to have never experienced these, let me try to explain them. They’re not panic attacks, as those involve you not knowing what’s happening and often feeling like you’re not able to breathe. Sometimes scaring folks so bad they wind up in the ER seeking lifesaving treatment as it feels like it’s necessary. Anxiety attacks are their eccentric cousin. Anxiety attacks, for me at least, look like an overload of feelings that you can’t stop from spewing out. Usually I spontaneously burst into tears which then leads to hyperventilating like any intense crying session does. They’ll last for a few minutes if someone else notices and tries to help me out, or maybe longer if I have to drag myself out of it. Basically, I can’t self-regulate my emotions as a result of my anxiety building or being so drastically triggered, so they all come out at once at like volume 7000. Then I’ll feel like I’ve just run a marathon and gotten hit by a school bus at the same time. (Hello subtle Mean Girls reference again). Let’s just say they’re less than pleasant.

Social Anxiety – This is what it sounds like, but it’s nuanced as well. This can look like being uncomfortable in social situations to varying levels of severity. This can include lots of self-talk about how you’re “doing it wrong.” This can lead to a type of paralysis in interactions where you can’t do much in the moment and then afterward you think “Oh, if I had just done _____ I would have been fine. I should have know that” – cue shame spiral and more negative self-talk. It’s a merry-go-round that you can’t get off. Well, you can but it requires a lot of therapy and time.

All of these types of anxiety can ebb and flow depending on what season of life you’re in.

For Me – There was a time in my 20s where all three of these were dialed all the way up for years. And it was miserable. And exhausting. My generalized anxiety is fairly well under control with the help of therapeutic tools learned in years of therapy. That, and my life is going well at the moment so my triggers are low. As a result, I haven’t had an anxiety attack in at least a year, maybe longer but my memory is fuzzy and the last 4 years happened in like 2 minutes. Thanks COVID. My social anxiety has also been curbed for a little while, but there are setbacks here and there. A few weeks ago, my husband and I were at a party with friends but there were also “familiar strangers,” as in people I’ve seen before in many settings but have absolutely nothing to do with on a regular basis. There was a meal involved and so we grabbed our food buffet style and then needed to find our seats. I literally stood frozen at the end of the food line waiting for my husband to get through. Once he came up to me he asked where I wanted to sit. I said “you’re going to have to do this” in my this is my distressed voice, which is quite flat, clipped, and monotone. And then he picked seats, we sat, and nothing disastrous happened. I was fine. But when those moments crop up, it’s hard not to shame spiral after. Like I thought we were past this. What’s really ironic to me is this is a development later in life for me. Often the “you can’t sit with us” situation would have happened in high school – case in point, see Mean Girls (can you tell I’m sticking to this analogy with all my might?). However, anybody who knew me in high school knows that I was essentially fearless and didn’t care what anybody thought. I was myself, I knew who that was, and that was good enough. It was only after simultaneous unresolved grief and emotional trauma came into my life that I wound up my the anxiety monster that took up residence in my brain. But that’s a story for another time. And believe me, we WILL talk about it. Just not today.

The Good News: The anxiety monster doesn’t have to have a permanent residence in your mind. You can work with a therapist to help pack her bags (mine’s a her) and send her on her way. That doesn’t mean she won’t try to come and visit at times, but it does mean you have the option to shut the door in her face and not let her in, or not let her stay if she sneaks in the back door. And just like how it’s not your fault if a snake sneaks into your garage since they can find their way into lots of places, it’s not your fault if your anxiety monster sneaks back in. Just grab a shovel and go to town. And be kind to yourself if you accidentally get bit in the process.