A couple of months ago, I asked my doctor to remove the word anxiety from my medical chart.
It might not sound radical, but it felt incredibly liberating.
I also had them remove IBS—another label that had haunted me for decades,
like a tattoo across my identity.
These weren’t just conditions.
They became how I explained myself.
At countless appointments, I’d lead with it: I’m anxious. My stomach hurts.
It shaped how I saw myself—and how I was seen.
It controlled what I said yes to, where I went, and how I showed up in the world… or didn’t.
But anxiety wasn’t just a diagnosis.
It was a signal.
Beneath the labels, the coping, the constant managing,
I now see it as a messenger—
from wounds I didn’t yet have language for.
The Hidden Architecture—Shame, Fear, Separation
Like an invisible framework woven through my body and life,
shame, fear, and a sense of separation shaped how I moved through the world—
what I avoided, what I believed about myself, and where I never let myself go.
They lived in my nervous system.
I felt them most acutely in my stomach.
Shame was the silent conviction that something was inherently wrong with me.
It didn’t just live in my mind—it lived in how I felt on high alert walking into a room.
In how I second-guessed what I said, even in casual conversations.
It showed up at school when I blushed too easily.
In report cards that said “bright, but distracted.”
In the way I held my breath at home, waiting for the next criticism.
Why did everyone else seem to move through life with so much more ease?
I made myself smaller just to feel acceptable.
Fear was the constant hum beneath my days—
the dread that something bad would happen,
the pit in my stomach I always felt during any kind of transition.
It was the dizziness in crowded spaces.
But fear wasn’t always loud.
Sometimes it was a tightening in my chest while packing for a trip.
Sometimes it was standing in line at a store and suddenly needing to leave.
It showed up in elevators, crowded rooms, unfamiliar streets.
I’d tell myself I was fine.
I’d try to act normal.
But my heart would pound, my vision would blur,
and all I could think about was escape.
I didn’t have the language for panic.
I just thought something was wrong with me.
So I made my world smaller.
I planned around exits. I avoided plans altogether.
It wasn’t fear of any one thing.
It was fear of falling apart in public—
of being seen unraveling,
and no one knowing what to do with it.
Not even me.
Separation was the absence of soothing—
the hollow ache of growing up without siblings,
without emotional language, without connection.
I remember sitting alone in my room,
feelings too big to name,
with no one to mirror back: You’re okay. You’re safe. I see you. I’ve got you.
I became fluent in silence.
I filled the space with daydreams, books, and diary entries I tore out and threw away.
From a young age, I adapted.
I scanned rooms for danger.
I stayed quiet.
I over-functioned.
And then, eventually, I rebelled—and got in trouble.
I was always blamed for causing problems,
for bringing shame into the home.
But much of that shame wasn’t mine to carry.
I walked through life with an ongoing awareness of not being safe.
The First Fracture
At 17, I had my first full-blown panic attack.
I landed in the hospital for a week.
They ran every test—EKGs, scans, bloodwork.
Everything came back normal.
Except I wasn’t.
There was no name for what I was going through—
just the unspoken shame of being “the girl who panicked.”
I started to fear the fear itself.
I felt unsafe in my own body.
Disoriented in public.
Terrified I’d fall apart without warning.
I became agoraphobic, though no one used that word.
I just knew I needed to stay close to home.
Even then, I couldn’t relax.
And like my dad, I discovered alcohol.
It quieted the noise.
But the anxiety always came back—with a vengeance.
Performing Wellness
For years, I parented myself as best I could.
I found comfort in structure—school, work, routines.
I devoured books on psychology and spirituality.
I went on weekend retreats along the California coast in Big Sur.
Exercised. Meditated. Journaled.
Ate clean. Practiced mindfulness.
I did breathwork, tried CBT, took the supplements.
I did all the things we’re told will lead to peace.
But a fracture in that invisible framework remained.
Healing wasn’t about merging with the universe or simply managing symptoms.
It was about meeting the source.
That’s why—even after doing everything—
there was a part of me that still felt split.
The Wake-Up Call of Grief
When my mother died, everything surfaced.
The structure I had built—work, caretaking, routine—collapsed.
No deadlines. No demands.
And I was left wondering:
Who was I outside of these roles?
I felt physically unwell.
Doctors barely looked at me before reaching for the prescription pad.
And then the panic attacks returned—
the kind I hadn’t had since growing up in Park Slope.
They came back fast and hard.
Out of nowhere, and everywhere.
Like my body had stored it all
and was finally letting it loose.
Brooklyn itself had become a trigger.
I numbed, distracted, avoided.
But in the quiet aftermath, something broke open.
Oddly, I could hear my mother’s voice in my head:
Get up. Get dressed. Get out.
She never actually said those words together.
She didn’t speak in emotional language—
but she passed down a kind of kinetic, forward-moving strength.
And when everything fell apart, that energy resurfaced.
It was like an abrupt wake-up call—
an anchor back to my standards,
a way to return to myself.
So I listened.
I got up, got dressed, got out.
I exercised. I cooked.
And eventually, I started writing again.
Writing was something I did as a child
to get the energy out—
a way to go inward and listen.
I wandered through corridors of memory, collecting fragments.
I sat with them, piece by piece.
And slowly, I stopped running from the shadow.
The Return to Self
Today, I no longer treat anxiety as a flaw to fix.
I treat it as a compass.
I listen to the signals.
I rest when I’m overstimulated.
I set boundaries around energy.
I regulate my nervous system through rhythm, space, and honesty.
It’s more than a schedule—
it’s a standard of care I’ve created for myself.
Shame still whispers.
Fear still hums.
And connection can feel just out of reach.
But I meet them now—with curiosity instead of judgment.
True healing begins when we turn toward the wound, not away from it.
When we stop pretending we are separate from ourselves..
When we offer compassion to the parts of us
that have only ever wanted to belong.
“Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do is just show up.”
— Brené Brown
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