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2: A Perfect Storm
194 Plays3 years ago
Ever wondered what happens during a nervous breakdown? How do you recognize the signs and symptoms? And what in the world do you do if it happens to you or someone you love?
In her soothing voice, Laura shares exactly what her breakdown looked and felt like. She shares a helpful analogy to explain how anxiety feels on the inside and offers hope and help to those who have received a mental health diagnosis.
Seeking The Still Website: Seekingthestill.com
Seeking The Still Instagram: Instagram.com/seekingthestill
Seeking The Still Facebook: Facebook.com/seekthestill
Series sponsor: Altered Ministries - https://alteredministries.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Seeking the Still
00:00:01
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Seeking the Still is produced by Jill Devine Media. Season one is brought to you by Altered Ministries. Jane Patton and her team are transforming the lives of women and children all over the world, including orphanages, recovery homes, and more. Learn how you can support them and be part of these life changing ministries at alteredministries.com.
Creating a Safe Space in Chaos
00:00:24
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Welcome to the Seeking the Still podcast with me, your host, Laura Fleetwood.
00:00:34
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In this safe space, we come together to seek the still amid chaotic lives, to get honest about what overwhelms us, to become connected to one another and to the divine, to step into who we were created to be. Always real, never perfect, and forever on your side.
Ignoring Anxiety and the Facade of Strength
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37 years of stuffing my feelings,
00:01:02
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of hiding my worry and anxiety by trying to be perfect, by trying to win people's approval, by pretending that my life on the inside was as great as it looked on the outside. Looking back, I wonder how I managed for 37 years.
00:01:26
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Why didn't the breakdown come sooner? A human being wasn't made to keep that much pain and chaos hidden away, tucked into the deepest recess of your mind. In the end, it was a perfect storm that brought all of the tiny pebbles that had been falling into one mountainous boulder that came tumbling down the mountain of my life.
00:01:56
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My body had been sending SOS signals for a long time. The insomnia, the anxiety attacks when I couldn't sleep, nausea, weight loss.
00:02:09
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worry, racing thoughts. Those are all our body's way of telling us that something needs our attention. And even though I had had doctors tell me that it was anxiety, and even though I had people in my life saying it's time to let go of some things and focus on getting healthy, I didn't listen. I didn't want to believe that I wasn't the strong person that I had always thought I was.
00:02:39
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So when those symptoms kept building and the chaotic schedule of my life kept building and with this auction just weeks away and all of the pressure and to-do lists and
The Breakdown at the Auction
00:02:55
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working from morning till night, taking care of my girls while Justin traveled three weeks at a time internationally. It was a perfect storm and it all came to a head the morning of this infamous auction that I had agreed to chair against Justin's best advice several months before.
00:03:20
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I remember that I didn't sleep at all the night before the auction. Justin was in Brazil and he was actually flying home the morning of the auction. He was going to meet me at old Hickory golf club where the event was held. And my parents had come into town. They knew I was struggling. I didn't sleep at all the night before. And my mom had to drive me early that morning to the country club where setup was to begin.
00:03:50
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And I remember sitting in a chair and watching all of the beautiful team members that I'd been working with, setting everything up, putting out the balloons and the decorations and all of the items that were to be auctioned off that evening. And I couldn't move. I sat in a chair and stared.
00:04:16
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My mind was filled with everything that could go wrong, knowing that I was supposed to be in charge and recognizing that my body was saying, you're done.
00:04:37
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It seems so simple. You always hear of people suffering a nervous breakdown or being hospitalized for exhaustion and nobody ever tells you what that really looks like. I guess it's different for everybody, but for me, it was overwhelming fear.
00:05:00
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of everything and nothing. Because if you would have asked me that morning what I was fearful of, I don't know that I could have told you. The thoughts in my head were so chaotic and the fight or flight response in my body had been building and had been so persistent for so long, like putting a frog in a pot of water on the stove
00:05:30
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and slowly turning up the temperature so that as the frog becomes accustomed to the rising temperature, he doesn't realize that he's slowly being cooked until the water is boiling and he's just about ready to die.
00:05:48
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That is what my breakdown was like. Looking back, I see it so clearly that my body was crying out for help. God was putting people in my life to tell me that I needed help.
00:06:04
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And I just kept pushing forward with the philosophy of never let them see a sweat, just work harder, just plow your way through until I got to the point of sitting in a country club on a Saturday morning in a chair unable to move.
00:06:25
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And Justin came immediately from the airport to the country club that morning. I remember he walked in. He took one look at me and he said out loud, what the hell happened to my wife?
00:06:41
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The rest of that day is somewhat of a blur, but I do remember going home, laying in bed and making a phone call to the woman who was co-chairing the auction with me and saying, I don't think I can come. I think that I just can't do it.
Societal Pressures of Perfection
00:07:01
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And she said, it's okay. We've got it covered. And she was so graceful and so kind. And then my father came in to the bedroom and gave me a serious talking to you. And he said, Laura, you've been working on this event for months.
00:07:21
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get your ass out of bed and go. So I got in the shower. I remember taking a shower and throwing up in the shower. I remember getting ready. I curled my hair and I put on my makeup. Justin drove me in complete silence and I attended. Somehow I even got up and gave a speech at the auction. The team carried it off without a hitch while I pretty much sat in my chair all night.
00:07:51
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And there's one thing I remember so vividly at some point in the night, I got up to walk around and someone I knew fairly well stopped me and was just gushing about how great everything was. And she said, you know, I just told my husband that everything Laura Fleetwood touches turns to gold. And in that moment, it hit me.
00:08:20
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I had created such an unattainable standard for myself. No human being can turn everything to gold.
00:08:34
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And yet that is what I had expected of myself and what others had come to expect about me. And I, I look at pictures of that night. There's one of me smiling sitting next to Justin and you would have never known looking at that picture. You would never know that that was a woman in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
00:08:57
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So that was what should have been a turning point for me. But after that day, I sank even lower because I finally realized that something serious was going on. And yet I didn't know what to do. So this is what I wrote in my journal about a week after the auction.
00:09:20
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It says you always hear that your life can change in a moment, how nothing will ever be the same. I find myself in an excruciating predicament. Everything I thought I knew about myself has been smashed to pieces and then smashed some more. I've gone from a picture-perfect feel-good life to one where I don't know if I'll make it from one minute to the next.
00:09:44
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that season preceding the breakdown was marked by what I call overdrive. Looking back in my life, I can see this tendency for me to go into periods of overdrive where I would just become focused on projects, on people, on achievements, and that overdrive
Pushing Beyond Limits
00:10:11
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which the world looks at as a very good thing and tells you to keep doing more of that because you get a lot of things done and you're very successful. That overdrive was what eventually pushed my body and my mind and my spirit to the limit.
00:10:30
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I'm always looking for creative ways that I can support organizations that are doing good around the world and fun ways that are also creative and inspirational. Our season sponsor, Altered Ministry, has two of these that I want to share with you today. They are now offering monthly gift boxes that are filled with the most beautiful, delightful, quaint, and lovely items that are perfect for the season.
00:10:55
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you can order them at alteredministries.com slash gift boxes. And they also have a t-shirt of the month. All of the proceeds from the gift boxes and the t-shirts go to benefit the work that Altered Ministry does in orphanages, recovery homes, and even in prisons. It is a beautiful ministry to support, so I invite you to check those out.
00:11:17
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Curious thing about anxiety is that the more anxious you feel and the more crazy your thoughts are, the more you turn inward instead of outward to get those thoughts out of your head, to verbalize them, to share, to process them. Your body goes into defense mode, into like self-protection mode, and you curl in like a fetal position. You curl in with your body and you curl in with your mind.
00:11:47
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So even though I was going through this darkest time, I didn't talk about it really. I think I googled a lot and I was seeing my therapist, but it wasn't really helping. And this is what I wrote about a month after the breakdown. I'm going through a bad spell again. Why is this happening? I literally feel like I want to crawl out of my skin.
00:12:15
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My hand is always in the fist. My feet are curled. I had to jump up from bed this morning because I couldn't take the tension anymore. The only time it's better is after a walk, but I can't walk the rest of my life away. The scary thoughts feed on themselves and soon I don't know what's real and what's only in my head.
Living with Chronic Anxiety
00:12:37
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Here's the thing about anxiety. It is so hard to describe to somebody who has never struggled with it. And if you are listening and you are the loved one of somebody who struggles with anxiety, please hear me when I say that the physical symptoms of anxiety are so very real.
00:13:01
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Your mind is so powerful. The thoughts in your head cause physical reactions in your body. I like to describe it as that feeling you get if you step out into a street and a car whizzes by and almost hits you, that adrenaline rush that goes through your body, your heart starts pounding, you feel nauseous, your mind kind of goes into overdrive.
00:13:28
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That adrenaline rush of that very real stressful situation is what happens in the body of somebody who is struggling with chronic anxiety. That level of adrenaline, it's actually the chemical called cortisol in your body, rises to such a level.
00:13:51
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Unlike the situation of stepping out in front of a car, where you eventually calm down, your stress response in your body calms down, your nerves calm down, and you go back to a state of well-being, with persistent chronic anxiety, your thoughts keep triggering that cortisol rush. And so you're constantly living in this state of elevated adrenaline.
00:14:21
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And so the feeling doesn't go away from the moment you wake up in the morning until the moment you go to bed at night. It's like you're staring down a car speeding at you 60 miles an hour. So imagine trying to function in your day and to pay attention to what people are saying around you and to get your work done and to
00:14:44
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Be a loving, caring wife and mom when you have that kind of physical, chemical response going on in your body. Anxiety is a very real thing, but to the person who struggles, it may be difficult for them to describe.
00:15:06
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So at this point, I went back to the therapist that my pastor had recommended. It was about a month after that initial evaluation that I filled out. And I told you about in episode one, and I have a copy of the second evaluation and things had gotten a lot worse. Little interest or pleasure in doing things. I answered nearly every day, feeling down, depressed, or hopeless.
00:15:33
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nearly every day. Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep or sleeping too much nearly every day. Feeling tired or having little energy nearly every day. Poor appetite or overeating more than half of the days. Feeling bad about yourself or that you are a failure or that you have let yourself or your family down nearly every day.
00:15:55
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trouble concentrating on things such as reading the newspaper or watching television more than half the days. Things were worse and the therapist was concerned.
Misdiagnosis and Mental Health Evaluations
00:16:07
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And I want to tell you guys what happened and I'm not going to blame him or judge him, but I think this is important for you to know because it sent me into a tailspin. And if this happens to you, I want to encourage you to seek a second opinion. So as I was sharing how I was feeling after the breakdown,
00:16:31
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He became very concerned and said, please go get your husband. Justin was in the waiting room. I'd like to talk to him with you. So he brought Justin in and he proceeded to tell us that he thought that I was bipolar and that I was experiencing a depressive episode after a manic episode.
00:16:53
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And this sent me over the edge because I didn't know what that meant. And the way he proceeded to say, I need you to see a doctor today, and I'm going to call my personal physician today for you to see, it just made everything worse.
00:17:17
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because this counselor who had only seen me two times, maybe three at the most, was diagnosing me with a mental disorder that to me sounded very scary.
00:17:33
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So I did go to his doctor and his doctor said to me, I don't know why he said that to you. You do not have bipolar disorder. You have anxiety. And it was wrong of him to scare you like that.
00:17:54
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I share that story simply as a cautionary tale that when it comes to your mental health and getting a diagnosis, it's important to meet with doctors that you trust, that you know, and to get multiple opinions, I think, every time that there is a diagnosis.
00:18:17
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Because what happened is in my heightened state of panic and anxiety, hearing that sent me into this whirlwind of research about psychiatric diseases.
00:18:32
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And I Googled and I researched everything from schizophrenia to bipolar to depression, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, you name it. I became obsessed with trying to figure out what was wrong with me. And that is such an unhealthy place for someone to be who was in my state of mind.
The Problem with Self-Diagnosing
00:18:59
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I love psychiatrists. I love psychologists. As you'll hear in the rest of my story, they have played such a helpful role.
00:19:10
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but they're only human and there are so many complexities to the human mind that it's just important to seek opinions and to stay away from Google. Any of you that struggle with anxiety and any of you who love someone who struggles with anxiety, please encourage them not to Google anything related to their diagnosis or their symptoms because
00:19:39
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What you'll find is that the internet tells you all of the most horrible stories and almost none of the good.
Hope Amidst Struggles
00:19:48
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And that is one of my deepest passions for this podcast is to shine a light, a very honest, raw light into what it looks like, into what it feels like, but to show that there is so much hope. So much hope.
00:20:06
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Unfortunately, it was going to be still some time before that hope would start to shine a light in my life. In the meantime, here are a few things that I wrote in my journal. I keep looking for the quick fix, but I don't see that happening. I'm so sad that I can't be a more engaged wife, mom, and friend. I'm so consumed with my thoughts and how I'm feeling that I feel as detached from everyone around me, and that makes me so sad.
00:20:33
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I have such a hard time opening up to people, sharing and nurturing real relationships. What am I so scared of? I'm scared that people will see the real me and know I'm a fraud. That they will see the great mask I wear for what it really is. A way to hide myself from everyone, even myself.
00:20:52
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I know that God loves me for me, but do I really get that? Can I accept that? Can that be enough for me? Why not? The battle of my mind is fierce and I'm so distracted by this and that. I feel like a butterfly fluttering from one thing to the next thinking, this is it. This will make me feel better. This is the fix.
00:21:10
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Then I'm just disappointed and back where I began and feeling even worse. I want to scream, rip my hair out, break something, yell at someone. I'm filled with sadness, rage, despair, jitters, pent up energy all at the same time.
00:21:25
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It's maddening to be here, utterly maddening, and I feel so helpless that everything I try to do or research just adds to my list of things I think I need to work on, which just makes me feel more overwhelmed. How do people ever get through this? I want rest and joy again. I want to feel happy and content and calm. I feel anything but those things. I am sad.
Calming and Educative Content by Laura
00:21:55
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I don't know about you, but I always learn something and feel so much better and so much more relaxed after I listen to Laura. I'm Jill Devine, and as her producer, her co-worker, and most importantly, her friend, I can tell you that she has some amazing resources to help you
00:22:13
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seek this still in your life. In fact, Laura would love to send you a completely free video master class that helps you learn how to twirl your way through your next difficult day. It's five short videos from Laura herself that will land in your inbox and in her calming voice, she'll explain what that acronym twirl means and how it will help you transform your hard
Navigating Difficult Days with TWIRL
00:22:35
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days.
00:22:35
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All you have to do is text the word twirl to the number 55444. These videos are perfect for the girls in your life too, so make sure you grab the free twirl master class while you can. Text twirl, that's T-W-I-R-L, T-W-I-R-L to 55444, that's 55,
00:22:56
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or sign up for it at seeking the still.com. You will be so glad you did and make sure you've subscribed to seeking the still because Laura will continue her story and her journey with you in a new episode that launches every Wednesday.
00:23:12
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So again, subscribe to Seeking the Still on the podcast platform of your choice, and then you will be notified when a new episode releases. But just know every Wednesday, you will get a new episode and new inspiration from Laura.
Wisdom Through Suffering
00:23:28
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And she's going to leave you right now with an inspirational quote.
00:23:33
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He who learns must suffer and even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair against our will comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. Be still.