Adventures in Anxiety: How Dropping Food on the Floor Means We're Going to Die on the Streets

I'm pretty sure I have un-diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder.  Most of the time I'm fine, but sometimes even the smallest and most innocuous stimulus can start a ridiculous spiral in my brain.  I'm proud to say I can go from zero to utter catastrophe in a few small mental leaps.

Let's say, for instance, that someone leaves a spoon with food on it in the sink without rinsing or washing it.  Here's what happens in my head:

There is a dirty spoon in the sink - therefore - we will get ants or other bugs - therefore - the cats will become diseased - therefore - more bugs will come - therefore - our condo will become infested with bugs and disease - therefore - the condo association will ask us to leave (of course, we'd have to keep paying the mortgage) - therefore - we will be homeless - therefore - we will die on the streets.

See how easy that was?  There is a dirty spoon in the sink = we will die on the streets.

This time, the trigger was my husband's insanely large appetite.  Admittedly, I did not grow up around a lot of men.  Apart from my father (who I never remember eating that much), I really didn't have a very good understanding of how much food most men eat. They eat a TON of food, you guys.  For example, I bought two bags of clementines (each contained about 30 of them).  From when I bought them on Sunday to when we ran out of them on Thursday, I had eaten only about 10 of them.

I am assuming that one way or another, the remaining 50 clementines ended up in my husband's mouth.  He is almost always hungry and I am almost always anxious about it.  I have this terrible fear that he is going to starve or get scurvy (obviously not this week, though) or that he will lose weight and his family will notice and hate me for not feeding him enough.

Part of this is because I grew up half-Lebanese, which means if you live in my house, I am going to spend 75% of our interactions trying to feed you.  I will do the same thing if you visit my house, FYI.  If you're hungry and you're hanging out with me, you're in the right place.

Recently, we bought into a CSA (community supported agriculture) program through a local farm.  In this week's share, one of the things we got was an eggplant.  I was really excited about this, because I love Chinese food and I think I'm pretty okay at cooking it and one of my favorite dishes is eggplant in garlic sauce.  I was also excited because I figured I could make one stir fry and then have it be a large enough amount of food.  Basically, I figured this stir fry was going to be a temporary answer to the nagging feeling that I am starving my husband to death.

So I got the wok out and started making eggplant in garlic sauce.  The apartment smelled awesome and I had a lovely stir fry at the end of it.  Definitely enough, I thought.  And tasty!  Zack agreed.  

So I made a pot of rice and let that cool off a little bit.  I started packing everything up for our lunches tomorrow and had to stop when I realized that Zack's lunch bag was nowhere to be found.  I asked him where it was and he told me that it broke.  To just use some other bag for now.  My first inclination was to use a blue plastic bag, but I decided against it.  For some reason, I thought it wouldn't be strong enough to hold a glass container of stir fry.  Against my first instinct, I decided to use an old square shopping bag (the thick paper kind with the strings for handles - you know what bag I mean - like a gift bag, sort of).  The bottom fell out of this plan.  Quite literally.

So just like that, there went my temporary anxiety antidote and thus began the spiral.  Obviously since there was no eggplant in garlic sauce, there would be no lunch whatsoever for anyone and both of us would be loopy at work and Zack wouldn't do his job well.

Then, of course, he'd get fired and since we can't survive on my income alone, we'd just get further and further behind in the bills until eventually we'd have to give the cats to a better home.  Then I'd feel guilty about that and I'd miss them terribly, not to mention their new people friends would silently judge me for being a terrible cat parent.  Zack would become increasingly despondent and that, of course would be my fault.  Because I dropped the stir fry on the floor.

See how easy that was?  I dropped the stir-fry = we're homeless, possibly with mental issues.

Once I had composed myself, I made another stir fry (with yellow squash).  It wasn't as good, of course and we're out one lidded glass container now.  It took me hours to get over the I-wasted-food guilt and then hours to get over my oh-god-what-if-I-really-AM-starving Zack guilt.  

I'm mentally exhausted now, all because I have a hard time controlling my anxiety.  I have to think that there is some purpose for it.  That in a post-apocalyptic world, let's say, the fight or flight response will be totally necessary and well timed.  

I always tell myself that in the right circumstances, I'd be like Tina Turner in Beyond Thunderdome.  

Adventures of the Chronically Malcontent

 

 

An Open Letter of Apology to my Husband: Sharing the Load

Dear Zack,

I had a ton of ideas about what it would mean to be a wife.  That it would mean that I'd have to stop complaining.  That I'd have to suddenly change my entire disposition and stop being so particular, so critical, such a perfectionist.  That I'd have to muster patience that I don't naturally have or develop a gentle spirit that is antithetical to my sense of urgency in "getting things done."  In some subconscious headspace, I told myself that I would have to smooth over all of my rough edges all at once and that I would have to somehow dilute my intensity in order to keep us emotionally afloat.

There were two major errors in my thinking.  1)  In trying to change my fundamental nature, I must have somehow forgotten that those were some of the characteristics that made you want to marry me in the first place.  Sorry about that.  2)  I arrogantly thought that the burden of every responsibility rested squarely upon my shoulders.

I am guilty of that in a lot of different aspects of my life, not just in our marriage.  I am guilty of self-reliance-to-a fault.  In short, I am guilty of thinking that if I don't do something, that means that it isn't going to get done. 

If I don't do the dishes, no one will ever do the dishes.

If I don't worry about the money, no one will ever worry about the money.

If I don't ask you a thousand times to do something, you won't remember to do it.

If I don't think about the future, neither of us will ever think about the future.

Self-reliance has always been extremely important to me.  It has always been very important to be capable of everything (and more) that I ask of other people.  But sometimes I get very carried away with this and I forget that by refusing to let you shoulder any of the responsibility, I am refusing to recognize you as your own moral agent, as an adult and as my husband.

I am sorry that I have been operating under the assumption that if you don't do something exactly the way I would, that you must be doing it wrong.

I am sorry for assuming that you aren't as concerned with things as I am.

I am sorry for being so arrogant as to think that I am the only person in our partnership capable of shouldering the load, so to speak.

I'm a big believer in psych-somatic symptoms and it was very humbling that when I found myself with a thrown-out back (some might say as a result of physical exertion, but perhaps it was a universal check for thinking that I am strong enough to carry everything in the world all by myself) this weekend, I also found myself unable to do anything.  I had to have faith in the fact that you would be the one doing everything and that I would just have to lay there on a bag of frozen peas and let you.  

Of course, you did.  You took care of every responsibility that needed to be taken care of.  You made sure I had everything I needed.  You even went out of your way to try to cheer me up when I got frustrated about not being able to do everything alone.  You let me be ridiculous and you loved me anyways.  I don't know what I thought would happen if I ever just let go and waited to see how things panned out.  I think on the fear-based side of things, I just pictured empty food containers, hungry cats and dirty dishes.  

So please accept my open apology to you for selling you short.  In the future, I am going to be better at sharing our responsibilities and at allowing to do things on your own time and in your own way.  

I love you,

-Your Wife