Ok, let’s talk about feeling frantic. I think there are a few different kinds of frantic: Momentary. Seasonal. Perpetual.
Sometimes we’re momentarily frantic because of overstimulation or public speaking or feeling misunderstood and therefore defensive or getting triggered or running late to an important appointment or trying to herd the cats children out the door for any given reason.
Sometimes we’re seasonally frantic — we’re going through or have gone through a season of frantic that will ultimately pass — because of a looming deadline on a big project, a remodel, a huge transition, or an overly-ambitious schedule.
And there is this other frantic, this perpetual state of frantic, that is what we might call anxiety.
I have experienced every one of the above genres of frantic. You would not necessarily know that from looking at the outside of me. That’s the thing with frantic. Sometimes it’s spilling out of our every orifice — obvious to all those around us how buzzy and nervy we’re feeling. And sometimes it’s this constant, low-lying simmer. Both of which are tiring, shame-inducing, and difficult to do life while managing.
It’s easy to begin peppering ourselves with such questions as:
What is wrong with me?
Why can’t I just get it together?
When will I feel “normal”?
Why am I so _________________ ?
Am I going crazy?
Why can’t I think?
Why can’t I deal with ________________ ?
Why is everyone talking so loud?
Maybe your brain feels like mush. Or your body feels old and trudgy. Maybe you can’t find the word you’re looking for as quickly as you’d like. Or you can’t listen to music because it feels like a noisy assault. Maybe you’re having trouble getting tasks done, or even knowing where to start. All these things happen to me when my nervous system has been hyper-aroused. The frantic feelings leave a falling-out on my brain and body.
Like yesterday afternoon . . . when the Internet repair guy was at our house while the handyman was fixing the kitchen door with a loud electric drill and my phone was ringing and I was trying to make dinner, and all the kids were screaming outside because Elle had just gone #2 in the garden. I’m literally sweating typing this. My nervous system is not set up for this kind of onslaught.
Much of Breathing Room is about the emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental fatigue that happens when we’ve lived in that “hyper” state for too long, and then the ways in which we begin to recover if we will have the courage to let go of the Frantic Effort to Appear Recovered. Slowly. And then, of course, how we have to begin again (see chapter 4). And again.
Someone I really trust told me this recently: When we go into that frantic place, we typically start thinking immediately in either/or dichotomies. We go into fundamental black and white thinking. I either have to get divorced or live in a miserable marriage. I am either a succeeding mom or I am a failing mom. I will either leave my day job and pursue my passion or I will forget my passion altogether. I will either sell out to the masses or I will work in a cabin in the woods in total anonymity without ever letting my work out to see the light of day. Do you see? There is no “third way” in this kind of thinking. There is only either . . . or. And the magical “third way” is often where the mysterious presence of God and our soul resides. The solution is rarely, if ever, in the either/or. The solution is in the unfolding of the third way.
But the frantic brain is a black and white brain. No wonder we begin to experience fear, shame, paralysis in this state. We are being offered two options, both of which suck. And so we freeze. We frantically freeze. WHICH IS EXHAUSTING. WHICH IS SO DISCOURAGING, especially if we’ve been doing the work to get well.
I talk in this chapter about the impulse to launch into the urgent when usually what we need to do is ignore this impulse altogether and not respond to what the frantic brain is telling us to do.
I don’t know if you are momentarily, seasonally, or perpetually feeling frantic. I do know that you are loved, beautiful, deserving of steady hands and a centered soul. I do know that you are worthy, you are a Created miracle, you are so much more than the state of you mental health. AND, I know that help is out there for the taking. FOR. THE. LITERAL. TAKING. So, please get yourself support, help, reinforcements, meds, care, expert attention. Please get yourself a Breathing Buddy, like we talked about last week. Please get yourself some space in your life to breathe, some breathing room, if you will. Please treat yourself with the utmost care, as you would your dearest friend.
There are plenty of great resources out there on mental health. In fact, Glennon Melton wrote a beautiful piece just this very morning called “The Erasing” that is a brave explanation of where she is in her own journey of anxiety and depression. I highly recommend stopping by her site and drafting off a bit of her love and beauty.
I think if I were doing it over again, I might take a slightly more compassionate angle on this chapter title and call it, “Embracing Frantic” or “Welcoming Frantic” or maybe even “Accepting Frantic” . . . not because I believe it’s helpful or healthy to be frantic but, the reality is, sometimes we are. And learning to be compassionate with ourselves when we’re in that state, is one of the only ways through.
I told someone recently — we were talking about some of these frantic feelings — that it’s like your body is made up of a million raw nerve endings and every stimuli in the universe registers. “Exactly,” she said. WHICH IS SO EXHAUSTING. This nervy feeling makes it hard to not start pressing and striving and pushing past our center. But this is what’s so important . . . to not jump into action out of that frantic place, out of that either/or thinking, out of that urgent nervy buzzy reactive must-solve-it-all-now space.
So, just as I ended the chapter in the book, I want to end this post. What are today’s urgent matters? Holding our children. Turning toward our partner. Revolutionary self-care. Focusing on our own work and not someone else’s, breathing, getting the help we need. Saying a prayer for a friend in need. Taking one small step toward the third way, which is often hope.
With so much love,
Leeana
What has helped you deal with frantic feelings?
What resonated with you from this chapter or from this post?
