Is it just me, or did anxiety become more of a thing this year?
I’ve spent the last decade working with people with anxiety disorders of all types. It’s one of those areas that I feel like I can be especially useful. When I was working as an intern in community mental health, I looked over my calendar and saw that out of everyone coming to see me, at least 80% of them had anxiety disorders. I marched up to our scheduler’s desk and said, “Hey, how come I’m getting all the anxious people?” And she responded, “I don’t know, you’re just so calm, it seems like they need Ann.” And that is how I became an expert in anxiety disorders. (Just kidding, I have lots of training, too.)
When it comes to anxiety in Christians, I know that there are even more factors at play than in the average therapy client. It’s not that my secular clients don’t have a lot going on–they for sure do–but it’s that my Christians bear this added weight of knowing that they are not supposed to worry, and sometimes it makes them feel like bad Christians. That is why I’m so passionate about doing good faith integration work. I’m afraid that too many people have told my clients over the years that they just need to have more faith, pray harder, join a Bible study, and trust God, and their anxiety will be healed. It’s this particular version of cognitive dissonance that makes anxiety in Christians even more challenging.
If you know anything about me by now, I hope you know that I am 100% committed to honoring God through my work, and I whole-heartedly believe that therapists can help resolve mental, emotional, and even spiritual problems, when done appropriately. So you’ll see as you read on that it is important to consider the WHOLE person as we root out anxiety.
Biological Anxiety
As an undergrad at Stanford, I took a lower-level psychology course from a famous professor and author, Robert Sapolsky. He explained how animals’ nervous systems are created to activate fight or flight in response to threats, and that they can just as quickly shut that response down so they don’t feel stress after the threat is gone. This is Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Humans, on the other hand, are cognitively and emotionally capable of hanging onto the thoughts and feelings of that threat long after it passes, so our nervous systems never reset. This is what we call stress, and this is what blossoms into anxiety. It’s feeling like there is a threat when there really isn’t one presently attacking.
Biological anxiety is a function of our nervous system, and it involves our neurotransmitters, which is why sometimes depression meds like SSRIs are helpful to reduce chronic anxiety. Some families are prone to anxiety in their genes, and they also can create an environment of anxiety. Trauma often provokes this environmental chaos that can lead to nervous system over-activity. It’s best-practice to work with your medical doctor and/or psychiatrist as well as a therapist who you can see on a regular basis.
Situational Anxiety
There have been a few periods in my life that have been particularly anxiety-provoking. While I’m normally the “cool as a cucumber” type, I’m also an Enneagram 3, so I put a lot of pressure and emphasis on achievements. Starting my private practice in 2016 was probably the highest anxiety period of my life. Starting up Soul Grit Resources during the middle of the global pandemic with two parents in the hospital and three kids “distance learning” is a close second. Situational anxiety is the type that comes as goes as life throws you different pitches. It resolves when the stressor changes or ends, and it doesn’t seem to cause lasting impact on your physical state, although it can be accompanied by stomach and digestive issues, headaches, fatigue, and body aches while it’s happening. The best approach for situational anxiety is to press into your support system, make time for rest and self-care, and to keep an eternal perspective (that’s code for talking to God and listening through His Word). In short, the best way to reduce situational anxiety is pretty much summed up in the Bible when God shows us the importance of community, models rest for us, and teaches us to pray and listen. And of course, talking things through with a good therapist is a great way to get through this.
Spiritual Anxiety
There is a type of anxiety that manifests in both Christians and non-Christians when they feel out of sync with their Creator. Secular clients will sense that things aren’t right, and they will turn to things like meditation, being a good person, or increasing self-care to deal with it. As I mentioned above, Christians can be bothered by this on a whole other level because of their awareness of the gravity of their estrangement from God. And let me say, it’s not always estrangement that causes the dissonance, it’s often the opposite–it can be those times when you worked hard to listen and obey and walk the narrow path, and then it felt like God didn’t show up, you couldn’t understand what He was doing, and life doesn’t make sense. Spiritual anxiety can be seen throughout the Psalms as well as in several situations where biblical characters recognized a dissonance and questioned God or Jesus about it. Tim Keller preached an excellent sermon where he highlighted the ways the Bible treats fear and anxiety and teaches a biblical response to those feelings.
Spiritually Oppressive Anxiety
There have been times in life when the anxiety seems out of proportion to the circumstances, but it seems in direct proportion to our efforts to bring glory to God. During these times, I want to suggest that there may be an actual “spirit” of anxiety that can oppress believers. Especially if you haven’t dealt with anxiety before, or you sense that others in your household are experiencing the same increase in anxiety, it’s worthwhile to ask the Lord to reveal to you whether any spirits could be oppressing you and your household. I’m not trying to get woowoo on you, but we do see throughout the Scriptures, from King Saul to the miracles of Jesus, that “unclean” spirits have been allowed to oppress everyone from the king of Israel to the small boy who repeatedly threw himself into the fire. If God reveals to you that you do have a spiritual oppressor, don’t be afraid. You have authority in the name of Jesus and you can command that oppressor to flee from you. Call a friend, pray over your home and your family and yourself.
What types of anxiety have you seen most often? How did you deal with it?
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