Strategies for Handling Church-Induced Anxiety

In my previous post, I wrote about how I was experiencing anxiety attacks whenever I had to discuss church-related topics with my family or ward members. I went to a therapist yesterday to get some advice about how to handle an attack when it occurs and also some long-term solutions for dealing with family members. The session was helpful, so I thought I'd pass on some of the guidance here.

How to Handle Anxiety Attacks

The first key is to recognize when an anxiety attack is occurring. As you pay better attention to your body, you'll start to see patterns in the situations that cause the anxiety to occur. You'll also begin to notice which symptoms you first experience when the anxiety attack is setting in. For me, it's a rapid heartbeat and I start to feel the first sensations of stress hormones.

When you start to feel the anxiety attack beginning, you need to take steps to resolve it as soon as possible. The longer an anxiety attack keeps going, the more it will spiral further downward into negativity---kind of like the snowball effect.

The first thing you need to do to resolve the anxiety attack is to consciously breathe in and out and slow your breathing down. You need to remind your body what relaxation feels like. Breathing is a cue to your body to cool down and not get upset. It helps your body's rhythms slow down and not get caught up in an intense rhythm. (It's harder for adrenaline to spread through your body when your heartbeat is down, for example.) Closing your eyes could also help.

The second thing is to get your mind focused on the present by noticing your environment. Anxiety attacks are basically caused by fears about the future that gradually crescendo and build until they become more and more extreme. So, by distracting yourself and thinking about the present, you don't allow your mind to develop fears that are centered in the future. So, look around your environment and pay attention to the tiny details of the room. Focus on the colors of the leaves of your houseplant or the patterns on the fabric of the chair you're sitting in or things like that. Live in the present. Another thing you can do is squeeze your fingers. Hold your thumb with your opposite hand and count to 5 or 10 and do that with all your other fingers until you feel better. (This works great for kids who have woken up from a nightmare too.) Take as much time as you need to be in this state.

After you've calmed down, take some time to reflect on the root cause of the anxiety. You don't have to do this right away. You can wait a few days. But when you are ready, ask yourself: what are you really afraid of? Is it based on a rational fear or an irrational fear? Think about it in terms of probabilities. For example, is it fairly probable that my father is going to disown me and never speak to me again. (No.) Is it fairly probable that he won't love me any more? (No.) And just keep talking yourself down from there until you find the border between your rational fears and your irrational ones. We spent a lot of the session talking about my irrational vs. rational fears.

Long-Term Solutions for Dealing With Family Members

I felt kind of proud of myself for realizing I needed to set boundaries before coming to the therapy session, but it was helpful to talk with the therapist about how to actually do it anyway.

The basic principle to keep in mind is to set a firm boundary but to show kindness and love at the same time. Decide what that boundary is and express it without any equivocation. Then follow it up with an expression of love. She also recommended writing this down in a letter since that is an easier way to communicate bad news to family members.

So, for example, my panic attack earlier this week was prompted by a phone call from my dad setting up a lunch appointment, which almost always means he wants to lecture me about the church. This has happened somewhat frequently since I announced to him I was having problems with the church. I need these anxiety-inducing discussions to stop.

The basic idea I need to communicate to him is: I am inactive from the church and that is non-negotiable; I don't want to discuss it. But I still love you and I want a relationship with you. (That way I have set a clear, firm boundary but am expressing kindness and empathy at the same time.)

That being said, you need to be cautious about over-empathizing with your parents. My therapist said that you shouldn't let their anxieties cause you to surrender your boundaries. You need to still protect your own sense of self.

She said that I need to be aware that when people hear bad news like this, they will likely go through 2 or more of the Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief. You may not always see them experiencing these stages, but it is likely to happen. (On the bright side, I can totally empathize with them since I experienced a lot of the stages of grief when I was going through my faith crisis.)

It's painful to know that you will disappoint someone, to know that you will cause them grief. But is it more important to make your parents happy or to do what you need to do in order to be happy? Obviously, you need to do what is best for your own mental health and well-being. You can't remain in a state of stress and anxiety just to please other people. And that might mean that you will cause some pain for the people you care about. But eventually, both you and they will reach a state of acceptance.

Redrawing Boundaries

My journey out of Mormonism has sometimes been a mixed bag, bringing both positive and negative changes to my life. One of the unfortunate negative changes is that I occasionally experience anxiety attacks whenever I have to talk to someone in my ward or when someone in my family tries to talk to me about the church. It's especially worse when someone stops by my house unannounced from my ward to talk with me.

I recognize on an intellectual level that the anxiety I experience is somewhat irrational. Nearly all of the time, these meetings turn out to be no big deal and are fairly harmless. The people I interact with usually have a genuine concern for my well-being and are not out to attack me. Nevertheless, I still experience sensations like a rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, mild sweatiness, and my body flushes with stress/attack hormones every time I have one of these encounters. My thoughts become intensely negative when someone from the ward sets up an appointment with me. My mind immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusions about their purpose for meeting with me and how the meeting will go. I always anticipate the worst. For this reason, I make an effort to avoid my ward members as much as I can and I try to dodge any inquiries my family makes about the church.

Obviously this stuff isn't good for my mental or physical health and it's not possible to avoid all of these encounters. For that reason, I'd like to learn how to better manage these anxiety attacks. One thing I've been doing is engaging in some self-reflection in order to understand what is at the root of this anxiety. I'm sure there's lots of different reasons why I experience anxiety: my propensity for pessimism, perhaps some mild social anxiety, and a fear of not being in full control of the situation (since I have a strong need to feel in control). But I recently had an epiphany that a big part of it comes from the concept of boundaries.

Most healthy people recognize the value of creating reasonable boundaries for themselves. They set boundaries for what they will and will not share about themselves with other people until there is a certain level of trust and intimacy in the relationship. They recognize that there are some things which are public and some things which are private. They set boundaries for what they will and will not do in certain social situations. Healthy people learn how to communicate to other people about those boundaries in ways that will hopefully not make other people defensive. It's a balancing act between being honest and showing respect. It's about being assertive and having a good sense of one's self in relation to other people. Lastly, healthy people also show respect for other people's boundaries. When someone tells them what their boundary is, they try not to cross it. They know that no means no.

I've realized that when I was a Mormon, I had no sense of how to create healthy boundaries for myself. That's partly because there's potentially a thin line between keeping some things private and lying. I definitely think that it's wrong to deliberately deceive or mislead people, particularly when withholding the truth will do harm to others. But I've also learned that there are times when it is fully appropriate not to disclose information about yourself unless you feel comfortable doing so. There are just some things that are really nobody's business until they've earned your trust---especially things like your private religious beliefs and practices. My experience in Mormonism might be different from others, but I internalized that it was dishonest and immoral to keep things about myself private, especially my beliefs. That's partly because Mormonism strongly emphasizes the public declaration of your private beliefs in church settings such as testimony meetings. Missionaries boldly knock on doors declaring their testimonies to anyone who will listen. You're also expected to fully disclose private beliefs or practices in counsels with bishops and other religious leaders with whom you may or may not have a personal relationship. To refuse to be fully candid with a religious leader would be looked upon as a sign of guilt, of having something to hide.

There might be an element of gender training at work here too, but I also internalized that it was wrong to say no if someone asked you to do something. In Mormonism, you are strongly encouraged to say yes to every calling that is extended to you. You are expected to help out whenever you are asked to serve and to do so without any complaint. You covenant in LDS temples to consecrate anything and everything that the church asks from you with no exceptions. If you are a woman, you are taught regularly that it's your job to sacrifice and give service to your children and your husband, putting their needs ahead of your own. In other words, there's not very many times when it's appropriate to say no in church culture. It's seen as rude, rebellious, or selfish to set boundaries for what you will or will not do. When people ask, you give. No boundaries. No exceptions. No personal customization. No negotiations.

I'm sure there are some fully active, believing Mormons out there who have figured out how to set healthy boundaries for themselves in spite of church culture. But somehow I wasn't one of them. Only now do I understand that it is healthy and reasonable to know your limitations and communicate them to others. Only now do I realize that it is healthy and normal to keep some things private. But I only understand it on an intellectual level; my emotions haven't quite caught up yet. I still feel anxiety, stress, guilt and shame when I set and enforce my personal boundaries. It still feels wrong to me on a gut level. It's probably going to take a while to de-program myself. But hopefully I will get there eventually.