As I reflect on this week's #SundaySciWri prompt of "journey," my recent mental health journey comes to mind. What started as way to cope with increasing anxiety turned into a journey of growing my self-confidence as a scientist.
I started seeing a therapist when I was 18 and in college, and was struggling with anxiety and schoolwork. I was diagnosed with ADD, and used CBT to help manage both anxiety and anger. I saw this therapist for about a year before ceasing regular appointments, although I continued to go back to this therapist several times after graduation - usually to deal with the fallout of a relationship.
In 2016 I experienced a random event that triggered overwhelming death anxiety. It was so intense that I was often scared to fall asleep at night, convinced that either someone would break into my apartment and murder me, or I would die in sleep. I'd force myself to stay awake until I could no longer take it. I worried about potential car accidents. I worried about medication interactions. I was convinced that my next flight would crash, and considering canceling trips out of fear. Inspired by the song "The 59 Sound," I had a playlist of my favorite songs to listen to during takeoff. If the plane were to go down in a fiery crash, at least I would leave this world hearing my favorite song one last time.
I recognized the need find a new therapist, but kept putting it off and continued to have occasional calls with my therapist in NC. She didn't accept my insurance, but it was worth paying out of pocket to continue to have phone appointments with her. She understood me, and I felt comfortable with her. And quite frankly, the idea of having to divulge my past in detail to a new therapist was overwhelming and frightening. My daily anxiety continued to play a major role in my life and continued to increase into 2020. I saw one therapist in Tampa for a few sessions, but it wasn't a good fit. I continued to rely on my NC therapist, who finally (and understandably) had to set a boundary and could no longer "see" me as she wasn't licensed in Florida. It was finally time to find a new therapist.
As the pandemic was in full swing, I opted for virtual therapy. I put minimal effort into my research as it was too overwhelming, and decided I just needed to go for it and sign up for a service, otherwise I would continue to overthink it and never make a decision. In April I started weekly virtual therapy, and thankfully had a better connection with this therapist compared to the person I previously saw in Tampa. I was starting a journey for a life where my anxiety could be managed, and I would no longer spend my afternoons stopping work early, drinking White Claws at 3 pm, and ultimately laying on the floor and crying for extended periods of time.
I've always used the term 'anxiety' in a broad sense - "I have anxiety." Anxiety is common and affects many people. So what does it mean when I say "I have anxiety?" During therapy, I've learned how specific anxiety can be, how many different areas of my life it touches, and how many things can trigger it. During one session, I was asked to journal about the feeling of anxiety. The first image that popped into my head was a large spiny, twisting plant growing tall and wrapping around me. Occasionally allowing me to breath, but always keeping me captured in its thorny grasp.
Although I've learned many things about myself during this journey, one of the biggest discoveries was the connection between anxiety and my lack of confidence at work. There are so many directions I could go in with this, such as sexism in the workplace. Imposter syndrome. Second guessing everything. Spending 30 fucking minutes re-writing a four sentence email for fear of how my tone is coming cross, debating if my word choice could be interpreted as saying more than what I meant. Additionally, I had an unrelenting supervisor early in my career, who was unsupportive at best and verbally abusive at worst. My anxiety sky-rocketed. Several years into my consulting career (and around the same time that I was dealing with this supervisor), I decided to make a lateral move into ecological risk assessment. Although I had some ecotox classes from my undergrad, I was lacking the experience and training as the established risk assessors in the company. As I started to transition into working on risk assessment projects, I constantly felt like "the new kid" within our practice. Even with growing experience, this feeling has never faded. I feared that I would always be viewed as and treated as the new person in the group, and would never be good enough. These thoughts fed into my anxiety. Although I did complete grad school, it was not a traditional toxicology MS program. I primarily learned eco risk skills through on the job experience and have spent many hours on my own learning about risk assessment. Instead of focusing on this accomplishment, I focused on my lack of a toxicology degree and lack of lab experience, and therefore came to the conclusion that I am not as smart as my colleagues and will never be a respected risk assessor. I aligned myself with a few senior staff who praised me and validated me - which I had been desperately seeking. In hindsight, I realized I was limiting myself by only working with just these few people. I relied on them to answer project-specific technical questions, defaulting to their expertise, rather than challenging myself to develop a solution and therefore fulfilling my misguided prophecy to always be viewed as junior support. By relying on others to validate myself, I limited my career growth and ability to be confident in myself. And this, of course, would feed into my anxiety. It was a never-ending circle.
During the course of therapy, I re-aligned myself with new senior staff and expanded my workload. This has led to new opportunities, including being identified as a "subject matter expert" for a new pore water project, and being the lead eco risk assessor for another project, both of which are career firsts for me. I'm working on self-validation instead of relying on positive feedback from others. I still struggle, but I'm more aware when I'm having doubts and am better at 'reality testing' this self-doubt. I journal more, including a goal to list out one accomplishment each day. It's a struggle, but I'm seeing improvement. I don't expect results overnight, and recognize that this journey is exactly that - a journey.
