Clinical Anxiety Isn’t What the Church Thinks It Is
Written by Tiffany Ciccone, USA
I was spending my last days of summer rushing around in a flurry. For a teacher—especially a brand new one—the week before school starts is a special sort of tornado.
Sandwiched between a million errands, I swung by my doctor’s office to stick my arm through the front desk window so he could sign my Tuberculosis (TB) test paperwork for my new school district.
Instead, he grabbed my arm and exclaimed, “OH! THAT’S POSITIVE!”
He pulled me back into an exam room, referred me to the hospital across the street for a lung x-ray, and instructed me to go there immediately. And so I did.
Trusting God With Tuberculosis
This is the point at which you’d expect someone with an anxiety disorder to panic. You’d expect me to be flooded with images of eerily sterile hospital rooms with thick glass between my visiting loved ones and I.
You’d expect my imagination to replay all of the period movie scenes of women depressingly hacking up blood into kerchiefs. You’d expect me to be disturbed by the reminder of my own mortality and the fragility of everything that had minutes ago seemed rock-solid.
I didn’t think those things, though.
Instead, standing in my paper gown as the x-ray technician manipulated the massive machinery, Proverbs 16:9 came to mind: “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
I reasoned, If my x-ray tests positive, there’s nothing I can do, so it must be God directing my steps this way for whatever reason. I trust Him. I know how He loves me. This is out of my hands and in His.
I must have contracted that rogue TB cell on one of my mission trips to Kazakhstan, and I’d never regret any of my summers there. Jesus tells us to “take up your cross and follow me” (Matthew 6:24). If TB was part of the cross I’d have to carry, then okay.
Surrendering to God’s will left me soaking up that peace that “transcends all understanding” (Phillippians 4:7).
Thankfully, my chest x-ray that day came back negative, which meant that my Tuberculosis was inactive. I took one pill a day for a year and all was well.
Failing God With the Radio
Before you think I’m all cool and calm and collected all the time, let me tell you about the state of mind I was in earlier that day. On the same day I peacefully accepted the prospect of coughing up blood in isolation, I had an anxiety attack over what radio station to listen to.
105.3 was playing “Nevermind” by Nirvana. I flipped the dial, and discovered “Name” by the Goo Goo Dolls. And then I felt it: my throat cramped, my breathing changed and my mind revved into crisis mode:
What is the right song to listen to?! Which song will facilitate an intimate encounter with God? If I pick the wrong one, I’ll disappoint God and drift further from Him. So much is riding on this. “Nevermind” is so fuelled with passion and I can feel truth in its layers that reverberates in my heart. But on the other hand, “Name” is about orphans and the weak. Its lyrics acknowledge the dignity of the forgotten. Jesus never forgets them.
So I let the dial sit on the Goo Goo Dolls. But the cyclical overthinking continued: Ugh, I chose the wrong song. “Nevermind” has a passion in its sound that is beyond words. I should be listening to that. Then, God will use the passion to connect me to His raw passion and the true electricity of life.
So I switched to “Nevermind.” But still, I was unsettled. What if I don’t feel that energy that I thought I would? What if I should be listening to “Name”? I’m ignoring what God says is important — the plight of the orphan and the widow. I am part of the problem. God is so disappointed in me. He’s shooting daggers in my direction like Jesus did the Pharisees.
And back and forth and back and forth it went. I arrived at the doctor’s office entirely on edge, a failure in the eyes of God either way.
The Nature of Generalized Anxiety Disorder
My reactions to the events of that day are clearly inconsistent. Why should anyone be anxious about what to play on the radio, but at peace with a life-threatening illness?! It makes no sense. This is a characteristic of my disorder, which at the time, was undiagnosed:
“Though many people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) realize that their worry is unrealistic or unwarranted, feelings of anxiety persist and seem unmanageable, leaving sufferers feeling out of control.” (anxiety.org)
This kind of anxiety attacks its victims, oftentimes without rhyme or reason. “Attack” is an apt word for its strikes — I rarely see them coming. Clinical anxiety is not an everyday breed of anxiety, and it is not caused by a lack of faith or a distant relationship with God. Its roots are in physiology, in brain pathways, in genetics, or in trauma.
Shedding Light in the Darkness
If I had known that my whole radio disaster was “anxiety”, I would have told my doctor that day. I had no idea, though. I couldn’t see the forest from the trees I was suffocating in.
All I knew about anxiety had come from my church. And all my church taught was that anxiety was worry. It was a failure to trust God with my future. It was a sense of entitlement to the future I wanted. It was a failure to totally surrender my life to Jesus. And if I prayed and “genuinely gave it to God”, it would go away.
It turns out that the scope of clinical anxiety is a lot wider than that, and that sometimes, although it can heal (to a point), it might not entirely go away. Paul’s thorn didn’t go away (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Just like Paul’s thorn did not originate from an immature faith or a failure to surrender to God, neither do mental disorders.
Five years later, I found out that my “radio anxiety” was a manifestation of a thought distortion called “catastrophisizing”. I learned about it in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which God used to shine light on the darkness I was lost in.
There is no clear line that can be drawn between religion and psychology. Like most things, it’s complex, all mixed and muddled together. We are complicated beings, all fallen sinners made in the image of a beautiful God.
Beyond Worry: Manifestations of Generalized Anxiety Disorder
I know a lot more about clinical anxiety now than I did back then, and Jesus led me through the difficult journey it’s been. I believe in redemption. I believe that “in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him” (Romans 8:28).
And I think He wants me to share what He’s taught me, so that His other kids going through this stuff don’t have to feel so alone, and don’t have to be in the dark about the bizarre things they’re stuck thinking.
And so, without further ado, here is a list of some ways anxiety disorders can manifest in believers:
obsessively trying to please God
indecisiveness (to the point of paralysis)
self-condemnation for making decisions that have nothing to do with morality
spiritual perfectionism
overthinking God’s will
putting unreasonable pressure on yourself to do things you think you ‘should’ rather than relying on God’s grace
catastrophizing about how the tiniest misstep might throw eternity off its axis
mentally beating yourself to a pulp
feeling guilty about feeling anxious, or feeling anxious about feeling anxious (what an unrelenting cycle!)
Nobody told me that sometimes brains can fizzle out a bit and signals can misfire. Nobody told me that anxiety can be somatic — relating to our physical body more than our mind or spirit. I didn’t know a person could be anxious without knowing what they’re anxious about.
If you identify these things in yourself or a loved one, please talk to someone you trust. I have experienced a lot of healing since that radio day. There is a lot of hope and help out there to be had.
Tiffany Ciccone is a writer and high school English teacher who lives in San Diego, California with her husband and pup. She is passionate about seeing the Church engage in the reality of mental health struggles. Her first book, “Anxious with Jesus,” is expected in 2024. Until then, you can read more of her writing on Instagram @tiffany.ciccone and medium.com/@tiffanyciccone.
