Finding Peace by Watching the Geese
The wonder of migration keeps my anxiety at bay
The defining emotion of my early childhood was fear. My first memory is a recurring nightmare I had where a Lou Ferrigno-style Hulk burst out of my closet and terrorized me.
As an adult, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Looking back, I have probably had an anxiety disorder since I was a very young child. I was afraid of everything and in an often debilitating state of panic. I was the child who was too sensitive and overreacted to everything.
What the adults in my life didn’t know was that I felt everything deeply — fear and pain, but also joy and love.
I seemed to grow out of my fearful stage as a teen, but really, I had just learned to mask my anxieties behind humor and swagger.
The work of my adult life has been to learn how to live a fulfilling life in a world built to torment me. I have never found medications to be a helpful intervention for me. Everyone is different, and I know that for many people with mental health challenges, including my children, medications are a life-saving intervention. But my doctors and I could never land on the right combination. Instead, I have worked with therapists to build coping mechanisms and design my life to allow me to flourish in a world not…
