President’s Page – Anxiety

By Sarah Richardson.  

In my early 30s I began experiencing constant skin twitches, like the annoying way an eyelid may flicker for a moment, or when a thumb loses it’s cool and jumps around of its own volition. This experience was different. The twitches occurred everywhere, like a discordant symphony playing out all over my body. I was married, had two wonderful preschoolers, a good career, a part time gig teaching at Tacoma Community College, and lived in an adorable house in Tacoma’s north end. Life would have been wonderful if I wasn’t convinced that I was dying.

My father had a good friend, Robert Horn, who succumbed to ALS in 2002. My dad wrote forwards to two books that Bob authored about ALS, so naturally I read them despite my significant predisposition against all things medically worrisome. Bob’s illness began as a series of little twitches all over his body.

My life became a fog of dread, zombie walking through work and parenting. Waking up brought a few seconds of reprieve until I spiraled into the day’s maelstrom of fear, twitches, and nausea. This continued for months. After a parade of exams, talk of other neurological horribles and that agonizing wait time for test results, the diagnosis was Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

I was hugely relieved, though confused because there wasn’t a specific event that started the episode. But since it wasn’t fatal, fixing it seemed like a piece of cake; I’d thought my way into it somehow, so I could think my way out. I was so wrong.

Clinical anxiety is not situational stress or worry. It is a non-stop merry-go-round of panic and hypervigilance. Those who haven’t experienced it may not understand why logic and reassurance don’t stop the ride. That holds true for many types of mental illness. I incurred more anxiety in my inability to get better on my own.

“Mental health” and “mental illness” are misnomers that compound misunderstanding. For me they inspire pathos at best and connote violence and insanity at worst. The conditions have physical causes, such as genetics, hormonal differences, brain injury and emotional trauma. Sufferers exhibit symptoms of the conditions which are often incorrectly regarded as behaviors. “Mental illness” is shorthand for a plethora of health diagnoses. Recognizing the misnomer is a big step toward destigmatizing them. My proposal for a more apt term and description is “circuitry-ology”, or CO, for short.

Most of us have some understanding of the effects of mental illness, or CO, on individuals and society.  Substance abuse, crime, suicide and homelessness significantly burden the capacity and cost of our medical and justice systems, and it’s getting worse. The pandemic has increased the mental health crisis in our country, particularly among youth and medical professionals.

TPCBA trustee Steve Krupa is spearheading CLEs about mental health, substance abuse and self-care issues in our profession. The Board of Trustees wholeheartedly endorsed this topic at our annual retreat. We will have a half-day devoted to mental health training on September 15 and a wellness seminar at the Bar Convention at Suncadia in October. Why? Because lawyers suffer from depression and anxiety at double or triple the rates of other segments of society. Each one of us is, or will be, impacted by mental illness personally, within our families, or in our social circles or workplaces. Understanding it better is paramount for improved individual and community outcomes.

Since people tend to hide mental health struggles and avoid discussing the topic at a personal level, we often don’t recognize how it looks and feels to live with it. My initial relief at the relatively benign nature of my diagnosis turned into shame and guilt. I am a privileged and fortunate person. I had no reason or right to be anxious. Rajeev Majumdar, a past President of the Washington State Bar Association, was featured in a podcast about living with mental illness. The WSBA wrote about that interview in the Bar News and on-line. Links to those are provided at the end of the column. Rajeev decided to seek treatment when he realized that suffering in silence was worse, and without treatment he was doing a disservice to his clients, family and friends. Even getting the help that he needed, he was still worried that speaking openly about his experiences with depression and anxiety would adversely affect his career.

I called Rajeev to ask how his disclosures were received. He was inundated with appreciation for his candor. The topic garnered a far greater response than any other articles or columns that he wrote as the WSBA President. He was impressed that so many people reached out to him and continue to do so. For many people living with mental health issues, ordinary or extra tasks, even simple ones, are often too overwhelming.

I first talked about my diagnosis with my parents. They lived out of state, and I hadn’t wanted to worry them before I knew what was happening. When I described the symptoms and months of panic and fear, my dad laughed and asked, “Oh, didn’t I tell you about that?” Both he and my brother had suffered from the same symptoms at different times. They both thought of Bob Horn and each also worried that they might have ALS. Both were diagnosed with anxiety. The absurdity was funny, but they would have saved each other, and my husband and me, a lot of misery if they had shared their experiences sooner.

I’ve listened to colleagues and friends describe their struggles with depression and anxiety. For some of us, having someone listen or talk to us can give us needed relief. We often know the logic but can’t convince ourselves of it. Our conversations can also be very funny. I know it’s ridiculous to launch into Defcon 5 at the slightest anomaly, but it happens to me often. Conversely, I can handle medical emergencies of others calmly and efficiently after raising three active kids and a having a husband who loves power tools. But instead of thinking “spit bath” when I see a strange spot on my skin, I think “melanoma” and I panic.

Mental illness and its symptoms vary in severity and response to treatment, but there are many options available to manage it. With anxiety, many sufferers express the same fears and concerns over and over despite knowing they may be illogical. That’s very frustrating for both their supporters and themselves. But to quote the tag from a particularly wise tea bag I once encountered, “Acceptance of what is will cause a lot less suffering than the thought that it shouldn’t be.” Constant reassurance and knowing I’m not the only one who experiences anxiety helps me when I’m stuck in a rut. The reassurance may last awhile or only a few moments, but the relief of those moments is glorious, and reinforces my ability to stop the cycle.

I’ve shared my experiences with colleagues and friends who I recognize may be struggling with anxiety. I wish I’d known much more about it before feeling so alone at the beginning. I had only general knowledge of mental health problems and held unfair stereotypes of those who were mentally ill.

The shooting in Uvalde, Texas nudged me to write about it here. The horror we all felt at that news is understandable. It also fuels the mental health stigma. The only stigma surrounding mental illness should be not learning about it, nottalking about it and not adequately responding to it. I hope many of our members will attend the TPCBA mental health CLE. The Pierce County Law Library has books on mental health’s impact on legal practitioners, and the WSBA Member Wellness program at WSBA.org offers assistance and more information.

Special thanks to Rajeev Majumdar for his assistance with this column. To hear and read his experiences and thoughts about mental illness, please visit these links.

WSBA President Majumdar Discusses His Mental Health Journey and Stigma: Part 1

WSBA President Majumdar Discusses His Mental Health Journey and Stigma: Part 2

Episode 6 – Rajeev Majumdar (President Of The Washington State Bar Association)

To those who suffer mental illness or support people who do, you are not alone.