Transcript

Jamie: Hello, I'm Jamie Yuenger. And this is 'If You Knew Me' a podcast about the inner lives of women. Every week, we walk into the heart and mind of one woman, each guest can choose to share her real name or to stay anonymous. This week we hear from Emma, that's her pseudonym. Emma is Dutch, which means that her English sounds wonderfully exotic.

Nevertheless, her story is relatable to so many of us. Since childhood Emma has suffered from intense and sometimes debilitating anxiety. As a kid, she had the notion that she was about to die of all kinds of rare and unlikely causes. And as an adult, she still feels like she might die each day, but she has found a way to live. Her story is entitled. I die every day.

Emma: If you knew me, if you really knew me, then you'd know that there's more underneath that smile or underneath, uh, that cheery appearance. Then you would know that I die every day, a few times. And I have been dying since I was. 11. I think I have an anxiety disorder since, as long as I can remember. And that was diagnosed when I was 15, but I've always been a worried child.

One of my earliest memories of being worried was when I was, I think, eight or nine years old, at school. We were talking about the universe or actually not the universe about the solar system. And we were going to build this box with this hole in it. And then you would look through this hole when you could see the entire solar system, right, where you would have to create these planets, Earth and Mars and Venus and everything.

And we would sit in a circle and a teacher was showing us things about our solar system and she asked us uh, what we thought about it or what we knew about it. And I had an older brother who had an obsession with anything about the universe. He grew up having all sorts of obsessions and he would be into planes and knew all the technical details.

And then he'd be into some sort of animal species. And then he knew everything about that. And one of his things was the solar system and a universe. He actually. became an astronomist later on. So that's how I knew quite a lot about the universe, already at that age. So I was sitting there and the teacher was asking us what we knew and I knew that the sun was actually a star and the sun would die at some point in time, the sun was gonna to die.

I knew that the universe was constantly expanding. We can measure that, but that there's like the whole theory of the expanding universe. So I was sitting there and I was always quite extrovert in class and I was always the one with the hand up. So of course I was gonna tell my, part of what I knew.

Emma: And then I said, well, I don't like thinking about the solar system. I don't like thinking about the universe. It scares me that it's never ending and is expanding and it makes us so insignificant. And I remembered a teacher sitting there looking at me and also do all the kids looking at me.

And it was this silence. And then the teacher said, yeah, I can imagine thinking about that would be scary. Well, that was the first time I realized, okay. So not everybody is worried about things like this all the time. this always stuck with me, like, I felt so much more worried than the other kids were,

I remember just grazing my hand I was touching a cactus with it by accident. And there were green needles on my hand. I remember looking at them and not thinking they were needles, but I was sort of convinced that I was having green hair on my hand.

There was something very wrong with me that my hair was just turning green right now. And this must've been a disease and I was going to die. And then this was also around eight or nine years old. I would almost immediately. my thoughts would always go to the worst thing possible.

Like it must be a disease or I must be going crazy or something wrong with me, but I very quickly. By the teacher's response by the children response or.. I realized that it's not something you would want to share if you want people to think you're normal.

Emma: I remember my dad and my mom talking about my aunt. Yeah, she's crazy. she always overthinks. She thinks she's sick or she thinks she's going to die. So you can't really take her seriously. And they were talking to each other about that, but I was like, oh, but I'm the same.

So maybe I should keep this to myself because it's kind of crazy to think that. And so I can't remember. being a worry-free child. I was very cheery. You had friends and I did well in school and it's not that people would be worried about me and that because she's very silent or it must be something wrong with her or she's very in her thoughts or no, nobody would even guess.

I was always reading a lot as a kid and in the library, I liked to pick out books that were like, about death, you know, in a children's way, like mommy is never coming home and I would read those books.

Emma: As a, sort of morbid obsession with death, or maybe if I read enough about it, it wouldn't scare me anymore. I don't know. I needed to, I was really into those things saying this. I didn't my mom. No, I didn't. She go like, this is a very strange kid. Why is he reading books about mommy not coming home?

Hmm. But she had more than one kid, so probably had a lot on her mind. Anyway. Uh, 10, 11, 12 there was a mom who committed suicide. There was a teacher who drowned. My grandmother died from cancer and another person I knew was very sick. So the risks that I was always thinking of in my head and became more of a reality.

By that time my aunt was diagnosed with a melanoma. So that was something that could be inherited. So that's about it, but it's the time I would be obsessed with all my birthmarks. I would count him every day or every night, whenever I needed some sort of consolation, I would count my birth marks and be like, okay, they're still like 31 of them still the same.

Emma: I think we're okay right now. And there's other checks that also did, I would pull my hair to see if it's, what's still stuck to my head because I once saw on television, a person with cancer was losing her hair. So pulling my hair was also a trick that i had.

And also it was very afraid of brain damage getting dementia at an early age. So I would use to do is I'd write down a very complex sentence at the beginning of the day. And I would force myself to know the sentence word by word at the end of the day. So there were all kinds of things that I would incorporate into my routines to have more a control feeling about being sick or not being sick.

Emma: I was 11 years old. I was in a car with my mom driving home from school, and she told me that this person we knew, he was dying of cancer and he was going to die soon. And then I just started crying. I just couldn't keep it in anymore. And that was like, but mom, I'm also going to die of cancer. I'm also very sick. Uh, I'm dying. And then my mom was like, oh, here's my 11 year old daughter telling me. She's going to die.

Some things really all fair. And that was the first time I shared with my parents my fears. I think the next day, or maybe the week after we were at the, Institute that specialized in adolescent problems and they assessed me and they were like, we can't help her anymore.

You have some reason to go to a psychologist So very shortly after that I started going to the psychologist. This was from age 11 to 16, I think biweekly or every week, or just that there were a lot of appointments, a lot of boring conversations. And I was not knowing what I was doing there.

And I was not really into sharing my inner life. So to say with them, especially because they weren't sharing anything. Because if I asked them if they were married or can you imagine, because maybe you have children, they would never answer those questions because it was private. And I remember thinking, okay, so here I am hearing, you're asking me to open up and tell you everything.

And I know nothing about you. No, no, it wasn't really into that. No.

By design, my parents knew I would share with them a lot more about when I was scared. My panic attacks I wouldn't hide them from them anymore. So I remember me running around the house at one time and yelling at them, yelling at my brothers.

Emma: I don't know you. I don't know who you are. I don't know why we're family. I don't know what's happening and just, I think. Just how strange conversation between people are, was just losing all sense of reality. And I had those, uh, panic attacks quite often also does one time. I was convinced that I had pooped out my tailbone.

I was really convinced that I did that and that I would go blind or sick or whatever. And I remember asking my mom to come with me and maybe if she could feel, if my tailbone was still there and remember my mom being like... Looking at me being so desperate for what is wrong, and just, almost begging me to believe her when she said that this is not possible, what you are thinking is not possible.

I was still going to school and nobody knew about. Just only my parents and my, even my brothers, when I talk about it, they don't remember me being sick that way, but I can't imagine they didn't know because I was running around the house, quote, unquote, like a crazy person.

This therapy wasn't really helping me. And being scared wasn't really helping me. I was starting to watch a lot of Dr. Phil Oprah and not to say that they saved my life, but things they said sort of resonated with me. And also by that time I was 15 or 14, 15. I read a book Dutch book, Prinsesje Nooit Genoeg

Emma: and it goes on about how +people in their early twenties or whatever are all struggling with life. And what's the purpose of it and depression, maybe, and anxiety. And the main character in a book sort of feels like she's the only one worrying, she's the only one having anxieties. He's the only one I'm aware of not the lightness of being, but the opposite of that, the heaviness of being like she's, she can't understand her friends who are falling in love or, uh, worried about shopping or she's just like, there's no purpose to it all there everything's just feel heavy. And I could sort of relate to the main character.

And I remember that main character having a conversation with her friends or her friends were all like, you're not special. Thinking these things, we're all thinking these things, but we also need to make the most of our lives. You can choose to be heavy hearted and stay in your bed and be scared every day, all day, the rest of your life.

Or you can take control and just choose another direction. And that really resonated with me because I could also have a hard time relating to my peers, falling in love or enjoying simple things. Even though I had friends and I engaged with them. I sometimes I would be like, oh, how could you worry about this?

You don't, you know, the sun is going to die someday. Don't, you know, you could be having cancer. Right. I really can't worry about your boyfriend not texting you back right now because I might, be dying. I sort of felt like they were into, these small things. And I was seeing the bigger picture.

And so this one night I was laying in bed again, awake because I was afraid to sleep because if you sleep, you can't help yourself if you're dying, because then you'll just slip away slowly.

so sleeping was not something I was very into and they even tried to give me sleep medication, but I was so afraid to sleep that I fought the sleep medication and ended up not sleeping, just being really tired from the medication. I think it was a quarter to five. I, I, I got out of it.

Emma: I got the dog and I started running - just me and a dog. I just started running. I was like, this is I'm over this. I'm not going to do this anymore. This is not going to be my life. Where day in, day out, I'm just going to be scared. I don't want to do this anymore. And then I sort of realized that my thoughts are my own, that I can control them and that I could.

be worried for maybe like 30 minutes a day. And the rest of the day, I would force myself to focus on different things. Try to get my, my life back.

From the outside. It looked like I had a life, but it didn't feel like it. I had no idea how to survive in this mode. how to ever grow up, how to ever grow old, being worried, every single day.

So I was running with my dog and decided that this was it. And I was going to try and change, try to turn things around. And I remember like few weeks after that, I felt the sun on my skin. And it was so long ago that I felt the sun on my skin. Just literally

Removing these walls and stepping outside, again, really being there, being present, being able to look people directly into the eye, not being afraid that they would see through me and see how scared I was or how crazy I actually was. Just being present again, feeling the sun, I felt like I was back again.

And then by that time, I also had diagnosis from the psychiatrist. He told me, you have ADHD with an anxiety disorder, which happens a lot. It's quite common, and this is your life. This is going to be your life. There is nothing you can do to cure this. Quite harsh message to give somebody who's 15 years old.

Emma: But, um, I think in the end he was right that this was going to be my life. And the anxiety is still there and sometimes it gets worse and sometimes it puts me behind these walls. And sometimes I can't look people into NDI because I'm too scared and sometimes it consumes me and I'm afraid to eat chicken because it'll give me salmonella and I'm afraid to drink water from the tap because it'll give me another disease.

Uh, I'm afraid to. Sometimes even bend over because it gives me sort of a Dingly feeling, which means, you know, an aneurysm in my head is going to explode because I always have this aneurysm in my head or whatever you can think of. There's the fear is still there. I cannot go outside and enjoy the stars.

I will never be able to do that, but, I have my own life now. And the fear is a part of it which I've tried to accept, you know, some people say you need to embrace it. I don't know if I can do that. It's a journey, but, I've learned to accept it and it's still not something I share with a lot of people. So afraid that they'll look at me like they did when I was eight years old, But it's now under control and I don't have to have any medication for it. And I never have, I've always been, able to battle it with my head. So yeah, if you already knew me then you would notice sometimes when we talk, I might seem present, but on the inside, I'm thinking that my aneurysm just bursted and I'm falling down any minute. And these are my last seconds. And I'm thinking about what my last words going to be? Yeah. Would like some cheese with that. so yeah, if you really knew me, you would know that I have an anxiety disorder and it's sometimes it's crippling. Sometimes it's hard to get out of bed and other days I barely even know it's there.

Jamie: Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If Emma's story spoke to you, please share it. Now. If you're anything like me, you'd love to get mail. I also love to send mail recently. I thought that it would be fun to send a postcard to our show listeners every Sunday, Sort of a short and sweet thing.

My Sunday postcards are sent via email, of course, but it does in fact look like a real postcard. So if getting a fun postcard on Sundays would make you smile. I invite you to sign up, just find the link in the show now. Also, I want to let you know that we are hosting our first ever online retreat. This fall, the retreat is open to anyone, but monthly members of this show will receive a free ticket.

That retreat will be focused on meditation, breath, work, and prayer. So if you are in need of a soulful mindful break from the constant noise of life, I encourage you to join us. Signups we'll start in August. If you're currently a member or you become a member before September 1st of this year, you'll get a free ticket.

I hope you join us. The links for everything I'd mentioned are in the show notes.

This podcast is produced by me, Jamie Yuenger, and my husband, Piet Hurkmans. Thanks so much for listening to 'If You Knew Me'. We'll be back with you next week.

Emma

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