Checking for Danger: My Journey With Anxiety
The scratch was nothing, barely a graze from a dried branch while retrieving a golf ball from the rough. No blood, not even broken skin. Just a faint red line across my leg. But in that moment, my mind launched into overdrive, constructing an elaborate scenario of flesh-eating bacteria, of tissue deteriorating hour by hour, of death creeping through my body before I could make it home. On the outside, I continued playing, swinging clubs and tracking balls across the fairway and into the rough. Inside, I was drowning in terror.
This was my first memory of panic, though I wouldn't have the words to describe it for another fifteen years. I was just a kid playing golf with my adoptive father but that moment marked the beginning of a pattern that would shape my life, the constant checking, the hyper-vigilance, the endless scanning for threats that might not exist but felt devastatingly real.
The groundwork for my anxiety had been laid early. My biological father left when I was around kindergarten age and I can count the times I've seen him since on two hands, maybe one. While my mother confirms he was present in some early memories, his image is completely absent from them in my mind, as if my psyche had carefully edited him out of the frame. His departure traumatized my mother to the point where she couldn't care for me and I was passed between neighbors until landing with my grandparents. Eventually, my mother recovered and remarried but the pattern of trauma wasn't finished. My sister nearly died from diabetes, a very real crisis that seemed to awaken something in me, a hyperawareness of how quickly life could unravel.
After that first panic episode on the golf course, my mind became an expert at catastrophizing. Any external trigger could set it off: a scratch, something I saw on TV, a casual comment from someone. In third grade, after a classmate's presentation about a sibling's heart condition, I spent the night convinced I had a fatal heart defect. Yet somehow, I kept going. I was the quintessential Gen X kid, riding bikes everywhere with friends, joining singing groups, Nerf football in the park, dance teams, and theater productions. I lived a full life, even as my mind constantly prepared for disaster.
The real turning point came in ninth grade, during a chorus performance at North Davis Junior High School. I can still feel it, the heat of the stage lights, the familiar smell of the theater, the sensation of standing on the risers. Then came the shaking knees, the cold sweat, the numbness in my fingers, and that terrifying tunnel vision. For the first time, the threat wasn't external, it was coming from within my own body. I stepped down from the risers and walked off stage, sitting in the front row while the performance continued. No one asked what happened, so I never told them. But everything changed after that night.
The checking behavior began in earnest. I became a prisoner in my own body, constantly monitoring my heart rate, my temperature, my skin, looking for signs of impending doom. Yet even then, I pushed forward. I excelled in high school drama and choir, #2 ranked tennis player, enjoyed a rich social life. I moved away to college, graduated, earned a master's degree, started my career. The anxiety and panic grew alongside my achievements, but I refused to let them stop me.
Until they did.
It was Thanksgiving and I had to make the 60 mile drive to my parents' house while fighting a nasty cold. Following my mother's advice, I took some Theraflu before heading out. As I approached the freeway on-ramp, I noticed a massive warehouse fire on the other side. My eyes locked onto it, transfixed, until screams jolted me back to awareness, I was heading straight for a pond in the interchange. I yanked the wheel, narrowly avoiding disaster but something in me broke that day.
For two weeks after that incident, I became bound to my bedroom, my only safe space. When I finally sought help, a GP diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder and referred me to a psychologist. To return to work, I had to navigate a labyrinth of residential streets, adding an hour to my commute in both directions because the main roads felt impossible. I developed strange coping mechanisms, like labeling every car I passed: "Blue truck, white car, black car." Anything to keep my mind from spiraling.
The simplest tasks became Herculean challenges. I would fill shopping carts with groceries only to abandon them mid-aisle, convinced the floor had turned to rubber beneath my feet. I walked out of movies and restaurants without explanation, leaving bewildered friends behind. Through therapy, we worked on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and exposure techniques. I tried SSRIs but hated how they made me feel, leading to a reckless cold-turkey withdrawal that brought its own hell of side effects.
The therapy helped, gradually. I could sit through movies again, go out to dinner, though always with an escape plan mapped out, always scanning for exits, always feeling the tremors of fear beneath a calm exterior. I went because I felt a social obligation, not because I could enjoy it. I couldn’t enjoy it. The checking never stopped, every morning, sometimes as early as 3 AM, I would wake with my heart pounding, immediately beginning the daily ritual of scanning for symptoms, wondering if today would be the day everything fell apart.
Yet somehow, I kept building. I started my own company in 2013 with a business partner and friend. I even began traveling again, not just by car but by airplane. The anxiety shaped these achievements in unexpected ways. It taught me that life isn't about climbing corporate ladders or chasing entrepreneurial fame. My company, 33 Sticks, might be smaller than it could be, might have made less money than possible, but we've made decisions that put people first. We've stayed true to our values, choosing humanity over profit.
Now, in my current therapy, we're diving deeper than before, exploring the childhood trauma, the impact of my father's abandonment, the generational patterns of anxiety that might have been passed down through my family. We're looking not just at the act of checking but at its roots: Why do I feel this constant need to monitor for danger? What drives this perpetual vigilance?
Every night, I go to bed having fought a brutal battle. And every morning greets me with fear. Every morning requires the strength to face another round of battles with my own mind. But I keep fighting because I've learned that this isn't just about survival, it's about finding a way to truly live. Anxiety may have made me a prisoner in my own body but it's also taught me profound empathy. It's made me more aware of others' struggles, more attuned to the unseen battles people might be fighting. I've become a giver, often putting others' wellbeing before my own.
When you live with this kind of anxiety, when every scratch could be flesh-eating bacteria, when every heart flutter could be fatal, you're trapped in a ruthless kind of hell. But you're also given a choice, let it consume you or use it to fuel something greater. I choose to fight, not just for myself but for everyone else trapped in similar battles. Because beyond the hyper-vigilance, beyond the checking and the panic, there's still beauty in the world waiting to be seen, if only we can find the strength to look up from our fears and embrace it.
