OVERWHELMING AND EXTREME ANXIETY IS YOUR BEST FRIEND SORT OF.

FIRST OFF: I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL SO DON’T LISTEN TO ANYTHING I SAY. I AM A BIG DUMMY. Ok, now that that’s out the way, proceed…

When Anxiety Attacks!

I have a panic disorder. It’s been more or less extreme over the years, with the top of the curve around 2015-2022. Seven years of terribleness. But if I've learned anything, it’s that you need to learn how to use the panic and anxiety rather than try to escape it, which is absolutely futile in my experience.

In my twenties I was unaware of my panic disorder. I had zero inhibitions or boundaries in the kitchen, feeling okay and justified with some pretty aggressive behavior like screaming at my coworkers and being a total piece of shit overall. But I felt great, and being a total asshole really alleviated a lot of my anxiety with such a forceful outlet. But with age and maturation, you begin to realize that acting a fool is unsustainable, and many of us do some sort of therapy or work to figure out what the hell is wrong with us. For me, I think it’s fair to say that my anxiety is rooted in some pretty awful things that happened to me as a kid, which I won’t talk about here…but let’s just say it shaped me negatively.

I try to work on my anger and volatility and did a lot better, but would have outbursts here and there. It would bottle up, and then explode. I started to work on not letting it explode anymore, and it turned into something else: a fear response. I started to imagine I was having a stroke or heart attack all the time. And by all the time I mean daily. For years. I lived in a heightened state of fear that wore me out and made me unapproachable and moody.

I also was dealing with some issues with Sleep Apnea that had gone undiagnosed too long. Turns out not sleeping properly and waking up choking for air for years isn’t that great for you, and definitely exacerbated the problem.

It all came to a head one sunny day in 2014, a couple of months before opening Farm Spirit.

I had been feeling off all day. I had been overworked like crazy, chipping up tiles, helping frame walls, paint, build and anything else to get Farm Spirit ready in a tiny submarine of a space we inhabited on Morrison street. My business partner Michael came by for a meeting, and we sat at the table in front of Floyd’s coffee while I puffed on a cigarette. While we chatted, I could feel this pressure mounting and mounting and mounting.

“Michael, I have to go,” I said. I walked away from him and went inside. Confused a bit, Michael left and I wandered in to look at the space and check in with the builder, trying to ignore these feelings inside. Suddenly, I lost my vision. Black. Then it snapped back but extremely blurry. I couldn’t see a damn thing. I tried to relax relax relax and went to go for a walk around the blockl. But then needles and pins started growing from my feet and hands up my legs and arms. I went into a full panic, believing I was about to die.

“Chris, I need you to call 911!” I shouted to the builder. He did, and then opened the door to his truck so I could sit in his cabin. I leaned against the seat with my feet planted on the curb.

“Am I dying?” I asked, apparently looking as white as a ghost at that point.

“I don’t know,” he replied. Not comforting.

The ambulance arrived and hooked me up to an EKG. They weren’t rushing to the hospital. What’s going on?! I asked them to get a move on.

“If you were having a heart attack or stroke, we’d be blaring lights and sirens right now, sir,” the EMT said. He told me I was probably having a panic attack. I told him I wanted to go to the hospital to be sure, and they took me to the Providence ED.

I sobbed and sobbed. It seemed to be an endless supply of energy, like the dam broke with that massive panic attack and a flood of emotions was rushing me. Afterwards, there was an incredible feeling of relief, as all the tension of my mind and body left me. I was exhausted, and it left me unable to work for days as I recuperated in my apartment.

After that day, I had panic attacks of varying intensity almost daily. I lived alone and worried about my body not being found after the next attack killed me, so I’d leave my apartment in the middle of the night and walk down to NE 28th so that I’d be around people who could call an ambulance or a coroner. It was bad.

I learned to live with it a bit, but knew that I needed to manage it. I went to therapists who specialized in anxiety and doctors to check out any physiological issues. Both helped and the strategies I learned in therapy along with the CPAP I was prescribed made immense improvements to my life.

How to Use Your Anxiety!

That flood of energy is sitting there, waiting to break your dam. You need to release a little bit of that pressure daily in order to avoid a total crack up. To me, that means learning to channel my anxiety’s energy into creativity and diligence. If you ignore these aspects while working in a professional kitchen, you risk building up that pressure again. It’s inescapable for folks like us, and you have to use or suffer the debilitating consequences.

A fellow brother-in-anxiety is Chef de Partie at Astera, Kai. Kai is fueled by his anxiety, not letting it take over but channeling it to make his work better. “I think that’s a bigger push then caffeine. Being anxious creates in me systems where I double and triple check things and it makes me a lot more thorough,” he says. His anxiety ensures that he studies the details, and relief comes in the form of a well executed project.

Kai in the kitchen

For me it’s the same. If I’m not prepping, creating, or working on some aspect of the restaurant, my anxiety comes out big time. This seems like a terrible thing maybe, but it is what it is. It just is the way I am. So, I can complain about it and let it take me over, or I can take ownership of it and put that energy out to work on a new technique or organize a portion of the restaurant. There is the same relief in that to me as when I sob my eyes out after a huge panic attack.

Again, I don’t want anyone to confuse this with actual insight or therapeutic advice. It’s just an observation I’ve made for myself.

I had a therapist tell me once that fighting your anxiety, trying to get away from it, was like pulling your fingers in a Chinese Finger Trap. The more you fight it, the more it grips you. You have to lean into the anxiety. For me, that leaning in also means using it, channeling it, not just breathing it away.

I didn’t choose to be this way. I didn’t ask to have a panic disorder. But like most things that make up who we are, we may not be at blame for it, but we’re responsible for it. Learning to positively harness the energy of your anxiety rather than letting it build up to a disruptively explosive situation is better for you and everyone around you. You have a responsibility to bring harmony to yourself and those around you, so you need to work on this. I’ve been working on this for years and still have much to learn, but it’s a hell of a lot better now then it was.

Some photo of random guy with a finger trap that I ripped off google with universal usage rights.