The Girl Who Survived

 “There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

I cannot talk about having anxiety without addressing what happened in my life that first created it.

It was October 30, 2003 and my parents took me to dinner at Red Lobster. I was in second grade and I was super excited to participate in the halloween parade the next day.

Earlier that day, I had a doctor’s appointment with a doctor who specialized in children’s growth. I seemed to be behind in growth for my age because I was way shorter than my peers. The doctors suggested my parents take me to try new foods, like fish, to help me grow.

Previously, I had only tried fish once on a tuna fish sandwich. It had made my mouth itchy so I never really had the desire to try it again. Plus I was a picky eater so trying other fish never appealed to me. But regardless, my parents, along with my doctor, believed it be a good idea to have me try some other fish.

Now it is dinner time and I order a burger and fries while my parents get tilapia.

My dad cuts a small piece and asks me to try it.

Being sure to mind my manners I politely say, “no thank you.”

But my mom chims in and asks softly, “please, for me?”

Both my parents were looking at me expectantly and I did not want to dissapoint them or make them sad. So reluctantly I said yes and decide to try it.

In this moment, and the moments after, time simultaneously stood still and sped up. My mouth started to tingle and I remember saying that my mouth felt funny. My dad gave me another small peice thinking that because the tilapia was next to some lemon that could be the reason I did not like it.

In the course of a minute my mouth, tongue, and throat started itching. My lips then started to swell so large that it was hard to move them.

I started to panic over my symptoms and what they meant as a sense of doom fell over me. My parents leapt from the table and my mom rushed me out of the restaurant while my dad stayed to quickly pay the check.

At the time my house was under renovation and we were living in a trailer in the driveway. We sped home and went into the trailer to get benadryl.

The panic in me was growing, I was frightened. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I remember looking like some terrified deformed Donald Duck due to my swolen lips.

Next thing I know my dad is home and my mom and I rush into the backseat of the car.

It was dark, my dad was speeding, and I was behind the driver seat laying on my moms lap saying that I did not feel well. I started to feel light headed, dizzy, and nauseous. I focused on my toy that was left under the passenger seat. For any who are old enough to remember, it was this kids portable karaoke with a microphone that played cassette tapes.

By the time we arrived at the hospital I had thrown up on my mom and was starting to lose conciousness. My dad grabbed me from the backseat, threw me over his shoulder, and ran inside.

I saw the panicked look of the receptionist pointing us to go in a certain direction. I remember seeing the nurses standing around talking and laughing, but stop abruptly when they saw me and started running.

Now I am lying on a hospital bed with several people hovering over me. I feel hands on my body putting in an IV while I see a purple dinosaur air mask slide over my face. I see my parents together in the back looking scared.

Then everything goes dark.

Tests later showed I went into anaphylaxis shock, a severe life-threatening allergic reaction, due to an allergy to cod protein, which is found in all fish and shellfish. My slight allergic reaction to the tuna fish earlier was a sign that I was developing that severe allergy.

Weirdly, it has been 16 years and I still remember this one memory so vividly that it feels like I am reliving it. However, months of my life after that is all a blur.

I used to love looking at the tank of lobsters at the supermarket, but now I was too afraid to go near them. I remember my parents taking me to see my first therapist at the age of 7. He tried to get me to write down the word lobster and fish on a piece of paper because I was too afraid to say it. My parents said they got a call from school saying that I was not eating and was throwing away my school lunches.

With the help of that therapist, I was able to get rid of my outward concerning symptoms and aversion toward being around seafood. However, it took another therapist 15 years later to help put together that the onset of my anxiety was a direct result of that trauma.

I became very worried, concerned, and anxious about my health. Nothing I ate was safe. I now have to carry around an epi-pen with me every where I go because, “you never know what can happen.” This is problematic though because I carry around the worry of the unknown and that anything could put my life at risk and could kill me.

My allergy was so severe that doctors described my allergy lab test as “off the charts.” I was warned that even foods cooked in the same oil or on the same grill as fish could be dangerous. This is an extreme concern when going out to eat because I have to put my faith (pun on my name intended) and what I felt was my life in the waiters hands to understand how severe my allergy was and effectively communicate that to the chefs, who also needed to take extreme precaution.

I felt part of the burden on myself with the worry of, “what if I do not communicate clearly how severe this is and I end up getting cross-contaminated food and almost die again?”

I also started to feel anxious because if the restaurant was unsafe to eat at, then whoever I was with whether it was my parents, my friends, a date, we had to leave. I did not want to ruin plans, cause a hassle, or make people upset. I am very empathetic so I keep thinking and feeling what it must be like to be the other person really looking forward to eating somewhere or something and then being let down because I could not be accommodated. I did not want to be the cause of that.

My anxiety follows me around everywhere because I am constantly on alert since I am reminded of my allergy and the time I almost died everytime I go to eat, which is 3 times a day. And I feel like I have to constantly be on alert for potential threats, since anything could happen.

I ended up becoming very self-aware of every bodily function and if it was normal or a sign of something more concerning or life threatening. This trauma is also the catalyst of my health anxiety.

I realized the problem with all of this is how I think about things.

My therapist pointed out that when I describe my anaphylactic reaction that I describe it as being the time I almost died. She goes, “but you didn’t die, you are here, you survived.”

She asked me to try to practice saying that. That I did not almost die, that I survived. This phrasing put a more positive and empowering spin on it.

This is one of the ways I practice my confidence, by talking back to my anxiety in a more positive and empowering way.

It is not easy, and I am still working on it, because I have to retain some level of anxiousness because, unlike generalized anxiety that might not have an exact cause, I have a reason to be at least a little anxious about what I eat, expecially if I cannot tell if it has been cross contaminated or not.

It is hard to reign in your anxiety, but I guess we will just take it one day at a time.

Until next time ~ hang in there.