I’ve listened to Unwinding Anxiety a few times through now. I’m reluctant to praise anything too much, because I know how isolating and depressing it can be to want relief and not find it in places where others have. This Review of Unwinding Anxiety comes with a disclaimer.
Applying Brewer’s approach to my own anxiety and IBS seems to be working for me, but it might not be as healing for you. I want you to know that I see and fully acknowledge your struggle.
I’ve been stymied by that battle for what feels like an eternity, and I only drop affiliate links to make this book easier to access if you’re curious. Not because I think there’s a miracle, one-size-fits-all cure for this shit. If nothing else, reading could lead you to discover something that helps you more. That’s all I expect anyone to get from my review today.
But listen to me: if it doesn’t help like you want, it’s not your fault. It’s so important to me that you know that.
I still have anxiety, and I will always be prone to my anxious tendencies. The difference is that now I recognize it, have tools that can help me process it, and can clearly see the benefit of applying those tools.
Like I said a few days ago, I’m not moved much by woo. I prefer hard science, and Judson Brewer broke it down for me in this book. He explained his research plainly, and I found his writing clear but thorough.
Still, I’m the type who picks up on new things every time I read—it’s like when I’m rewatching a favorite movie and I notice something for the first time. I intend to give the audiobook a third listen after the initial ideas in Unwinding Anxiety have had a little more time to simmer.
Unwinding My Own Anxiety
My earliest memorable dealings with anxiety harken back to when I was about 8. I was in bed one night trying to sleep when I thought about the story of John Henry. We’d sung a song about him in music class earlier that week.
When I thought about Henry’s death and then realized my own was inevitable, I struggled to breathe. I felt sick to my stomach and hung out by the toilet for the night. It was my first panic attack, and I have only this week come to understand that’s what was happening.
Unfortunately, my best friend was sleeping over that night, and she wanted to go home. Adult me totally gets it, but little me was kind of heartbroken that my best friend didn’t want to hang out. Her mom or her grandma or someone came to pick her up. I was not just feeling anxious, I was feeling rejected.
My parents tried to console me that night, but I don’t think they understood my experience because I didn’t have words to articulate my fear. Besides, even at 8 years old, I already understood that I should probably just get a grip.
I got that same anxious feeling in my gut about Gifted & Talented class and tried to quit. But the G&T teacher was a hardass. She told me I couldn’t quit unless my parents wrote a note. I thought I’d be a disappointment to them—and I didn’t want to break their hearts—so I stayed in the program and never again brought it up.
And so it went for another 36 years.
I knew when I got stressed and anxious, my IBS would show up, but I had no clue I had developed full-blown generalized anxiety disorder until I heard Brewer define it. Then I remembered the joke I saw on Twitter about all the G&T kids being perfectionists with anxiety.
Hahahaha. Heh.
*nervously glances around room*
That plus recalling Dr. Pulmonologist recently noting the connection between IBS and anxiety caused me to have a lightbulb moment while listening to Unwinding Anxiety.
If I didn’t have a brain tumor to worry about, I might have put the pieces together sooner. After all, I have been diagnosed with anxiety because of my health.
Detailing My Anxiety Loops
Trying to get the anxiety and IBS to stop without understanding the connection was futile. My chronic illness and the physical manifestations of my GAD, were woven too tightly together.
With each new physical symptom, I’d spiral and feed the anxious habits I’d been actively suppressing for a lifetime. Every new doctor’s appointment made it all worse.
The constant internal battle over needing to know what was wrong with me but also needing to not have another expensive doctor’s appointment drain my bank account magnified my anxiety and made my IBS an even bigger problem. To the point I was noticing disordered eating in an attempt not to shit my pants. Sometimes not wanting to eat at all. When I would finally give in and eat because I knew I needed calories to stay alive, there would be even more severe consequences.
When Mom would join us for a meal, I’d stress about getting to the bathroom in time after eating. Or I’d fret about choosing the “wrong” food when ordering takeout, et voilá. I’d give the IBS something to IBS about. I’d try to identify trigger foods only to realize everything caused GI distress and be certain I was hopelessly broken. The suffering was endless.
Also? “You have cancer, we should see if this is cancer too” every few weeks might have been medically sound advice, but it was disastrous for my mental health. My doctors and I didn’t know what we didn’t know.
Pausing My Catastrophic Spirals
Garden variety anxiety had been on my radar for a while. So I tried earnestly to meditate myself to calm. The problem was that my anxiety had anxiety, as they say. Or, put another way, I was anxious I’d be anxious again. I was a hot mess.
I’m still a hot mess, if I’m honest. But Unwinding Anxiety has helped me understand what triggers my anxiety loops, why just mapping the loops helps, and how a subtle shift in how I meditate gets me to recognize what’s happening and press pause on the unraveling.
My brain has always been trying to help, since I was a kid, but I ended up very literally addicted to worry.
Evidence My Anxiety Was Exacerbating My IBS
Grasping for answers made me feel worse. Nothing is clearer to me now. Brewer encourages the anxious who try his approach to not just scrutinize his evidence, but look for their own.
I’m wary of things helping for a short time and ceasing to be therapeutic, BUT
My guts aren’t as inflamed. Which means my lungs have more room to expand and my breathing isn’t as shallow as it was just last week.
I can also hug both of my knees to my chest without any pain in my abdomen—something that inflammation and excruciating pain had made impossible for the last couple of years.
I am still eating “bad” foods, but my IBS-D episodes are farther between and less severe. I haven’t had an IBS-C bout since my first listen. Though it’s too early to say anything about IBS-C with certainty as that has always been an intermittent issue.
That level of improvement with my IBS coupled with my vastly improved mental well-being—in such a short time—is enough for me to keep on keeping on and write this long-ass post.
I’ve been trying really hard to stay positive, but today I am dealing with an IBS-D flare and back spasms. It’s taking all I’ve got to stay in the low-anxiety zone. And I’ll be frank, I am not good at it.
There are new lounging pants in my wishlist, and I will leave the rest to your imagination. Just know that it’s difficult to not be very angry at my body when it feels like it’s out to get me.
This back issue happened to me once at the hospital after a particularly long MRI. If I had to guess, I’d say I’m adjusting poorly to the new bed in addition to the usual irritable bowel shenanigans. It’s better for me, the adjustable bed, but I was used to the struggles of the old one. Now my back is being precious about it.
If the past is any indicator, the tension and immobility in my lower back will wane eventually, but until that time I’ve got my middle fingers out again. I’m exhausted by the setbacks and rotating ailments. I’m ready for some stability.
Less sucky stability though. I feel like if I don’t make that clear, I’ll end up with crap experiences on a technicality. Like when the genie takes away one of your wishes because you wish you knew what to wish for.
I know that I have a better sense of well-being when I can make room for the inconveniences of being chronically ill, but this level of meditation is new and hard. It takes time to make new habits. It’s not like I came with all this angst on day one.
Anyway, today I’m overwhelmed and need a hug, a penguin stuffie, and some peppermint tea. A little sunshine wouldn’t hurt either.
We’ve had a couple of pleasant days here, but they were deceptively pleasant. I’m paying for having the windows open with non-stop sneezing and a raging sinus headache so intense my teeth hurt. It’s hard to be positive when the things you want to celebrate hurt you.
Nevertheless.
Hold up. Dan just brought me an ice pack to put on my face.
Ahhh.
Oliver has a new nickname in addition to Oliver Wendell Homeslice. It’s Coach. Because he busts through the bathroom door when I’m on the toilet and screams at me. I appreciate the pep talk, but so far it hasn’t helped my IBS-C flares.
Gratuitous photos of the cute, but ineffective, little jerk.
I’m currently struggling with not worrying about Dan and had to have the “I need to know you’ll be okay,” talk. Not because I feel the end is near, but because my superpower is obsessing over what ifs. I have been feeling like a ginormous burden lately, no doubt fueled by the US system of “heath care” in all its overpriced glory.
Something in me thinks things would feel manageable again if I could keep the anxiety down to a dull roar, but every time I think I have something sorted, a new thing surfaces. Today it’s a cyst on the skin near my sternum. This has appeared before, but the difference is I could deal with the weird post-chemo skin stuff back then. Now I can’t tuck my chin far enough to see it.
Skin lesions are Dan’s specialty though, so at least I don’t feel like I have to worry about another trip to the doctor.
Oh, also I bought some stuff for swimmer’s ear, and I just want to say there’s a special place in hell for manufacturers who don’t put tabs on foil seals and then have the nerve to put a paper layer on top that tears away leaving absolutely nothing to grip.
While I’m complaining: I got this remote holder from Amazon. The picture shows it holding three remotes but it only holds two of mine. Naturally I need it to hold a TV remote, a Roku remote, and my adjustable bed remote.
“But Emily,” I hear you saying, “didn’t you test how many remotes it would hold before you stuck it to the nightstand?”
Before I do anything else, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate that I’m not recovering from a bronchoscopy today because I didn’t need one yesterday because my body handled that lung nodule like a boss.
I moved my appointment with Dr. Oncology a couple of weeks out, and I will use this time to be kind to my guts.
I dealt with another 5-day round of IBS-C this week, which was awful. But! I had a few days before that where I felt slightly better than what has become my usual. So I will see about extending my not-too-awful streak.
Dr. Pulmonologist said that my lung function test results point to anatomical breathing restrictions caused by deconditioning. I don’t have asthma or COPD or anything, so losing weight and exercise would probably help me. I will try.
Diet and exercise can be an excuse for some doctors not to listen, but I’m confident that’s not the case here. I continue to believe my most unwieldy medical issue is anxiety, and it’s physical manifestations are out of whack. I’m working on that, but it’s not like there’s an overnight cure.
There are a couple of specific things that plague me. I obsessively plan now. I’ve always been the kind of person that checks out the menu at a new restaurant a day ahead, but now I plan what I will wear to the doctor’s office, who will drive me there, what I will say, how much water I can drink beforehand to have decent veins but not have an overactive bladder scare.
You get the idea. It’s too much. And the kicker is that I’m too physically disabled to write it all down and I don’t trust myself to remember. That means I obsess AND then I rehearse it all. It’s bad news, but it’s unnecessary. I don’t have to do it. I need to remember that. Be like, yo, self! You’re doing the anxious shit again.
I’ve been addressing some of this with Tara Brach’s podcast, because—at least for now—appointments and schedules trigger a physical anxiety response. So I’m trying to self-soothe for now. Without the Oreos.
They say life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. I say life is what happens when you’re trying desperately not to make medical appointments.
Remember how I wanted the month of August off? Well, I have four new appointments now, five total. The one with Dr. Oncologist has been on the books for about a week. And the rest are all a result of seeing Dr. Pulmonologist yesterday.
We discussed the nodule that showed up on my last CT, and he went over the images with me and Dan.
Before I lose everyone who’s tired of the medical crap and the anxiety stuff, a plug for the GoFundMe again. Things are about to get hella more expensive. Currently in the works: a lung function test, a CT and pre-admission testing for a lung biopsy, the actual lung biopsy, and a follow-up with Dr. Pulmonologist.
Oy.
“All of this is necessary, right?” I asked Dan while he got Moana rolling for me. (Watching makes me feel better.) I knew the answer, but needed Dan to confirm because I really do not want to do any of this. I’m looking for excuses.
“Yes. Listen to your doctors, Swiss,” he said while angling the TV toward the bed.
Dr. Pulmonologist is another of the good ones, by the way. I’ve been really lucky since we moved at the end of 2022.
Unfortunately, the string of bad doctors I encountered prior to my brain cancer diagnosis in 2017 really set the tone for my growing anxiety. I try to remember now to be fair to new doctors and to myself, but sometimes the body and the anxious brain just go on autopilot. I get all panicky without justification.
That’s probably all clear and I’m overexplaining myself. That’s the anxiety. It overexplains symptoms too. Trying to figure out how to be heard at doctor appointments will fuck you up, kids. Bad.
I’m working on it. Still. In fact, I think the only reason I made it through yesterday was because I was working on it by listening to a podcast episode from Tara Brach called Embodied Presence (Part 2).
Give it a listen if you’re dealing with chronic pain, emotional trauma, or if you want to understand how to deal with either or both for future reference. If I try to paraphrase, the good bits of her talk will be lost, and I will be writing this blog post forever.
Buckle in or bail, y’all. I’m not editing this for meanders.
One of the more incredible moments from yesterday came when I was describing my symptoms and my anxiety. I relayed to the doctor how I felt my shallow breathing and excessive fatigue were probably related to my anxiety, the pain in my muscles, and the swollen abdomen from an extreme bout with IBS.
You know what he said? He said, “You didn’t ask for this and it’s my job to do the worrying here.”
I might have cried if I could believe my own ears.
He also reminded me how closely IBS and anxiety were connected and assured me there were things that could help me breathe easier once we knew what we were dealing with.
This might all seem very obvious to others, I don’t know, but to me and my anxiety it was a revelation.
So, anyway, the nodule is on my right lobe and is about 9mm—smaller than the cheerio but bigger than the head of the thumbtack on the poster hanging on the back of the exam room door.
If the nodule goes away*, they won’t need to do the robot-assisted bronchoscopy. Cross your fingers, toes, eyeballs, hearts, and whatever else you got, people.
* Possible if it’s from an infection or something, but not likely.
Seeing how I ordered myself a grocery care package from Walmart and I was approved this week for Walmart’s affiliate program, I thought I’d share what IBS relief stuff is being delivered today.
Brief disclaimer since this is the internet: I’m disabled, but not so disabled I don’t delete comments from people who try to shame me about accessible delivery services, packaging, and whatnot.
Peppermint tea is soothing for the stomach. I frequently get tired of drinking the same thing, so I like to have a little variety. That leads me to my next purchase.
I’m not a fan of tea, but I always take my medicine. Ginger and I go way back to my first round of chemo. It helps with nausea.
FYI: Ondansetron (generic for Zofran) works well as an anti-emetic, but, girlfriend, it stops all the pipes from chugging. Give me some ginger and I’ll deal, thank you very much.)
I haven’t tried this yet, so I’m not vouching for it. It contains chicory though, so this has to be tried with forethought. It’s not time yet, but it will be waiting when I’m ready.
My taste buds prefer ice cream, but I’m trying to be kind to my intestines right now. The colder, the better even when it’s not the middle of July in the Northern Hemisphere.
Salt is just something I crave when I’m drinking a lot of water. Plus I really like the movie theater butter flavor on these. Popcorn hurts me, so I make do.
Lightly toasted with peanut butter for when I’m hungry, but not adventurously so. Dan and I both like them and just have them around anyway. This brand comes pre-sliced.
Usually I would treat myself with a package of Double Stuf Oreos, but graham crackers have less sugar. (Processed foods are a no-no, but YOLO. Also sugar is delicious but sadly a trigger for me, so I’m opting for less sugar. I’m a work in progress, okay?)
I’ve spent the last three days wondering if emergency surgery would be required to clear a bowel obstruction.
Here’s the thing. If me talking about poop troubles you in any way for any reason, you need to find something else to read. I have IBS, zero qualms, and a bag of edibles making me feel pretty bold right now.
I promise you I can’t be bothered to care whether this topic makes you squirm. Plus there are people out there who need me to write about this as much as I need to tell the tale.
Last night I went to bed near tears, my abdomen hurt so much. I spent most of the late afternoon using the shiatsu massager someone gifted me a couple of years ago on my belly. The heat and massage relieved some of the discomfort, and I was desperate.
Plus, I’d read that self-massage can relieve constipation and since I’m too weak and fatigued, I knew it was the closest I was going to get. I had to try.
I also sipped hot tea. I ate Activia. I took laxatives. I drank coffee. I threw caution to the wind and ate IBS-D triggers. Then, when none of that helped, I did the only thing I could. I panicked and let the anxiety in.
I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling and contemplating the blogger from 14 years ago who almost died because of a severe bowel obstruction. I saw her face and her hospital gown in my mind’s eye, and I pondered the worst.
Anxiety used to trigger IBS-D, by the way, but not this time. That turd wasn’t going to budge for nothin’.
I spent enough time on the toilet hoping for a bowel to twitch that eventually my legs went purple from the blood pooling around my feet and ankles.
(I have a foot rest, but after so much time even that doesn’t help.)
When I woke up this morning to take my levothyroxine, the water I sipped made me notice just how much I wanted to barf. I closed my eyes and willed away the nausea, falling back asleep for another hour. But when I woke again, the urge to hurl was still there.
I felt that familiar discomfort in my lower left abdominal quadrant where something (it was the poop) was setting off radiating nerve pain. I dug my palm in a little, pressing and pushing down toward my leg. My bowels rumbled.
“This is it! It’s happening! Finally!” I thought.
And so it was that I pooped today.
But you know what was waiting in the wings behind that IBS-C poop? IBS-D poop. That’s what.
No wonder I felt so awful. I might as well have been walking around for days with a cork up my ass.
And the best part is now I get to wonder if this is just ordinary IBS stuff or if the Plaquenil is making shit worse.
