I’ve recently come to the realization that I was (maybe still am?) addicted to overwhelm and anxiety. It’s supposed to come with the single parent program, right? What started off (justifiably) as a young mother trying to find ways to provide for her young son, over the years became the jumping off point into full blown stress addiction.
It’s not something I wanted, craved or made any sort of conscious decision to seek out. I hated it. I would cry myself to sleep wishing it would go away and would imagine myself crawling into a cave where no one demanded anything from me. My biggest dream was to have a day where I had absolutely nothing to do.
At 30, my son’s father cleaned out our savings before threatening me that if I ever went after child support he would tell the judge I was so “stupid with money that I couldn’t afford my kid, and that he would have him taken away from me”. He went on to say that if I complied, he would buy a house and have me and my son “rent the basement at a reasonable price”. He told me that no one would rent to a single mom with no money and that we’d be homeless.
I was a musician at the time with no financial wherewithal. The day he said those words, I downloaded every financial textbook I could find. Months later, I enlisted the help of my mother so that I could work full time and start a finance degree at the University of Toronto. A couple years later, I had the Chartered Financial Analyst designation (the CFA). I would joke that a normal person would have downloaded “The Wealthy Barber”. I, a self-proclaimed nutcase, went on a 10-year journey to become a Financial Analyst, all while working multiple jobs and raising/supporting a son on my own.
The hardest work is done. Or is it?
Anyone who is or has pursued the CFA designation knows the feeling of waiting for the email on exam results day indicating a pass or fail. (Most people fail). After having passed the 3rd and final level, I had a good cry with colleagues and friends. Finally, the hardest work is done. After almost a decade of relentless work and study, I could relax.
About a day into “not having something to study for”, I started to feel only what could be described as loss. It was as though I had lost my identity as “stressed out single mom, putting her mental health on the backburner to support her child”. I didn’t know who I was without the constant anxiety. This lead me to begin research into the addiction to stress.
Discomfort = bad. Comfort = good.
When something terrible happens, our survival brains are set up in way to help us avoid danger or make it go away as quickly as possible. In the moment I felt that my and my son’s survival was threatened, my brain said “do something”.
Habits are formed in 3 stages. First, there is a trigger, then a behaviour, which is followed by a reward. In my case, narcissist ex threatens me and my son, the behaviour of arming myself with advanced financial knowledge and taking on seemingly impossible tasks, then finally, the reward of earning a living where I could successfully support my family.
For many people, a popular habit loop around anxiety is worry. The anxious feeling is the trigger, the worry is the behaviour, and the feeling of being in control is the reward. We’ve now successfully set up the loop; “next time you’re anxious, worry more.” When we worry, our brains are being tricked into thinking that we’re problem solving or doing something productive. If we come up with a great idea, we believe that the worry is what came up with the idea, not us, despite research showing that worry stifles creativity.
Survival mode – running from a predator, isn’t the time to write poetry, concentrate on the breath or digest a meal for that matter. Blood flows away from your organs into your extremities for one reason – to run. Looking back at my situation, suddenly I had the means by which to take my son on a trip, afford groceries, pay rent etc. I knew intellectually that it was my dedication to study and determination to not let my child starve that got us here, but my body believed it was because of the feelings of overwhelm, stress, anxiety, worry and burn-out. I had been running for almost 10 years. When those feelings seemed to have subsided, it was as though I believed that somehow it would all be taken away. I was waiting for the ball to drop. Cue stress response, chronic fatigue, weight gain, adrenal dysfunction, cortisol and hair loss.
Humans are wired to run towards pleasurable activities, or away from activities which cause pain. If something is rewarding, we’re going to repeat it. If it hurts, we’re going to stop.
Here’s where the magic lies. We can make activities we want to do evoke pleasure, and those we want to discontinue cause pain. Imagine the pain of leaving your children parentless because you developed cancer as a result of your chronic stress. That one did it for me. After really feeling the pain of leaving my child, I gave myself what I called “a better offer”, one of curiosity. I asked myself “where am I feeling the pain in my body?”, “What is this worry trying to tell me?”, “Is what I’m imagining really true?”, “What is really true in this situation?”.
More often than not, I would find an empowering truth to replace the maladaptive one. For example, the stressful “no one wants to hire a single mom, especially in finance” became the empowering “the right employer will hire me because I’m a single mom, work my ass off, and lead with empathy, determination and grit.” And what do you think happened? I got the perfect job for that very reason.
Another common one for me was “who wants to date a single mom?” and “I’ll be alone forever”. The truth I choose to tell myself is “The man I want in my life is the one who would welcome the step dad assignment. It’s a great filter to catch the best of the best.” I’m still single but will be sure to report back when the tides change. It’s important to note, however, that our minds are built with a bullshit detector. We can’t just think positively. When we say things like “I’m a rockstar” or “I’m a Queen”, our brains don’t really believe us. “Um… you’re a broke single parent.” The key is in really believing what you’re telling yourself.
Find a replacement.
Replacing anxiety with curiosity really helped me pivot away from activities that chipped away at my mental health. I understood and believed that I didn’t need to take on impossible challenges to make money. Also, habits are VERY difficult to extinguish. It’s much easier to replace a habit with a new behaviour.
The body is always trying to protect us from harm. The moment we feel threatened, we humans create layers of adaptations to help us not feel the feelings. My adaptation was study, work and a specialization in finance. Because I trusted the father of my son, I believed him when he told me that he took all the money I had saved up and put in in a joint investment account for us (which I later found out was solely in his name.) I believed him when he said that his business endeavours were too complicated for my artistic mind to comprehend. And my favourite, that he should max out my credit cards because my credit doesn’t matter since “my credit would be his credit” once we were married. The moment I realized he stole everything and left me with tens of thousands in credit card debt and a 2 year old to raise without support was the moment my body told me that if only I was smarter and financially literate, my child and I wouldn’t be in this position.
If only I had more confidence, I wouldn’t have let this narcissist convince me of his delusions. If only I knew more about psychology, I would have recognized the signs, and perhaps most destructively – if only I made more money, I would have been worthy of love.
Fast forward to 2023, this person owes my child about $600,000 in child support arrears, has spent months in jail, has vowed to destroy me unless I rescind the debt, is an undischarged bankrupt, claims he lives with his parents, has no expenses and has had no income since the day his wages were garnished in 2014. Before he was sentenced to prison he told me that if I couldn’t support my son on my own I should “learn to manage my money better.” Said one undischarged bankrupt deadbeat to a financial analyst…
Looking back, I became all the things I believed I needed to be to never allow something like that to happen again, but not without an enormous cost; a decade of my life. My challenge for you is to think about how stress or (fill in the coping strategy ) might be costing you in terms of health, relationships and general happiness and fulfillment in life. What thoughts cause these feelings to stir up? Are those thoughts actually true? I promise you, there is a better way.
JOURNAL PROMPT
Consider a part of yourself that you want to eradicate. This could be a habit, a belief or a decision you made about yourself at a time of stress that has become maladaptive in your life. Think: “I’m not smart enough”, “Relationships are the devil”, overeating, alcoholism, shopping etc. What was this PART of you trying to protect you from in the past? Reflect.
Thank this part of you for protecting you during a time of need, but that you no longer need them to be safe. You’ve got this.
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