My anxiety disorder is my “mise en place”—my slice of heaven.
I’m fully aware of my Anxiety NOS diagnosis.
In mental health care, practitioners subscribe to one of two camps (or they camp along the spectrum): They treat you with your label, or they treat you without your label. It doesn’t really matter unless you feel the stigma of your label of Bipolar Disorder or Major Depression. Some folks wear their diagnoses with a sense of pride; others feel misdiagnosed and end up spending their therapy hours grappling with their diagnosis.
Finding a therapist that’s covered by insurance is rare. It’s like trying to spot a four-leaf clover. You know they exist. (Do they, though?) And you’re always half on the lookout for them. Most times, in order to find a psychiatrist or therapist covered by insurance, you have to be pretty deep in the woods of a mental health crisis.
For the rest of us, therapists are an out-of-pocket expense. You have to file paperwork with each visit in order to have the cost go towards your high-limit deductible. It’s like throwing buckets of water into an in-ground pool.
Us high-functioning folks who want to indulge in self-care by talking to a therapist instead of dumping drama on our friends? We have to process our own paperwork. So, even if you have a therapist who doesn’t outwardly label you with a diagnosis, you still see it on the receipt to submit to your insurance company.
ANX NOS, F41.9. Not otherwise specified. My inner world reduced to a billable code.
My anxiety means I’m neurotic and controlling, always bracing for impact but for no specific reason. My creativity can spiral almost any situation out of control and into a parallel universe.
I recently read that humorist writer Erma Bombeck picked up her writing career after a 10-year hiatus as a “housewife.” Prior to marriage and childbearing, she had a few columns in newspapers in and out of college. Then she donned the badges of Wife and Mother. 10 years later, she became a prolific writer again. (Is that when the dust finally settles? Anyone on the other side—can you confirm or deny this?)
Unlike most (male) writers who swear by their uninterrupted, early-morning writing habits, Erma says she would begin her daily writing after the husband and kids left for the day. She paints the picture by saying she prioritized her writing by forgetting her household duties. She let the leftover breakfast egg yolk harden on plates.
I admire Erma’s career trajectory as a writer. But my Anxiety NOS keeps me from letting the house look anything but Instagram-perfect before I sit down to write.
The idea of egg yolks hardening on plates sends bright, lightning shocks of white light through my imagination, turning on sirens, and pushing the stress hormone cortisol through my body.
We once had a play date with a new family at our house. The husband and wife walked in and were instantly confused. “It looks like children don’t live here,” they said in amazement. “How do you do it?”
It’s not the first time I received that sentiment. My mom chastised me in my adult years for cleaning too much. She said that I needed to learn to enjoy myself and relax and prioritize my family. Yet I never learned what it meant to relax, because my surroundings dictate my mood. Cluttered countertops and discarded snack wrappers and misplaced throw pillows and separated Lego sets and egg yolks on plates in the sink stress me out to the point of ANX NOS. What makes this manageable is the fact that I run a Really. Tight. Ship.
And a bonus?
I learned to associate cleaning with introversion heaven.
I realize that I perpetuate the female stereotype of never accepting help because I turn down offers at all costs. I prefer to find solace in tidying my space and putting things back where they belong and dusting crumbs off countertops and vacuuming the crumbs and emptying the vacuum chamber and putting the vacuum back into the closet and pushing the door closed until it clicks, just so.
Thus, as a mom of 2 young kids, I move around constantly when the house is occupied by anyone else than me because there’s always something to tidy up. Not out of duty to them, though; tidying serves my introversion. I need to erase any evidence that anyone else lives in the house before I sit down to write. And I do it well.
Call it perfectionism, mise en place, or ANX NOS F41.9, but it’s my little slice of heaven.
