I'm A Big Strong Stereotypical Man. Anxiety Made Me Feel Like A Failure

For over 25 years of my life I was stalked by full blown panic attacks. As someone that accepts that I am a ridiculous alpha male (CRINGE!) caricature in many ways, being harassed and virtually incapacitated by my own body and mind was a very difficult thing to handle from an emotional and self-image standpoint. Anxiety made me feel like I was feeling … and like I was a failure.

Photo by @felipepelaquim on Unsplash

When I say that I had problems with panic attacks for many years, I am talking about the kind of panic that quickly convinces you that you are about to die, lose your sanity, make a horrible spectacle of yourself, or in some way be irreparably and permanently damaged. These were full-throttle complete activations of the incredibly powerful fight-fight-freeze response we all have wired into the lower parts of our brains.

I experienced all the good stuff:

• Pounding heart

• Shortness of breath

• Dizziness

• Feelings of unreality and detachment

• Freezing and sweating at the same time

• An intense, uncontrollable need to run or fidget or move or do ANYTHING but sit still

• An overwhelming sense of extreme danger and impending doom, mostly centered on dying right there on the spot

These were such impactful and terrifying experiences that after just a few of them I became obsessed with monitoring and checking every sensation in my body. I closely examined every thought I had to see how might be related to panic attacks or indicate that a panic attack was coming. I became hyper-sensitive to everything around me including sounds, changes in the light, and temperature shifts. The smallest demand on me — like answering a phone call or even hearing the phone ring — became triggers that would send me spiraling into panic.

In response to being so sensitive and worried about my next panic attack, I began to develop a long list of avoidance rituals and routines designed to keep me far away from the monster I feared so much. Any event, place, person, or task that my mind had linked to panic attacks or increased anxiety that could lead to panic was declared off limits.

Little by little, avoidance by avoidance, I found myself being held hostage inside a highly restricted and continuously shrinking life. The guards at the door blocking my escape were my body and my mind. Both stood watch over me, reminding me that nothing was safe because anything could trigger that state that I feared and hated so much.

There were times in my life where the monster would take a vacation. Sometimes I could not explain why this would happen. Sometimes it was clear. In 1996 I was handed an SSRI antidepressant and told that I had a chemical imbalance. Sure enough, that miracle pill banished my panic attacks and my anxiety for quite a long time … until it didn’t any more and it had caused its own long list of problems (this is another story).

Regardless of why the panic monster had taken its sabbatical, it would always return at some point. After over 20 years of this, I found myself as an adult with a wife, small children, a house, a business, and a life — that was afraid to leave his house, be alone, or even watch certain movies or shows because they might “make me panic”. When you’re socialized in the western world and told that men are protectors, providers warriors and leaders, guess what this starts to feel like?

It feels like failure. Worse, it made me feel like A FAILURE. Yes, there is a subtle difference and it really did matter.

When my anxiety would insist that I make excuses for not going to my own place of business, that felt like failing. When it would tell me that taking my kids to regular kid activities was “too much”, that felt like failing. When I found myself isolated and no longer interacting with my friends because I couldn’t go to the places where they were, that felt like failing. When anxiety would breathe a huge sigh of relief on the first day of Christmas break because it was OK to hide for 7-10 days, then smash the panic button again on January 2 when it was to go back to life … that felt like failing.

When you add this all up, all that failing (verb) made me see myself as a failure (noun).

What does a man do when he stars to see himself as a failure because he’s afraid of everything even though he knows logically that none of this makes any sense? He gets angry. He withdraws. He doesn’t talk about it. He tries to double down on his male-ness by attempting to run over his mental health struggles like some kind of cyborg soldier. Sometimes he gets really frustrated and disgusted with himself, stands up, and starts waving his sword around while declaring that tomorrow is the day he takes care of this once and for all. Then he winds up feeling like an even bigger failure three days later when all that bravado crumbles into a fine powder the second he is confronted by rising anxiety.

Above all, he tries his best to hide this problem. He lies. He makes excuses. He deludes himself into thinking that his anxiety is very clever in the ways it tries to cover itself up. He winds up barely recognizing himself. He wonders where the guy he used to see in the mirror went. A man trapped by his own anxious body and mind loses himself and no longer knows who he is or how to regain what he once had.

To make matters worse, a man struggling with this issue is surrounded day in and day out by messages about male-ness and masculinity that reinforce the belief that he is a failure. When I was at my worst, the Internet either didn’t exist or was in its early days. All I had to go on were the lessons I was taught in childhood, the men I saw around me, and the “man rules” that were written into my psyche by limited and highly biased inputs. That was bad enough. For a man in this situation now (2024), the constant barrage of hyper-masculine messages make this even more difficult.

How many times can you hear muscular bearded men (yes, I recognize the irony of a muscular bearded man writing this) tell you that nobody is coming to save, you that you have to own your own shit, and that with the right combination of philosophy and ice baths you can master and control your thoughts and emotions? Really, guys? Is that the look you want to give me when I feel like I have no power over myself, much less anything outside my own skin?

If you’ve followed along with me for any length of time you likely already know that I’m much better now. I am not afraid of panic or anxiety or thoughts or bodily sensations any more. I do not see myself as a failure. I can look back now with the wisdom of my recovery experience and my training and understand that I wasn’t ever a failure, even on my worst days. I can say with certainty that it sure felt like that, but feeling like a thing doesn’t always equal that thing, especially when struggling with an overtired overactive anxious mind.

How I got from there to here is something I’ve written and spoken about quite often. This post isn’t about that.

I wanted to write this post to help anyone - especially men - recognize that if you find yourself in this spot, it’s not just you. Feeling like you are failing and feeling like a failure is something that I experienced as part of my story. I can confirm based on the stories of thousands of anxious people over the years that others have also shared this experience. Sometimes knowing that you’re not the only one when you feel isolated and alone can be helpful. Sometimes we need to hear that the thoughts in our heads are loud and convincing, but don’t always represent a future of doom and gloom.

Above all, I wanted to write this post to acknowledge that our culture, our past, our experiences, the environment we find ourselves in, and our self beliefs and self image are important in this equation. Men struggle with anxiety because of some of the things I’ve talked about here. Women struggle with anxiety for other reasons specific to the female experience in western cultures. Humans - regardless of gender identity - struggle with anxiety in part because it will fill us with doubt about our safety, our ability to cope, and our self-worth.

If we don’t talk about these things and don’t acknowledge them, we’re just feeding discussions that while admirable can wind up being incomplete and therefore frustrating or counterproductive for so many in our community.

Anxiety made me — a big strong dude that looks like the poster child for alpha masculinity — feel like an abject failure. It can do this to anyone. That doesn’t mean the feeling is correct or a predictor of your forever.