Catching Anxiety: Learning to Take Life Pitch by Pitch

 Wade Templeman

When talking about mental illness, I always find that it falls upon three main subjects: stress, depression, and anxiety. I would find it very hard to believe if someone were to say they have never felt stressed; it feels like something we can all relate to. Depression on the other hand feels like the other end of the spectrum, a condition that people actively avoid and medicate against. The third and final pillar though, anxiety, does not have the relatability of stress nor the intense stigma of depression. It has always been this odd middle ground to me when hearing others speak about mental health. In my own life though, anxiety is something I could not imagine living without, for better or for worse.

I was diagnosed with moderate to severe anxiety during my sophomore year of high school. My biggest bouts of anxiety had always been triggered by baseball, a sport I loved so much that it broke me. I had poured countless hours into my craft and my anxiety was now ready to capitalize on my emotional investments. Once I had landed the starting job of catcher on our high school team, I suddenly could not function. My peers were all watching, my family, my coaches; my biggest fear was letting them down. Every single pitch thrown to me was a terrifying ordeal. Any mistake I made was on full display and it ate away at me pitch after pitch. Let's say I caught a full game; that's upwards of 100 pitches. This is what would go through my mind for each one:

“Don’t drop it, don’t let it get past you, catch it properly, keep an eye on the runners, be ready to catch them stealing, what if they score, make sure the throw is good, if the throw is bad I’ll look stupid, throw the ball back to the pitcher right, what if I make a bad throw, what is the next pitch we should call, people probably thought that throw was weak, here we go again…”

Every. Single. Pitch. I would not wish that mental torture on my worst enemy.

After a few games, I couldn’t even throw the ball back to the pitcher anymore. Then by the next year, I no longer wished to try going to college to play. To this day, I am still in utter disbelief as to how anxiety can have such an arresting effect on both the body and mind. Obviously, this was something I could not solve on my own without some guidance. I sought psychotherapy and received my official diagnosis. There, I learned some of the coping mechanisms I still employ to this day. I think my favorite technique my therapist gave me was not to treat anxiety as its own entity but as an extension of the self. Imagine it as this little annoying guy, a manifestation of everything anxiety tries to tell us, that follows us around all day. Its sole purpose is to mess with our mood or try to put negative thoughts in our head. The best solution is to recognize what is going on, catch it early, and put an end to it. I may look a little crazy sometimes, but taking a look down at my little imaginary anxiety monster and telling it to go screw itself goes a long way when I can feel a spiral coming.

As I’ve gotten older, learning more has motivated me to try and weaponize my own anxiety for good. I think the statistic that scared me the most was how much anxiety and other chronic stress conditions can affect your lifespan. A study from Purdue in 2008 followed a wide range of men ages 43-91 over 12 years. One group had high levels of anxiety and chronic stress, while the other reported normal symptoms. After the 12 years, only half of the anxious group was still living while the control group saw 80% of the men survive. If I was going to live a long, healthy life I needed to manage my anxiety as soon as possible. The quick and easy way was medication, but did I really need it? I had a good idea of how my own anxiety worked so I saw no reason why I couldn’t conquer it with some well targeted mindfulness.

An article by Richard Sears posted on the Mad In America forum validates my decision to choose mindfulness over medication. The article outlines a study performed at Georgetown University that pits mindfulness based stress reduction (MSBR) against the anxiety medication escitalopram. After both test groups went through the 8-week program, their anxiety levels were tested on the Clinical Global Impression Severity Scale (CGI-S). The results showed that the medication had a negligible amount of anxiety reduction when compared to MSBR with some participants even withdrawing from the medication groups due to complications. No one withdrew from the MSBR group.

I have found in my own experience that dealing with anxiety without medication takes time, but it is an extremely gratifying experience. If my anxiety were to disappear because of a drug, I really don’t think I’d still feel like myself. My anxiety is still a part of me; it reminds me what I truly care about and what motivates me on the deepest levels. As much as I’d love to throw that catcher's gear back on and catch a game without a worry in the world, it would not feel the same. Knowing what I know now about mindfulness and the effects anxiety has on my health I can work on actively managing the symptoms day to day. Taking problems as they face me and limiting how much I look to the future has been my latest accomplishment.

Anxiety is not this mystical force that controls one’s mind, it is an extension of the self’s worries, passions, and motivations. It is far easier to turn those feelings against us than use them positively. I encourage those that feel similarly to remember this and live life a day (or pitch) at a time. 

Purdue study - Mroczek, D. K., & Spiro, A. (2007). Personality Change Influences Mortality in Older Men. Psychological Science, 18(5), 371-376. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01907.x

MSBR vs. Medication - https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/12/mindfulness-as-effective-as-antidepressant-for-the-treatment-of-anxiety-disorders/

Ted Talk on stress, anxiety, and its effects on lifespan- https://youtu.be/NyyPZJrDfkM?si=LI-XI7jsz38Y6OU4