Ash Ketchum of Anxiety Disorders

I worry an unusual amount. About unusual things. Like how butterflies sometimes hang out on carrion. Spooky. My husband, wisely, won’t take me on cruises mostly because the close proximity to people makes me scared. But also, because I’m concerned about the lack of jurisdictional oversight when I’m inventively thrown overboard by one of the people, I was aggressively awkward toward. And because before I die by either drowning or being chopped to pieces by a propeller, I will have almost certainly contracted some terrible infectious disease or life-threatening food poisoning. No one wants to be trapped on a floating petri dish with a bunch of pukey people. I should thank that guy who threw me over the balcony.

I noticed that I had concerns, catastrophic concerns according to my therapist, that other children didn’t seem to have sometime around middle school. I chose to believe that I was simply more practical. More aware of the myriad ways that life wanted to dramatically and horrifically maim and kill you than other 12-year-olds. Actually, I was suffering from several anxiety disorders, but I wouldn’t find that out until 10 years later.

My issues peaked in college. The intense increase in workload and expectations, coupled with social pressures and mounting feelings of inadequacy, created a pressure cooker for my symptoms. Of course, I once again took the reasonable route and assumed my panic attacks were asthma or some sort of terrible teen heart disease and did my best to ignore them when they struck before exams.

By some miracle, I graduated, and my symptoms slowed. I got married, and my partner’s calming presence—he has never been one to overthink things—helped, too. Sure, I still ripped out the occasional fingernail and sorted my groceries as my life depended on it, but day-to-day, things were pretty good. Then, I had children.

There is nothing to supercharge anxiety like bringing small children into the world. I finally went to see a therapist. Over our sessions, where I assume she gets tons of great content for the therapist meetups, we have determined that I have several disorders. OCD, GAD, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety, and technically a phobia. I say technically because, throughout our sessions, we have determined that my paralyzing fear of butterflies does not, in fact, impact my life enough to require intervention. So, I just kind of avoid them.

**** Side story about how I learned of my terrible fear of flying demons. My family went to the Smithsonian on vacation. They had a lovely butterfly exhibit that my then 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son were very excited to see. We bought tickets and waited in line. As we were waiting, I guess I did notice that I was getting a little anxious. I thought I was worried about the kids and the very precious butterflies. They bring us into a little antechamber before the small, enclosed hallway of butterflies. The heat is mounting a bit, but I’m still naively blaming the kids. As soon as the flap shuts us in with the butterflies absolutely everywhere, like an unacceptable number of butterflies, I am breathing too fast.

Immediately one lands on me. The panic in my eyes, body language, and whole being instantly alerts an official butterfly handler to my location. They gently brush it off me with what I can only assume was a blush brush, before she can even walk away another butterfly lands on my arm. I’m holding back tears now. She looks at me and says, “Do you need to be escorted out of the exhibit? You absolutely cannot touch the butterflies.” I nod and am removed. The rest of my family enjoys the butterflies and laughs at me for needing to be escorted out for the safety of the butterflies and for my own sanity. *****

My kids were talking about I have so many issues. I told them that actually, I’m just like Ash from Pokémon. Except with anxiety disorders. Gotta catch ’em all.

** But seriously. Do not catch them all. By this I mean both the anxiety disorders and the butterflies.