Ep25 - What if the Anxiety Comes Back?

We’ve shared lots of stories of people who’ve wrestled with anxiety in their lives, and for many of them, the reality is that despite seeing improvements in their mental health and learning better coping strategies over time, anxiety may always be a part of their lives.

This was the case for

Tiffany Ciccone

, a teacher and writer in California, who we’re chatting to in this episode. 

Tiffany did all the right things to deal with her Generalised Anxiety Disorder. She sought professional help, went to regular therapy sessions, brought her anxiety to God, journalled through difficult thoughts and feelings, and tried different forms of medications. After a year of regular sessions, Tiffany’s therapist even “graduated” her, saying she’d learned all the tools she would need to deal with her anxiety.

But although doing those things provided peace and relief in some seasons, the anxiety came back. So how do you deal with anxiety that returns, even after doing “all the right things”? And what does that do to your faith?

In this episode, Tiffany shares what it’s like to feel like you’ve ‘beaten’ anxiety, only to have it return again. She talks about how her symptoms changed over time, and how she learned to recognise the physical sensations her body was experiencing as “somatic anxiety” — a physical manifestation of anxiety without the typical anxious thoughts.

Tiffany also talks about the shift she’s seen in the stigma and perceptions of mental illness within the church over time, and the difference that being open and vulnerable with her faith community about struggles with anxiety has made to her own faith and mental wellbeing.

Now, Tiffany’s using her experiences to help others by writing the book she wished she could have read when first diagnosed. We hope you’ll be just as encouraged by her story as we’ve been.

Tiffany has also written several pieces for us on the blog, including ‘Clinical Anxiety Isn’t What the Church Thinks It Is’ and ‘How to Be Helpful When a Loved One Tells You They’re Anxious’.