Define Yourself First: the anxiety he missed for forty years
Jason Widup thought anxiety looked like panic attacks. His looked like catastrophizing five steps ahead, plus decades of daily weed to quiet it.
Jason didn't know he had anxiety until he was about forty. He was watching for the movie version, racing heart and panic, while his actual anxiety ran as constant doubt and catastrophizing, always five steps ahead of the disaster. It had been there since childhood.
From his late teens he self-medicated with daily weed, and for years he believed it was treating the anxiety. He now believes it was doing the opposite, keeping his body in a permanently anxious state. What finally broke it was Mount Rainier: he started training, ninety minutes to two hours a day, six days a week, and weed stopped fitting the life he was building.
The physical proof showed up after he quit. On hikes he knew cold, his heart rate jumped from a normal 120-130 to 160-170, and it took about two months for sleep and fitness to level out. The people around him noticed before he fully did: he was calmer.
“I would constantly be trying to think ahead five steps to avoid failure or avoid something bad or catastrophic happening.”
Notes
- He didn't recognize his anxiety until around forty. It looked like chronic worry, not panic.
- Daily weed from his late teens felt like treatment; he now believes it sustained the anxiety.
- Training for Mount Rainier, up to two hours a day, six days a week, made quitting stick.
- After quitting, his heart rate on familiar hikes spiked from 120-130 to 160-170 for about two months.