Brave

by Sissy Goff

  You’ve been through hard things too. Let me say that differently. You’ve survived hard things. You came through. Some of the hard things have been trauma, and some have been milder forms of trouble. You might not have felt strengthened by it in the middle of it. You may have experienced sadness and anger. You may have had trouble sleeping. You may have had trouble concentrating in school. You may have had more frequent stomachaches or headaches. I would imagine you did have more worry and anxiety. That’s part of why we’re talking about trauma in this section of the book. When trouble and trauma come, those of us who worry and get anxious become more worried and anxious. In fact, for two-thirds of you reading this book, it’s why you became worried and anxious to begin with. But still, you persisted. You hung on. You’re here and reading now.

  Let me go ahead and say that you may feel like you haven’t persisted. You feel grateful for the word trauma, because it feels like it legitimizes what you’ve been through and still feel like you’re going through to some degree.

  Trauma impacts all of us differently. We can and often do experience more resilience and strength in the aftermath. For some, though, that resilience takes a little longer. For those individuals, the trauma continues to impact them over and over. Rather than just the worry loop, for them, it’s a specific scene or memory that plays repeatedly in their minds. Here’s what happens, from a psychological standpoint. Our brains typically store memories in our long-term memory. You can recall them randomly or with intention, like when you hear a song from your childhood or you talk with your mom and dad about a trip you went on when you were little. You remember, but those memories come and go with normalcy. Traumatic memories, however, sometimes don’t make it to long-term memory. They get stuck in the short-term. It’s why when I counsel someone who has watched a family member die or who has been sexually abused, the memory can tend to replay itself over and over in their mind. They’re not trying to remember. They just do—and at really random times. If this is happening to you, tell your mom or dad. Tell your school counselor or a grown-up you trust who can help. There are specific types of counseling that can help you talk about the trauma in a way that stores that memory where it’s supposed to go so you don’t have to relive it over and over.

  Regardless of whether you are living in the resilience phase now or not quite yet, it is important to know that our experiences impact our anxiety. When you’re struggling in another area, your worry and anxiety will often be worse. Mine sure is. We want to pay attention to when and why our worry and anxiety increase. We want to write and talk about those experiences and the worries that come. We also want to look for the ways God is redeeming them.

  Write about a memory that’s traumatic for you or one that felt like trouble. How have you seen God in it? How are you stronger for having gone through it? If it doesn’t feel like you’re stronger yet, what do you think He’s saying to you in the middle of it?

  The Trouble with Technology

  Okay—don’t be mad at me. I’m sure your parents have said a lot of this. You might have even read some of the articles. Just hear me out for a minute.

  Yes, technology use has been connected to higher rates of anxiety and depression among teenagers. There has been an overall decline in the mental well-being of teenagers since smartphones became popular.4 (I know. Now I sound like your grandmother.)

  One article I read said that people your age who spend five to seven hours per day on their smartphones “are twice as likely to report being depressed as those who use their phones for one to two hours a day.”5 Yes, I know that’s depression and we’re talking about anxiety, but the two often go hand in hand. And I honestly don’t want you to have to struggle with either.

  Another article (one of many) named several ways technology use contributes to anxiety: social comparison, lack of an ability to regulate emotions, increased social anxiety from avoiding social interaction, fear of not being connected enough, and cyberbullying, which studies show can lead to anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.6

  I do know there are positives that come from technology use as well. Zoom and FaceTime certainly keep us connected when we can’t be together in person. Technology also gives us opportunities to learn many different skills, even social and emotional skills such as empathy and mindfulness. But I also want to tell you what I hear directly from girls. These are the top five ways I see technology impact the lives of girls your age:

  Interacting primarily on screens creates a false sense of security. The anxiety that can come with the awkwardness of in-person interaction is removed. I know . . . it sounds like a good thing. And it would be if we were living in the world of WALL-E and you could stay on your screen constantly, but you have to go out into the real world. You have to learn how to connect in real time. I’m going to say it over and over, but to work through your anxiety, you have to do the thing that makes you afraid.

  Interacting primarily on screens also creates a false sense of relationship. You know this, but you can’t really read someone else’s face as well as you can in person, even if you’re on FaceTime. The same sentence in a text could be kind or sarcastic. Someone can act like your best friend after having just started following you on social media. It happens to grown-ups too. Relationships develop slowly, over time. Technology speeds things up and skips over some of the important parts of building not only relationships, but trust. It’s easy to end up trusting others who haven’t quite earned it, or who aren’t who they say they are.

  Social media, in particular, feeds the comparison monster, and we all know comparison is the thief of joy. Everyone else looks like they have closer friends, are invited to more parties, get along better with their siblings. Just think about the fact that so many people remove posts if they don’t get enough likes. That’s basically saying your experience isn’t important or valid unless enough people approve. And I, for example, truly like so many things a day and don’t remember to click the button saying that I virtually like the post. Likes are not an accurate reflection of how another feels about us, and we certainly don’t want others to have the power to validate us or our experiences.

  Technology use increases your brain activity to a degree that is similar to actual anxiety. I talked to a psychiatrist several years ago who told me that when we’re being bombarded by images on a screen, our brains move into a heightened state of agitation. Because your brain isn’t finished developing, it’s harder for it to calm back down. Therefore, too much stimulation on screens can make you more anxious, just from what you’re taking in visually.

  The pressure to keep up is constant and overwhelming. Let’s just take Snapchat streaks, if those are still a thing by the time you read this (because we know how quickly things change in the world of technology). How many streaks do you have going? How long have they lasted? How much time a day does it take you to respond not just to your streaks, but to all the other communication via technology? I have talked to countless girls over the years who’ve disabled Snapchat for this very reason. It was just too much. I also know more and more girls who are taking breaks from technology in general for the same reasons. I know one amazing high school girl who decided to trade her smartphone in for a flip phone. They can’t keep up. The fear that they’ll hurt someone’s feelings or communicate something unintended by not responding on all of the different platforms is too much pressure when they’re already feeling plenty of pressure otherwise.

  What about you? What would you add to the list of how technology increases anxiety?

  How would you say technology negatively affects your life?

  What about the positives? How does it help?

  Do the positives or the negatives seem more significant?

  How could you pull back a little on your technology use?

  What would you say to an eleven-year-old who is just starting her journey with technology and social media?

  The Power of Pressure

  Let’s talk about pressure. It may be last on
this list of external factors that contribute to anxiety, but I believe it might be the most significant in this day and time.

  I want you to create a pie chart for how you spend your time. I know, a pie chart might sound kind of goofy, but humor me. I want you to list homework, your school day, any sports activities you participate in, music lessons, leadership activities, all the things you do regularly with your time. Maybe list screens too, for kicks.

  Now I want you to include creative time, rest time (not sleeping), ______ time (insert your name, which means time when you get to do whatever you want).

  It was really interesting to counsel girls at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the girls I saw I had already been seeing because of anxiety. When we first started hearing about the pandemic, I saw the anxiety get worse in more than a few of those girls. There were a lot of unknowns. Would their grandparents get sick? Would they get it? Were schools going to stay open? Were we going to go into lockdown? It was unpredictable and unknown, which are two things that worry hates.

  A few weeks later, we were at home, because the state government had asked most people to stay home to limit the spread of the virus. The virus was surging, but folks were taking great care to stay safe. Classes were happening online. And girls under the age of eleven were hopping onto their video counseling calls with me with stuffed animals in hand, much more joyful and free than I had seen them since they started coming to counseling in the first place. The things that were making them anxious—friendships, school pressure, the pressure to perform—all those things were gone. They were having a blast baking with their moms and walking their dogs with their dads.

  Girls your age weren’t super different. I have several groups of high school girls I meet with in group counseling sessions. From them, I heard words like bored and lonely. But there seemed to be a collective sigh that was a long time coming. I asked those girls what, from the time at home, they would want to carry forward into post-pandemic time. They said things like “Playing games with my family,” “Going for walks in the neighborhood,” “Playing outside,” “Family dinners,” “Having time to think.” One girl said, “I never knew I liked to be by myself. And I really do!”

  A girl in one of the groups is a classic overcommitter. She runs track, is involved in student government, acts in plays, volunteers for an organization that benefits kids who have cancer . . . oh, and makes straight As. She also comes to the weekly group counseling meeting, but she misses often, or is late, or has to leave early because her activities overlap. She is always stressed.

  Does that sound familiar at all?

  When I asked the group what they wanted life to be like post-pandemic, she said, “I hope I remember what this time has been like. I want to make sure I’m not doing as much as I have in the past few years. It was just too much, and I feel like I’m discovering more of who I am with this extra time.”

  Up until that point, the girls in her group would suggest the same thing every week. “Why don’t you stop doing just one thing?” they’d ask. Her response was always, “I just can’t. I don’t know what I’d drop.” She lived in this state of perpetual low-grade anxiety, and she’d do fine for months and then crash. It took its toll.

  Does that sound familiar at all?

  I remember another girl who told me that she wouldn’t stop any of her activities, even though she knew it was too much and they made her anxious. “Anxiety is what keeps me going,” she said. She would run on that anxiety for weeks at a time and then hit a very emotional, very loud, angry, and yelling-at-her-mom kind of wall.

  It’s too much. When you look at your pie chart, do you have that feeling? Can you relate to either of these girls? If you struggle with worry and anxiety, I really would love for you to think long and hard—and pray and talk to your parents—about what you might give up.

  Write at least one thing you feel like you could give up, if not a few.

  What would make it hard to make that decision?

  If the reasons you don’t want to give something up involve pleasing others—not wanting to hurt the feelings of a teacher or coach or friend—I want you to trust me on this. Your mental health is more important. Your teacher or coach will eventually understand. Your friends will too. The truth is that you can give more out of a place of rest than a place of emptiness. You’re not being selfish. You’ll actually have more to offer in the long run. Think about it.

  The Internals

  The Gifts of Temperament

  I have a feeling that last section was hard for you to read. That’s because I do feel like I know you. I feel like I know you because (1) you care enough about working through worry to pick up this book, and (2) every single girl who struggles with worry and anxiety has a few things in common.

  Those things in common have to do with what’s referred to as temperament. Temperament is a little like your personality, although it runs deeper. According to a Science Daily article, temperament is defined as “biologically based individual differences in the way people emotionally and behaviorally respond to the world.” The article goes on to state, “During infancy, temperament serves as the foundation of later personality.”7 In other words, temperament is who God made you to be from your earliest self. And here are a few things I know to be true about who you are:

  You’re bright (which really means you’re smart—in an inspired kind of way).

  You’re conscientious (which means you want to get it right—whatever “it” is).

  You care deeply (for people and about how people see you).

  Things matter to you (you feel deeply in response to others).

  You try hard (at just about everything you do).

  How many of those things are true about you? I really would guess every one of them. I would also guess that it’s hard to admit those are true because you don’t want to come off as bragging. Here’s the thing: It’s your temperament. It’s who God made you to be. So when you admit how He’s gifted you, He’s the one who’s getting the credit. Not you. You’re safe to admit those things here.

  Now that we’ve established how awesome you are, we can talk more about what that means. When I was little—way back in the 1970s—we didn’t have iPhones. We didn’t even have iPods. Actually, we didn’t even have CDs or cassettes. We had records. You probably know about records, because they’ve become cool again. There were 33s, which were the equivalent of a whole album (they actually were albums, which is funny that we still call something an album that only comes through on your phone), and then there were 45s. Forty-fives were records that had one song on one side and another on the other. You bought the 45 for a single—a really popular song on the radio at the time. But the artist got you to listen to their other song because it was on the flip side. And it usually wasn’t the best song on the album.

  Those temperament kinds of gifts we listed before are a little like 45s. They are great on one side, but when you flip them over, they aren’t necessarily so great. In fact, sometimes they cause us trouble. We could say that every one of our gifts, on the other side, is a curse. I don’t really like that wording, though. Let’s say it’s your flip side. Let’s go back to the gifts and look a little at the flip sides.

  You’re bright, which means you don’t miss things. You notice when one of your friends acts upset with you. You pick up on the fact that you were the last chosen for a team. You put two and two together and realize that you were the only girl from your group of friends not on the group text. Other girls might miss these things, but you don’t. You’re bright, which is great . . . and hard.

  You’re conscientious, so you don’t just want to get it right—you want to get all things right. You don’t know when to let certain things go. You’re not okay with just an A—you want a 100 or better. It’s not that you’re trying to beat others. You’re trying to beat the standard you have for yourself, and that standard is exceedingly high.

  You care deeply. You work hard not to leave others out. You don
’t want anyone to feel like you were unkind, so you go back over and over things you’ve said to friends or acquaintances to make sure you didn’t say something “wrong” or awkward or that might have hurt their feelings.

  Things matter to you. Other girls seem to let things roll off their backs, but everything tends to stop right in the middle of yours. Not only do you worry about what others think, but you can’t stop thinking about it sometimes. When one of your friends is quiet, you don’t realize that she might be having a bad day. You automatically jump to thinking she’s mad at you.

  You try hard. You don’t know when or how to stop trying. You try your very hardest for everything you attempt, no matter how small. Every single detail feels like it has to be taken care of, and in the right way . . . at least in public. Home is the one place where maybe you don’t try all the way all the time, and then you just end up taking your frustrations out on your mom or little brother. It’s not that you mean to, but it just seems to happen. Everywhere else, though, you’re trying to be kind and get good grades and be a leader and inclusive and so many things. And then we circle right back around to pressure.

  How many of those flip side kinds of things would you say are true about you? How do you see your flip side play out?

  Your gifts and your flip side are the same thing. We couldn’t take away the flip side without taking away the gifts. And your good gifts are part of who God made you to be. The way I think of it is that it’s just hard to turn down the volume at times. Turning down the volume on the flip side helps you live more in the gifts. We’re going to get there. That’s so much of what this book is about. Your gifts are truly that—gifts. But anxiety takes those gifts and flips them over in a way that trips you up and gets you stuck. Just like that one-loop roller coaster at the fair. And there’s one more kind of roller coaster that I want to mention.