I pick at my beard when I’m anxious.

It’s why I’ve never tried to grow a beard. I can’t. There are patches in my beard where I pick it.

I’ve been anxious my whole life, I guess.

As a kid, I would get sick to my stomach every morning when it was time to get on the bus. My mom thought it was my diet—allergies, maybe.

We never talked about anxiety. I thought I was sick a lot.

My wife and I started dating a few days before graduation when we were eighteen.

I got sick on a lot of dates, which was embarrassing. Then, I turned twenty-one. Beer helped.

The summer we started dating, my parents booked a family trip with their friends. As we pulled into the airport, I said I wasn’t going.

My dad and I got into a big fight, physical. He thought it was because I didn’t want to leave my new girlfriend. Pretty sure he still thinks that.

I was terrified the plane would crash.

One Friday afternoon, years later, I was setting up the sanctuary at my church. I was the worship director. We were about to leave on a youth retreat and I wanted it to be perfect for the band for their Saturday morning rehearsal. I was also a youth director.

I took a step down from the stage and collapsed. I came to and crawled to the first pew.

That night, I stayed in the neurology unit at the hospital a few blocks away. I got a CT scan and lots of blood work.

Was it a stroke? A heart attack? A brain tumor?

Nope…

Anxiety.

My body had enough. I missed the retreat.

The crazy part? I didn’t know I had anxiety.

Honestly, I thought I was defective.

We never talked about anxiety. I assumed something was wrong with me.

In 2020, just after the COVID pandemic shut us down, I cut my hand while changing a light fixture. I could see the exposed tendon.

I was already nervous about the pandemic. We lost a family member in his mid-thirties to the Swine Flu in 2009. It was all I could think about—my cousin and the three kids he left behind.

I went to the ER to get stitched up. Everyone was coughing

I spiraled. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. I lost 20 pounds over a few weeks.

I asked my doctor for medication. I needed help.

This morning, four years later, I’m writing this because I’m stressed, and don’t know why.

Writing about it helps, but I don’t do it much.

I’m working on a beard. It’s patchy, but I want to know what it feels like to have a beard.

I’m sharing this because we never talked about anxiety growing up. I was thirty before I knew I wasn’t defective. I was thirty-five before I did anything about it.

Maybe you need to know you’re not defective.