The Month of Awareness

This is Mental Health Awareness Month. As someone who has struggled with anxiety since, well, as long as I can remember, I have made great strides through counseling, meditation, medication, deep breathing, and support from family and friends. I like to take this chance to reflect on my improved mental health while also acknowledging the things that still make my mind race. It’s not easy to feel like you don’t have control over your own thoughts.

Take this beautiful bridge I have pictured here. I drive over this bridge all the time in Delaware to take my daughter to regattas, go visit my son in college in New England, or drive into NYC multiple times a year. I love the gold and the geometry of it and the way the sun catches it. Basically everything about it. I’m not afraid of this bridge. I cannot say that for other bridges.

I live in Annapolis and we have the scariest of bridges a couple of miles from my house. The Bay Bridge (cue dramatic music). I have watched TV shows about this bridge, so it’s not like I’m exaggerating when I talk about it. It is 4.3 miles long and tall enough in the center to allow cruise and container ships to travel underneath while heading to the port in Baltimore. There are actually services that will drive nervous drivers over and back. It’s simply not an easy bridge. But people around here adjust. Some people work on the Eastern Shore and drive it every day! Over the years I have gotten more confident as I drive it, but recently, it has all regressed.

See, not too long ago, a boat ran into the Key Bridge in Baltimore and tragically brought the whole thing down like a set of Legos. Now reports are coming out about how the Bay Bridge would not be able to stand up to the same kind of boat strike either. They have plans to plan on how to fix this. No actual plans yet. It’s all very expensive and time consuming. Bridges are complex. Fine. But that does not help me on the westbound span, where the sides have OPEN SLOTS and I can see everything, including the ship headed under at the same time I’m going over. And it’s a little windy outside, and oh, it’s also raining, and oh, they decided to allow some eastbound people on my span, so cars are coming right at me. My hands are sweating, my heart is racing, and my vision is going gray around the edges. A fist tightens in the middle of my chest. Yes, passing out on the highest part of the bridge while driving would surely be a good thing, right?

All of this is to say that my mental health is a constant work in progress. I will fight every day to overcome my anxieties. I will not let it slow me down. I will soon have a daughter in college in the Northeast. My travels over all the bridges will not end. I will push through. It’s easier said than done, but as much as anxiety tries to rule me, I will not let it win.