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Anxiety Unleashed
Contra Costa Times
Women look for relief from cause and effects of stress
By Joan Morris
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Lisa Anderson's stress-fueled outbursts were emotionally unhealthy for her children, but they were killing her.
Anderson, a single mother of three from Martinez, believes the myriad pains and health problems she's been experiencing relate back to the overwhelming stress she has been under for years. The high blood pressure, the back aches, the simple colds that deepened into bronchitis and hung on for weeks.
When someone told her, "Your life is killing you," Anderson broke down.
"I know now," Anderson says. "Stress will kill me."
Although men also suffer from stress-related illnesses, researchers are only now beginning to appreciate the role stress plays in women's health and to understand the reasons behind the it.
Women in general are expected to manage both career and home, to maintain a social life, to live up to a standard of beauty and to do it all without complaint or visible effort. On holidays, the stress rises to dangerous levels. And when they inevitably fail to meet the standards imposed by society or themselves, they feel guilty, sending the cycle of stress off on another revolution.
Although heart disease is considered a man's affliction, it has become the leading cause of death among women. More women die from heart disease than cancer, accidents and diabetes combined. And one of the greatest contributors to heart disease is stress, exasperated by the things we do to combat it: overeating, smoking and drinking.
Yet little attention is given the cause and remedy of stress in women, experts say.
"Women, especially single moms, are told to just buck up and put on a happy face," says Cathy Nelson, a marriage and family therapist who leads life and anger management programs at the Women's Health Center in Walnut Creek. "Women have real problems, but they aren't valued. Instead of seeing it as a systemic problem, we blame the woman for not being able to handle it."
Anderson has sensed a lot of fingers pointed at her and the decisions she has made over her life. Her oldest child is 17; her younger children are 5 and 3. She works full time and receives no financial or emotional support from the two fathers of the children.
Like weeds that seem to spring from the earth overnight to choke a garden, stress crept in and entangled her life. Anderson's temper shortened, and even the smallest annoyance would send her into a tirade. Afterward, she would feel ashamed of her behavior and promise her children and herself that she would never curse, never raise her voice to them again. But soon, sometimes in a matter of hours, she would do it all over again.
Christy Kaplan, manager of the Women's Health Center, says that's often the case with women. They take and take, telling everyone that life is fine, and then one little thing becomes that proverbial back-breaking straw.
The health center, which is under the umbrella of the John Muir/Mt. Diablo Health System, is on track to see more than 20,000 women this year. The center provides help with stress and anger management, breast-feeding and support for women newly diagnosed with cancer and other diseases. The center has classes as well as instruction in yoga and offers massage therapy.
Fate seems to have had a hand in bringing Anderson to the center. One evening she happened to turn on the television and caught an episode of "Dr. Phil" Mcgraw, the psychologist who found fame and popularity through appearances on Oprah Winfrey's show. He now has his own nightly show.
The topic that night was anger management and Anderson watched intently. Dr. Phil made suggestions; Anderson already had tried those things. Dr. Phil offered advice; Anderson had heard it before. So that night, stealing time for herself, Anderson sat down and wrote Dr. Phil a letter.
"What next?" she asked. When everything has failed, what does she do now? A month or so later, Anderson received a phone call from the show, inviting her to appear in another episode about stress and anger. With the promise of help, Anderson agreed.
The episode actually became two. Anderson made only a brief appearance on the first one and was upset by the direction the show was headed. It featured several women, some of whom were an actual physical threat to their children. Anderson felt misrepresented. But the second day's taping was more focused on Anderson's concerns. Dr. Phil also arranged for Anderson to begin working with Nelson, who for the past month has been teaching Anderson how to manage her stress.
"I feel like I'm making progress," Anderson says. "I'm finding solutions, and I'm learning to take care of myself."
Nelson urges women to make time for themselves. You can't take care of others if you don't take care of yourself, Nelson says. It was a lesson that Michelle Smith learned the hard way.
Smith, who lives in Danville, was a single mom trying to do it all. The stress was so intense that she felt that if someone asked for one more thing, her head would explode. Then she saw a flier for "life management" classes at the Women's Health Center.
Just walking into the downtown office made her feel better. And what Nelson said in that first class made a lot of sense, Smith says. Having other women in the group made her realize that she wasn't the only one who was having trouble being the perfect woman and mother.
One of Nelson's first homework assignments was having the women take 15 minutes for themselves to sit, write down their thoughts and breathe. To Smith, it seemed an impossible request. She was already struggling to find enough time in the day. How could she spare 15 precious minutes of doing nothing? She tried to clear her mind, but her thoughts raced back to her obligations. She needed to fix dinner, but she had to go to the grocery store first. Then she needed to pick up the kids, make sure their homework was done, get their things ready for school the next day. Dinner, bath, bed. Reading to the kids, cleaning the house, paying bills, finishing some things for work.
She forced herself to sit. And it started to feel good.
The next assignment Smith figured was a breeze. Make a list of the things that you value, Nelson told the group. Easy, thought Smith. She values her children. She values her home. She values her job, her ability to organize, her talent for keeping all the balls in the air.
But as she wrote, she began to realize that although she said she valued her children, her actions didn't show it. She was yelling at them to get up in the morning, to get dressed, to get their books, eat their breakfast, get to school. At night, more yelling and shuttling them from pillar to post, from chore to obligation.
How was that valuing her children? Smith began aggressively rearranging her life. She later remarried and suddenly had the option to be a stay-at-home mom. She quit her job and took a more active role in her children's lives. It is still a struggle, Smith says. Stress doesn't just evaporate. It comes from other directions now, but she knows how to make better choices that she can live with.
"I know it sounds cliche," Smith says, "but it has really changed my whole life."
Susan Alonso of Walnut Creek was another single mom on a treadmill. In addition to working and trying to manage her life, she struggled with her daughter's drug dependency and guilt that somehow, it was her fault. She also suffered from high blood pressure and mysterious back aches.
Alonso says she's taken several stress and anger management classes and found something helpful in each one.
"Women are expected to work, take care of the kids, do the soccer thing, go to bed and do it all over the next day, day after day," Alonso says. "You're stressed? Just deal with it. There's a lot of blame being laid on women who can't do it."
Anger and Stress Management Class Offerings at Women's Health Center.
------------------------------------------------------------------------Reach Joan Morris at 925-977-8479 or e-mail jmorris@cctimes.com.
(Posted December 5, 2002)