Post-Earthquake Anxiety

January 21, 2020 | 3 minute read
dan.jenica.vanessen

A crack in the cement.

We experienced a devastating earthquake in Mexico City on September 19, 2017. I was in our 6th floor apartment when it happened at 1:14 p.m. It felt like the apartment was twisting and swaying all at once and the creaking and smashing sounds were all I could perceive as I screamed Jesus’ name over and over. I felt so exposed, but by the time I grabbed the mattress off my son’s bed and hoisted it over my head, the building had settled. It seemed a miracle to me that the building had not collapsed. I ran to the apartment door and swung it open, but froze solid, imagining that I would find the stairwell a broken mess of concrete. The maid from the apartment across the hall opened the door and reassured me that it was time to leave and walked with me down the stairs that were still whole and intact. But when it comes to trauma, perception outweighs reality.

Phone networks were down so I hurried to the parking lot of the grocery store two blocks away which had been set as our gathering point in just such a case. It wasn’t until I spotted my teammates Ray and Cindy and Ray enveloped me in a hug that I realized how alone I had felt. A short while later I was able to get a couple messages through to my husband, Dan, and found out that he was on his way to the boys’ school, thinking that I would have already be on route to the school when the earthquake happened and hoping to find me there.

Dan got the boys and we spent a few nights at our teammates house until Civil Protection gave the word that, despite the menacing cracks in the walls, it was all superficial and the building was structurally sound. Our landlord had the cracks fixed within the week.

My experience pales in comparison to others’, but however different and seemingly less drastic, trauma had seeped in past rational and conscious thought. I couldn’t rationalize my body into not reacting to each creak of a window or siren that for the first two seconds sounded like the earthquake alert system. I had never experienced anxiety like this before; it felt so out of control.

A team came down to do some trauma response and I participated in the seminar. I realized that my deepest wound was feeling so alone in the earthquake. God began to heal the memories and show me how He was there for me in those most solitary moments of my life. But even as that wound healed the anxiety persisted. Something would trigger and my body would just react, like a reflex that bypasses the brain and just fires.

One morning God gave me a picture. It was a scene from a movie, where a boy is in the middle of an asthma attack without medication and the father gathers him into his lap, pressing the boys back against his chest and breathing deep, purposeful breaths so that the boy’s breathing will fall into the right rhythm. I felt the Father say that there was no shame in how my body was reacting, but in those moments where I felt out of control I just needed to let myself fall into his lap and let Him hold me and breath over me until my breath fell into rhythm with His.

It wasn’t an all at once healing, but as I brought each attack of anxiety to His lap and let Him breath over me, He healed me with His presence a little bit each time, ministering to my anxiety and my wound all at the same time.

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Comments

  1. Im from Quinte Alliance Church and after seeing your video on during our Sunday Service this week my dad did some research and found this testimonial. He sent it to me.to read because I just have gone through a similar anxiety situation. I reacted to a food and had an asophogial attack…where my throat got tight but I could still breathe. Since thay day everytime I tried to eat my body would have that same response. It even happened with water. I ended up having to start on an anti anxiety medication as I losy 25 lbs in less than 3 weeks. After starying the meds and talking with some friends and family…I cant belive how many of the. are on this same medication. I had no idea any of them were suffering from anxiety. So thank you for being open and honest about your struggle. because so many others are struggling in silence.

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