Generalized Anxiety Disorder

A reflection on my anxiety and how I cope these days

Generalized Anxiety Disorder. That’s what the cardiac rehab psychiatrist wrote in their notes after recently interviewing me via computer video for an hour or so.

Not sure what I was anticipating, but "Generalized Anxiety Disorder" seems like a fair description of my post heart attack state of being. Note: during the interview, I was more anxious about the cost of the time with a psychiatrist than with their line of questioning.

With that telehealth assessment in mind and reflecting back, it seems I’ve lived with anxiety most of my life. In childhood and adolescence it was my unwitting reaction to the fear-based preaching and coercive discipline of my dad. That guilt-filled, shame-based religious milieu fueled anxiety in a faith structure that considered anxiety and mental health disorders somehow either sinful or evidence of one's lack of faith. So, I was anxious about being anxious.

While I gradually let go of many of those notions (with a lot of disparate counsel, reading, experiences, and reflection), continuous low-grade anxiety has over the past twenty years boiled over into three panic attacks that have landed me in an emergency room. The COVID-19 pandemic spiked my anxiety and I began to use prescribed anti-anxiety medication for the first time. I also started working with a counselor routinely. I chose to retire at age 65 more over concern for work-related and general anxiety than anything else (albeit retirement, I have now discovered, is itself a significant source of anxiety). 

I can see now that I used to deny my anxiety or rename it “intensity.” A respected friend once told me I was the most intense person they knew. And, blind to my own issues, I initially took that as a compliment; I now see it as a gracious red flag.

Only in the recent decade have I recognized and begun to acknowledge the extent of my anxiety and its impact on my considerations, actions and decisions across 50+ years. It’s pretty revealing and humbling. I continue to unpack and process this.

I now manage my anxiety with a bit of prescribed medication. It seems to help. Instead of waking up at 3 am with my mind racing through all kinds of tough life scenarios, I now sleep through the night and usually awaken with some sense of peace.

My August 2025 heart attack (surprise, unwelcome surprise!) and aftermath brought low-grade anxiety to another boiling point. Why me? Why now? How limited does this make me? What is that mild pain in my chest? Can my heart handle the level of cycling, running, and activity in which I aspire to engage? Will this happen again? On and on the questions flow (thus my request to talk with a cardiac rehab psychiatrist).

Three months of Monday-Wednesday-Friday monitored physical activity and heart health education in IU Health's Cardiac Rehab program at Methodist Hospital has reduced my heart attack-related anxiety significantly. I follow their guidance about food, stress, mindfulness, and physical exercise. When stressed to its max, my heart (according to the electronic heart monitors) responds normally. I now run over three miles each session. I'm training for a half marathon (13.1 miles) early in May. It all feels good and promising.

As I invest in my relationship with my spouse Jodi, attend to my four adult children and my 8 (soon to be 9) grandchildren, volunteer in the community, read, meet with friends, ride my bike, run, and participate in local arts, music and justice advocacy events, I find my anxiety significantly reduced. I don't have a sure-fire formula, but I know that these things bring meaning and purpose and release in different but important ways.

So, I'll take "Generalized Anxiety Disorder" as a reasonable assessment. I'll follow up with the psychiatrist and continue to do the things that help me reduce anxiety, cope, recover, and thrive. And I'll try to find ways to support anyone who is grappling with anxiety and mental health disorders. 

Three Snow Poems

A celebration of snow on the brink of winter

I love snow. I’ve been praying for snow in Indiana--enough snow to sled and cross-country ski in our urban parks, enough to change gray winter days into heart-jogging experiences of delight. 

Here are three snow poems. The first is mine. The second two are by New England poet Robert Frost (hey, even his last name points to his love for flakes!).


HOPING FOR SNOW

I’m waiting on the snow
A hope to fulfill;
I’ll prepare my skis,
Anticipate the thrill.

A Midwestern winter
With its bleak, dark days
Needs a good snow storm
To hearten the soul’s way.

Mere cold stiffens the heart
And drives us inside,
But warmth and four walls
Alone cannot abide.

I’m like a child praying
The snow will be deep
Enough for sledding,
And, tired from it, to sleep.


STOPPING BY THE WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.


DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part

Of a day I had rued. 

Sleepwalking Advent

 Shifting gears into Advent may take some time, but don't lallygag too long

I penned this poem about 20 years ago when I served as leader of a local community of faith. Most Christian communities observe the four weeks before Christmas as Advent--days of anticipation and preparation, as if intentionally making room in hearts and lives for what may come. Many of us take the Advent season casually, if we observe at all. This poem is for the likes of us.

Advent begins
in a fog of unreadiness,
as if by dull surprise
or in a twilight zone,
we groggily hang the greens.

Hardly with awareness
much less anticipation
good people sleepwalk
through the prophecies
and Annunciation.

We may finally stir
by the time children sing
“Away in a Manger”
the Sunday before Christmas,
their raised voices spark
a light in our slumbering souls.

Is it only children and prophets
who grasp the urgency,
sense the passion;
whose hearts are rended
and readied by the
promise of Light shining
in the darkness?

Is it only to them that Advent
becomes no mere repetition
of myth-laden past events,
but days of embracing
the living Mystery,
the ground of all hope?

By God’s mercy and grace
children and prophets are
only the first to hear,
the first to recognize,
to proclaim that it is,
indeed, Mystery.

The Light ever dawns,
beaming its rays into the
eyes of the groggiest saints,
the hardest sleeper
among us.

Only those who refuse to rise
amid many urgent shakings
and light flooding their beds
sleep through the
Incarnation.

“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

Thanksgiving

My poem for the Thanksgiving holiday

This holiday is for all that we
Take for granted,
Assume as a given,
Absent-mindedly overlook,
Claim as our God-given right.

This holiday if for all those we
Unnecessarily criticize,
Agitate with our demands,
Impatiently rush,
Regularly impose upon.

This holiday is for all that we
By-pass in our drivenness,
Go out of our way to avoid,
Carelessly forget,
Thoughtlessly leave out.

This holiday is for all things we
Receive as gracious gifts,
Share as common ground,
Express as transcendent grace,
Return in praise to God.



John Franklin Hay 
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

www.johnfranklinhay.blogspot.com

@johnfranklinhay@threads.net

Instagram.com/johnfranklinhay

Veterans Day Revisited

It's a fine line between honoring those who served in war and glorifying war. It's oh, so critical.  

ARMISTICE DAY - 107 YEARS LATER. Today is the 107th anniversary of Armistice Day, the day Germany surrendered, ending "The Great War." We now observe November 11 as Veterans Day. At least 8,538,315 soldiers died in World War I; there were 37,508,686 total casualties, or 57.6% of all troops deployed by allied and axis forces.

FOR REMEMBRANCE. I've found numerous poems in tribute to those fallen in World War I, but choose the following, called "For Remembrance" by Basil Ebers, to post:

What is it, O dear Country of our pride,
We pledge anew that we will not forget?
To keep on Freedom's altar burning yet
The fires for which a myriad heroes died
Known and unknown, beyond the far sea's tide
That their great gift be no futility.

Faith with the Dead kept through our living faith;
In this alone the true remembrance lies,
The unfading garland for the sacrifice,
To prove their dream of Brotherhood no wraith,
No moment's hope--its birth-pang one with death--
but the fixed goal of our humanity.

HONOR THE WAR DEAD, NOT WAR. A fine line it is, but so critical that it be observed and guarded. The line--almost imperceptible when inflamed with hatred toward enemies, drunk with hard-fought victory, or intoxicated with exaggerated nationalism--will glorify or condemn us. It is the line between honoring the war dead, along with those who serve in the military today, and glorifying war itself.

NEVER DREAM OF ITS VIOLENCE. Honor with reverence those men and women who serve and die in harm's way. Weep and mourn for civilians cruelly caught in the strife. Give honor for Veterans who have served in harm's way in the name of freedom. But never glory in war. Never embrace its horrors. Never savor its torments. Never dream of its violence. Never drink to its return. Never gaze upon its power, lest its illusion seduce us. Lest war lust obsess us. Lest its siren sound lure us into its labyrinthine bowels and we swear allegiance to it, live for it, and our souls die even as we breathe.

NOT ALL WARS ARE EQUAL. Not all wars are equal. A vast majority are not really necessary. This is not a reflection on the troops who fought them as it is on those who chose and directed them. The war in Iraq was an example of a war begun with highly suspect justifications (now completely debunked) and carried along with ranging political rationalizations.

VETERAN DREAMS. I know some Veterans and they are people of integrity. Some fought in World War II, some in Korea, some served during the Vietnam conflict, and some in Iraq and Afghanistan. They tell different stories. All are glad to be alive. All grieve their lost comrades. All are relieved that their service is ended. None I know wish for their sons or daughters the opportunity to fight another war.

A NEW CROP OF HOMELESS VETERANS. I've worked with homeless vets for years. Just when we were getting most of the Vietnam-era Vets connected with counseling, housing, and the costly, life-long resources that are necessary for ones whose minds, emotions, bodies, and souls have been ravaged by war, America starts breeding a new crop soon-to-be homeless Vets. It doesn't take years for Vets returning from doing our government's dirty work to show up in soup lines and shelters; think in terms of months. It takes many years--and often a lifetime--however, to overcome what a few months in front-line action can do.

WAR FINDS A WAY. Militarism always seems to find some twisted way to justify the necessity and perpetuation of war. Each generation seems to have its share of blood lust. Military training, heavy investment in weaponry and the "defense industry," and constant  rehearsal for conflict seeks self-validation, self-justification. It doesn't take much of a provocation by one of the world's many tyrants or rogue regimes to pop the cork.  Once engaged, militarism plants its gruesome seed then argues for its rebirth in every generation. War is self-perpetuating; few generations can resist it.

ART'S PROMISE AND POWER. It has occurred to me (or at least resurfaced within me) that a way to reveal the hollow way of mammon and violence, and to simultaneously bring light to grace and peace, is through arts and literature. Case in point: the Czech Republic and the nonviolent Velvet Revolution. Political partisanship gets us nowhere. The evangelical church has largely lost its witness amid partisanship. But art--the written word, the dramatized situation, the lifted song, and the vision graphically cast--has more power to delegitimize war and cumber, and to bring the possibility of grace and peace into our lives than the currently prevailing methods of choice.

Photo: I snapped this photo during an early-morning visit to the Korean War Memorial in Washington, DC.

Halloween Draws Near

This holiday is not about cute. No! Get gory!

Halloween draws near.

Spooks prepare—

Fiends are giddy

For the haul they’ll make.

Cautious guardians

Tame the gore—

Go for cutesy

Over alarming.

What is Superman

To the lore

Of walking dead

And restless demons?

Why Wonder Woman

When vampires

Swoop low, lurk near,

Searching tender veins?

The evening calls for

Fright and fear

And ghastly tricks

Stemmed alone by treats.

Dare to scare each house.

Strike cold fear.

Intimidate.

Demand sweet payoff.

Do not Trick or Treat

With sweetness

In cute costumes.

No! Command ransom!

Let consequences

Threaten all

Who choose to hide

Behind darkened doors.

And let ghouls enjoy

Their bounty,

Sweets transforming

Gaunted into saints.

For another year

Evil’s tide

May be staved by

Happy Halloween!Tame the gore—

Go for cutesy

Over alarming.

What is Superman

To the lore

Of walking dead

And restless demons?

Why Wonder Woman

When vampires

Swoop low, lurk near,

Searching tender veins?

The evening calls for

Fright and fear

And ghastly tricks

Stemmed alone by treats.

Dare to scare each house.

Strike cold fear.

Intimidate.

Demand sweet payoff.

Do not Trick or Treat

With sweetness

In cute costumes.

No! Command ransom!

Let consequences

Threaten all

Who choose to hide

Behind darkened doors.

And let ghouls enjoy

Their bounty,

Sweets transforming

Gaunted into saints.

For another year

Evil’s tide

May be staved by

Happy Halloween!

John Franklin Hay

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

How I Think Differently Since My Heart Attack

“How do you think differently since your heart attack?”

Someone recently asked me this. I wasn’t ready to respond immediately with anything intelligible. 

But I can now offer a few reflections.

First, I’m still somewhat in shock that I actually had a heart attack and now sport four stents and take daily heart medicine.

I am fit. I’ve eaten responsibly. No breads. Nothing fried. Few added sugars. No red meat. I maintain 145 lbs. I bicycle almost daily and completed a vigorous 6-day, 250-mile bike tour the day before my heart attack. How and why did this happen to me?

Such questions linger in spite of cardiologists in NYC and Indy telling me it was 100% genetic. Still puzzled, I live the question without necessarily having to have a resolution.

Second, I am more tuned in to my body’s functions and signals. I pay attention to core body aches, pains, and changes. Since I thought a heart attack was just indigestion, I am now alert to every minor blip. I am also working to let each one go and move on. “Noted,” I say to myself, “Now let it go.”

I also think about body parts and systems interacting and about what I can do to help it all continue to function well together as I age. If we are, in fact, “fearfully and wonderfully made,” why should I not cooperate with and promote that in every conscious, actionable way as long as I am able?

Third, I think more about the fragility and preciousness of life and about aging in relationship to loved ones, neighbors, community and legacy.

“Nothing promotes growth like the prospect of a deadline,” M. Scott Peck, MD, used to say. My heart attack brought the prospect of death near. Successful heart catheterizations and stents offer the prospect of time for resolutions, reconciliations, development, psychic growth, adventures, and breakthroughs.

I don’t know how much time I have—and neither do you! But this awakening event is helping me start to let go of trivialities and smallness and reach for things that matter most to me and to life.

Fourth, I have revisited my thinking about “eternity.” Contrary to what was pounded into me in church as a child and young adult, I do not obsess about where I will “spend eternity.” Whatever happens at death, today is what matters—and the people I’m given to know, interact with and impact here and now. 

You likely know I am a seminary-educated (M.Div., D.Min.), evangelically-oriented minister (not to be mistaken for the blasphemy of political Evangelicalism). Still, heaven, to me, begins here and now: it is acting responsibly now in creative stewardship of all I’ve been given—recognizing humanness, cultivating relationships, being a wounded healer, challenging systemic injustices, offering who I am and what I have. In contrast, hell's present tense is just serving myself and quelling my fears at others’ expense. 

If heaven and hell are a time and places, so be it. But today, here, now, these people and life-challenging situations (to borrow from Tolstoy)—with these life and the future hang in the balance.

With gratitude for good health prospects going forward and aware of life’s fragility and preciousness, the challenge of being a good neighbor draws me forward.