Eco-anxiety

“All living beings deserve clean air, clean food, and clean water.”

“Would you care for any dessert?” our waitress asks. “No dessert, but we’ll take another order of appetizers,” I tell her. I’m 31 weeks pregnant, it’s the evening of Valentine’s Day, and I’m fully enjoying a night out with my husband. I order my post-dinner snack just as the restaurant is getting busier and our appetizers take a little while to arrive. This is usually no problem, except that I irrationally blamed it on a series of unfortunate events that occurred afterwards.

We’re parked two blocks away from the restaurant and just as we’re about to cross the street to our car, an old RV accelerates at the corner. I freeze. My ears are always on high alert for the sound of loud vehicles. I don’t know much about automobiles, but my brain thinks that the louder the vehicle, the more exhaust it leaves behind.

I can’t decide whether to hold my breath and run to our car or turn around and try to flee from the invisible cloud of choking gas the RV leaves behind. I step into a parking lot only to find a parked pick-up with its engine running. I literally can’t get away from breathing in poison. I frantically change my mind and decide to walk towards our car. The thick smell of carbon from the RV fills my nose and seemingly every cell in my body. I want to cry. The RV is blocks away now but its vapors remain thick in the air.

We get in the car and my sadness turns to anger. Why did I order the extra appetizers? Why did the RV have to be at the street corner just as we were? Why does air pollution exist? Why was I in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I burst into tears and sob uncontrollably. My catastrophic thinking snowballs. I’m worried about the effects of air pollution on me and my baby. I’m depressed because I can’t seem to get away from it, no matter how hard I try or where I am. I’m sulky towards my husband, who experiences the brunt of my anxieties. I feel guilty for not being able to control my emotions. 

This is what eco-anxiety can look like.

I’ve struggled with anxiety for a long time but over the past few years, it’s morphed into eco-anxiety. My phobia of air pollution is what I struggle with most. To me, my phobia is akin to someone who is an arachnophobe. When I see semi trucks, crop dusters, or cigarette smoke, I literally freeze with fear. It’s like throwing an arachnophobe into a pit of spiders. Whether rational or irrational, my perceptions are my reality.

Sometimes I wonder if ignorance is bliss, whether I’d be happier not knowing about toxins and their health effects, about climate change and environmental destruction. There is probably some truth to that. But, I also think ignorance is bliss until someone gets hurt. It’s all fun and games until cities like Bakersfield, CA become unlivable due to air pollution and fire season becomes more common in more regions. Once I saw air pollution (or smelled it), I couldn’t unsee it. I couldn’t un-breathe it.

Having anxiety, worrying about the Earth, stressing about environmental hazards - it’s exhausting and can be all-consuming. These things leave little room in my mind for positivity, creativity, self-care. I wonder about all the hours I’ve wasted feeling anxious and depressed.

The silver lining with anxiety is that it spurs me towards action. Mentally, I’m trying to focus on what I can control, on improving my negative mindset. Physically, I’m trying to walk or bike instead of drive, to educate those around me about VOCs, to petition to legislators for cleaner air. Though much easier said than done, I’m trying to channel my fears and anxieties towards something productive. I suppose the theme here is the word try. Trying to thrive in life than be terrified.

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What has helped with my anxieties

Over the past year, I’ve learned some coping mechanisms that have given me some comfort:

1. Seeking help. I share my fears and anxieties with my therapist. Together, we discuss practices that might help me feel more calm: meditation, exercise, grounding techniques, journaling, taking a walk. What’s difficult is that deep breathing is usually a good way to relax but with this phobia, my issue is that I’m afraid to breathe.

2. Facing worst case scenarios. When I’m afraid to leave the house, Steve and I talk through my worst case scenarios and we devise a plan for if those scenarios were to actually happen. It makes me feel better knowing that the person I’m with has my back when I step out into the world.

3. Thinking positively. While I have a plan for my worst case scenarios, I’m also working on training my mind to think best case. For me, this takes a lot of energy since I’ve spent most of my conscious life being doom and gloom. I constantly need to remind myself that the Universe isn’t malicious, that the Universe has my back.

4. Getting enough sleep. I’ve found that sleep deprivation makes it harder to fend off scary thoughts. Especially with a newborn, sleep can be hard to come by. But when I get 6-8 hours of sleep in a night, I feel mentally stronger.

What we can do today about air pollution

• Sign up for the Moms Clean Air Force newsletter.

• Write to local officials asking them to support environment-first legislation.

• Don’t idle vehicles.

• Cut back on VOCs, many of which are found indoors. VOCs hide in:

  • Air fresheners

  • Carpet

  • Cosmetics (including hairspray and nail polish)

  • Diesel emissions

  • Dry-cleaned clothing

  • Fabrics

  • Furniture

  • Gasoline

  • Industrial emissions

  • Office printers and copiers

  • Paint

  • Pesticides

  • Tobacco smoke

• Avoid products enhanced with chemical fragrances, such as perfumes, cleaning products, candles, air fresheners, and plug-in scents. Switch to essential oils instead.

• Buy less; buy local. Trucks transporting goods and factories creating goods are significant contributors to air pollution.

• Compost. If there isn’t a municipal composting program available, consider composting at home or supporting a private composting business (such as WasteNot Compost). Food waste is the biggest contributor of solid waste in landfills, where it releases methane into the atmosphere.

• Reduce plastic usage. Producing plastic and incinerating plastic waste in landfills and open fields create toxic fumes we all breathe in.

• Eat less meat, especially beef. Livestock is responsible for about 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

• Offset carbon emissions by donating to organizations that focus on carbon offsets and/or fight deforestation.

What we can do in the future

• Purchase an electric or hybrid car to cut down on fossil fuels.

• Replace gas-powered lawn equipment with electric versions.

• Power homes with renewable energy (such as solar panels or CleanChoice Energy).

• Walk or bike instead of driving or taking an Uber/Lyft.

• Take vacations that don’t require flights.

The Air I Breathe

I remember the dark exhaust spewing out of an old beat-up car on Division Street in Chicago. The two people in the front seat seemingly not knowing the pillows of poison they left behind as they sped away. That image has stuck with me ever since.

I hold my breath a lot these days. When I’m passing someone smoking a cigarette outside a building. When a semi-truck is idling near me. When I’m standing in a windowless parking garage. I think of the dangerous fumes entering my lungs.

Last week, I walked near a construction zone and felt the dust blow into my eyes, nose, and mouth. I felt violated, contaminated, dirty. Both inside and out.

Air pollution is a silent killer. It seeps into every nook and cranny. Like a ghost, particulates are invisible when they enter our lungs. They are all around us when we om and ah in the yoga studio and when we put our little ones to sleep. Air pollution feels inescapable.

Today, San Francisco is suffocating from a devastating wildfire. Though the fire is more than 150 miles away, the Bay is covered in a thick smoke and the air quality in the city has become worse than Beijing’s. I’m confined indoors and when I do venture out, I wear a mask. Every inhale is short, heavy, calculated.

The issue of air pollution gnaws at me. Physically and figuratively. It sits on my shoulder when I work. It wants my attention when I walk outside. It shakes me when I smell exhaust or burnt plastic. It screams in my ear when I read the news. I am overwhelmed by it, this systemic issue that I can’t fix on my own.

I’ve been called crazy and neurotic for voicing my opinions. But, I can’t deny my instincts when they tell me something in the air is wrong. Every human being and creature has the right to clean air, clean food, clean water. The very basic necessities in life. I need to do more…always more.

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”