Living with Anxiety Sucks
For the longest time, I didn't know that I was living with anxiety. I thought that the stress and worry I lived with everyday was something that everyone experienced.
I didn't understand how some people could walk through the exact same experiences as me and not have the same reaction.
When I finally came to realize that what was happening in my brain was actually NOT happening in everyone else's, I didn't know how to handle it.
I didn't really want to acknowledge it. I felt like that gave it some sort of power, that somehow that meant it had won. If I pretended it wasn't really a thing, it wouldn't be. Spoiler alert: it was going to be a thing no matter what I did.
Why We Hesitate to Recognize Anxiety in Ourselves
There is a lot of hesitancy out there to recognize anxiety in ourselves. If you're like me, and think that's just how things are, that's one thing, but if you ignore anxiety after it's been diagnosed, there's usually a deeper reason for it.
Since there is still so much stigma around mental illness and mental disorders, admitting that you have anxiety (to yourself or others!) probably feels hella scary. It can feel so especially if your anxiety manifests in anxiety attacks, social anxiety, or other behaviors that may be difficult or overwhelming to explain.
A lot of the time, you can't just tell someone, "Oh, I have anxiety attacks sometimes," and not end up answering a shit ton of questions. It's easy to understand how it could be easier to just not "get into" the reasons behind all that. It can be even more difficult to explain if you yourself don't understand exactly why things are happening, which is usually the case early on in the diagnosis process.
Since it can be so hard to explain, and it can seem like no one else around us is experiencing anxiety, it can be easy to tell yourself that your diagnosis is some kind of character flaw instead of what it actually is - brain chemistry. There is nothing wrong with you or your brain, your brain just works a little differently sometimes.
When you feel like all you're doing is trying to figure out how to sidestep your anxiety, sidestep talking about it, and sidestep the effects of it, it absolutely feels like acknowledging it somehow makes you weaker, or means you lose in some way.
All of this can lead to the spectacularly incorrect conclusion that if you ignore it, and/or pretend that your anxiety doesn't affect you, you'll be just fine.
IMAGE BY @BROOKECAGLE
Why Ignoring It Is The Wrong Answer
I ignored my anxiety for a ridiculously long time. I would run into an anxiety trigger, experience all the symptoms of terrible anxiety, then tell myself and everyone around me that this was just who I was and there was nothing to do about it and if they couldn't handle it they probably didn't love me.
Awesome, huh?
Guess what? That just made everything worse. Which is what happens when you act like nothing is happening and ignore your feelings and tell yourself nothing can be done to make things better.
Here's the thing. You can absolutely feel better. It will take work, and the right mental health professional, and patience, but the anxiety you experience and its symptoms can get better.
If you don't work to understand and treat your anxiety, nothing will change.
How Acknowledging Your Anxiety Empowers You
When I finally began to understand that I couldn't continue living with the out-of-control anxiety I was experiencing, and its fallout, I began working to recognize and acknowledge it, and how to calm it.
I called this "making friends with my anxiety".
When you become friends with someone, you find out what makes them who they are, what they like and dislike, what makes them happy.
When you become friends with your anxiety, you find out how to make your life easier, because you identify what triggers your anxiety, and how to make it happy.
Not only do you identify triggers, you also discover certain patterns, become more honest with yourself, and begin to recognize what can actually help you.
As you do this, you adjust your self-talk and begin to avoid certain triggers and patterns, and use all the tools you've found that help you to experience anxiety less and less.
How That Empowerment Strengthens Your Self-Care Regimen
All of the knowledge that you glean by making friends with your anxiety will strengthen your self-care regimen immensely.
By identifying patterns and triggers, you will be able to work protocols into your self-care routine that actively help you avoid those things.
When you know what truly helps your anxiety, you'll know how to care for yourself better, and that's exactly what a self-care regimen is about.
Being honest with yourself about your anxiety will help you as you move forward to be honest with yourself about what is working and what isn't working from a self-care standpoint.
Self-care is about honoring your needs. When what you need is to reduce the anxiety you are experiencing, you have to first acknowledge that anxiety before you can discover your needs around it.
IMAGE BY @giorgiotrovato
Anxiety Doesn't Have to Rule Your Life
For a long time, I thought I would always be the worried, stressed out, upset person I used to be.
Even though it felt like acknowledging my anxiety meant that it had won, I realized that by acknowledging the anxiety I was feeling, and working to make it better, I was the one that was winning.
By integrating the work around my anxiety into my self-care regimen, I made acknowledging and dealing with my anxiety a daily practice, which means that I can't ignore it, even if I want to.
You can ignore how you feel, or you can do the deep work of honoring how you feel and working to change it. That's a win.
Self-care is one of the best ways to do that.
Want some help as you navigate a daily self-care practice? Schedule a free Introductory Call here to find out more about my services and how working with me can elevate your self-care work.