Unfortunately, I am going to move my website to another domain. Being a WordPress newbie, I didn’t know that if you added two sites to one domain, it would cause a lot of problems for people who want to follow you. I run another site about beauty and I feel that people are accidentally following the wrong website. To mitigate these problems, I am moving my website to a new domain:
https://outofmythoughtssite.wordpress.com/
If you are still interested, you can still follow it.
Thanks a lot!
The Best Things in Life are Free
First of all, I hope no one accidentally followed my beauty blog. Being a WordPress newbie, I didn’t realize that whenyou have two blogs under one domain (I am guessing that is the term), one blog is chosen as the main one. Sorry. Any ideas how I could change this?
This post was inspired by a comment on my last post from jennymarie4 (her blog is great), who talked about the struggles of explaining her anxiety to others. I, too, have struggled with this a lot in my life. Anxiety is such a layered and complex experience. It is often hard to put in words. Even more difficult, I found, is the task of trying to sum up the experience in a few sentences to another person.
Moreover, since everyones’ experience with anxiety is so different and singular, reading the symptoms off a medical website to another person is also very limiting . I think, most of us who have anxiety, would agree, it is so much more than those symptoms. That is why, to this day, I still struggle with a “good” explanation.
I tend to usually, just go for the most simple explanation.
It feels like your worst anxiety but multiplied like 10 times. (or a hundred times sometimes)
I think most people are able to connect to this feeling on some level as human beings. However, this explanation can be vague, because every person’s level of anxiety is different and to imagine how that would “feel” is very abstract sometimes.
That is why I often will use analogies. Here is one I use often, inspired by Zoella, a Youtuber, about her experiences with panic attacks and anxiety.
A person with anxiety is similar to a car alarm that will go off even if there is no imminent danger.
I often use this analogy to explain why I am stressed all the time and how I just have an oversensitive car alarm.
Lately, I have also been working on another analogy to explain how anxiety feels every day to me. I suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Some of the most symptoms include persistent worry, worrying about worrying, and several physical symptoms (insomnia, upset stomach).
It feels like every single cell in your brain is filled with worry. There is only a small part of your brain that is not consumed by this worry. This small part allows you to continue to function in your daily life. However, the rest of time, your brain is just consumed with one repetitive worry or many worries. When it gets really severe, the small part disappears too, and it becomes impossible to do anything.
This is just my personal experience, but for me GAD, feels like a cloud of worry hanging over me. I can look away for a while, but every time, it still comes back to haunt me.
What wording do you use to describe your anxiety to others? I would love to know.
I’ll often hear “talk about it, it’ll make you feel better.” I mean, sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. Plus, I think most people don’t know what they are getting into when they say that to someone. If I talked about every thought in my head, they’d be here for hours. Plus, it would be super repetitive.
I thought I would just share some of the thoughts I have about this topic (possibly since I was lied last week and am feeling a bit guilty). Why do I lie about how I really feel sometimes? Is it good to lie? Is it ok not to talk about how you feel sometimes? I am hoping some of these thoughts will help friends and family of those with anxiety to understand what some of their thinking may be like. Most importantly, why we might lie or not want to talk about how we feel.
It is just so boring and repetitive. I mean, gosh, I am so bored of it sometimes, let alone anyone else. For me, it is always just the same thoughts running through my head somedays. It is nothing new, and I just honestly don’t want to bore the other person.
You don’t want to burden the other person. Well, in my head, I always think I am burdening them. This is a tough one for me. Most likely, these anxious thoughts have been whirling through my head a million times, and I might only have mentioned it a few times to the other person. Somehow I feel it still burdens them because most likely they will not have an answer to my problem. I mean, I not looking for answer, but the other person feels bad because they can’t help you. Plus, it just makes the other person worry.
Sometimes talking makes me more emotional. When it is in my brain, somehow it still feels like the thoughts are just “in progress” and maybe they’ll dissipate as quickly as they came. However, once you say it, the truth makes it worse. Somehow saying the words makes the troubles seem concrete and real. Consequently, I feel like I have to face the reality of the situation and somehow the tears start coming.
They think I am crazy. When the anxiety is bad, the thoughts I have sometimes are so negative and self-destructive, that I think it may scare and worry someone. Plus, there is this part of me that feels that others will stigmatize or laugh at me because of my anxiety. The less I talk about it, the more I seem “normal” to myself and others. It is a sense of self-preservation, I guess.
I lied again. I didn’t show up for lunch with a friend because I was anxious and stressed from the past week. Instead of telling her truth, I told her I was sick. Is it okay to use anxiety as an excuse, and why did I choose to lie again?
When I told most of my friends about my anxiety, I felt a great weight lifted off my shoulders. Now that everyone knew, and no one freaked out, I could just move on to a life free of secrets. I no longer had to lie about why I didn’t show up for that Christmas party or why I was suddenly missing for a weeks. I was free!
In many ways, this is true. I felt so relieved that I didn’t have to lie every time I couldn’t attend an event. Having anxiety and depression was hard enough. On top of that, having to come up with some Oscar winning performance lie to deceive someone made it even harder. However, despite all the hardship, the shame of having mental illness, even in my sickest times, gave me the willpower to continue maintaining this “I’m fine” facade.
Was I truly free? Of course, not totally. Like most things in life, there are no simple and finite answers. Often, solving one problem, creates new ones. Presently, my current problem is that I seem to easily just opt out of doing things using my anxiety as an excuse.
Oh, I am having a bad week, I think I’ll pass. I have been stressed lately, I don’t think I can make it.
Did I really need a break? I am not sure anymore. I guess I could have gone, but what if it stressed me out more? So, the best choice, is just not to go right? Has my anxiety become an easy “get out of jail free” card? Maybe.
All I know is that these thoughts go through my head everyday:
Do I need to relax? Should I go out? Will it be too stressful? It feels ok now, but what if the accumulated stress leads to a meltdown?
I feel like I have become my own psychiatrist, but not a very good one at that. Well, I guess, even doctors are not always right, but at least they have a plethora of experience and knowledge at their fingertips. I am basing my diagnosis on the symptoms that only I experience. Sometimes, I feel very inadequate. Basically, I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. This is very difficult for a person who is a perfectionist at heart.
All I have are a few guiding principles that are sort of the “treatment” plan right now. Firstly, don’t grade everyday like an exam. There are no letter grades and no is going to fail you hopefully. So don’t be too hard on yourself (obviously easier said then done). If you step back and look at the grand scheme of your entire life, this moment may be very small. Furthermore, this bad day might be considered a good day in light of your entire life. Secondly, there are times when you really do need to rest and take care of yourself and that is ok. If you are saying “no” to many things, than you might to reevaluate what is going on in your life. Lastly, don’t evaluate whether the moment is good or bad, just experience it. That’s all I got for now.
My psychiatrist always says things to me, like “Are you a fortune teller?” or “How do you know that will happen? ” or “You need to stop.” My answer is usually something like, “I guess you are right,” but “I can’t stop.”
There are some days where these endless negative thoughts will not stop. However, sometimes, certain thoughts can nudge the negative ones to the curb for a bit. I guess this what is called CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), which is trying to change these negative thoughts into more realistic and positive ones.
In a similar vein, the following are simply some thoughts that have kept my mind from blowing up with negativity. The topic this time is dealing with negative thoughts when considering telling others about your anxiety. Here are some thoughts I try to use to rewrite the negativity in my brain:
People spend very little time thinking of others. Most people are usually consumed with thinking about themselves. I mean, gosh, how many hours do I spend obsessing over my anxiety. They are probably not going to laugh at you and definitely will not spend tons of their time thinking about you.
Confide in someone you think will understand. This is piece of advice was given to me by my psychiatrist and it has helped me a lot. I think many anxious people are perfectionist. We want to make sure everyone likes us, but impossible to do. There will always be people who who will not understand you, and it is not because they are horrible people. It might just be because of their background or personal issues in their life. You do not have to make it your mission to figure that out. Furthermore, confiding in someone who will understand will also give you more confidence in telling other people down the road.
1 and 5 people have experienced mental illness. If this statistic is true, more likely than not, the person you tell has either experienced or know someone who has it. Therefore, there is a great chance they will be able to connect with you at some level.
The truth will set you free. Telling someone about your anxiety might make you more anxious. However, it also is a great relief because it might help you release the shame that sometimes comes with mental illness. Furthermore, once you have told one person, it will empower you to tell others. Eventually, the small anthill of confidence that you gain through telling one person, will hopefully, one day, be as high as Mount Everest.
It is the best of times. More than ever, more people are talking their anxiety. Many celebrities have openly talked about their mental illness journeys. I feel, through social media and even these blogs, there is a greater openness and understanding about mental illness. This gives me great hope that one day we can talk about our mental struggles as easily as we can talk about what we did on the weekend.
Before this year, I would have never in a million years dreamt about talking about my anxiety at work. In fact, the first time I went on sick leave because of my anxiety, I was petrified that people would find out. At that time, I thought that anything would be better than people finding out about my mental illness. Moreover, I remembered reading somewhere that many anxiety patients envied people that had cancer because people usually felt sorry for cancer patients. With mental illness, you are never quite sure what the response would be. Would they understand? Would they be scared? At my sickest, I remembered this reasoning made complete sense to me. Who would put their bets on a maybe?
After my second bout my depression, I started feeling different about telling others. I don’t think I would ever easily see my anxiety as a gift, but everything has a silver lining right? As time went by, I finally realized that having anxiety allowed me to belong to a special group of people that have firsthand experience of this condition. Maybe, I could help others understand how it feels like? Maybe, I could help ease the stigma around the mental illness by breaking the code of silence that arounds it.
So I decided to tell as many people as I could at work about my anxiety. Even as I am typing this, I am laughing. Was I crazy? I couldn’t even think of anyone who has talked about their mental illness at work. Why did I think I could I do it? Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could, but somehow having really dealt with it for 7 years, I felt a little bit more at peace with it. However, I realized that talking about your mental illness is not like talking about your weekend, you can’t really bring it up in random conversations with your coworkers.
I felt like there were a few moments I was able to bring it up, but somehow I felt like getting the words out were a lot harder than I thought. I think, first and foremost, will others think I am incompetent at my job if they find out about my anxiety? Will my anxiety become my only defining characteristic? Will people treat me differently? Will they think I am crazy? Will they laugh out me? Will they only see me only for anxiety now? Will they still remember how I was before?
I struggle with this till today, but I have had some success telling a few coworkers. I will talk about that in my next blog post.
I think every person’s support systems are different when it comes to anxiety. Honestly, I think whatever works for you at that moment, is what works. It could be anything really. For me, sometimes, the best thing is just to tell myself to “take one day at a time” or sometimes even “one hour at a time.” I am the master of fortune telling impending doom. Every bad thing that could possibly happen to a person I have probably considered. So, sometimes, instead of fortune telling my impending doom, I tell myself that it is much more realistic, to fortune tell the next hour or the next few hours. Life, sometimes, seems much more livable that way.
I know it sounds ridiculous to fortune tell that in the next hour you will need to go bathroom or something mundane like that. Yet, sometimes, just simple tasks like getting up from the desk and going to the kitchen to get a snack are enough you to pull you out of that spiralling tunnel of anxiety.
Sure, this definitely doesn’t always work for me, but sometimes, just sometimes, these short fortuning days turn into long fortuning days, where I am able to begin fortune telling what I am doing next week.
By the way, I am no means, an expert at dealing with my anxiety. These are just some ideas that have helped me sometimes. The truth is that I have been writing this blog to help distract from other troubles in my life right now. Ironically, anxiety is the one thing that not only torments me, but also the topic I feel most passionate and confident writing about. Life is strange sometimes, isn’t it?
I suffer from anxiety. In my experience, sometimes the most small nugget of advice or inspiration could be enough to be keep me motivated and afloat for a while. I hope this blog will be that “support system” for someone when they feel like they are sinking.
I, by no means, am an advocate for taking medication for anxiety. However, I am also not a doctor, who can medically determine what is the right treatment for a patient. I am just a person that has experienced this condition and this is what has helped me.
At this point, as an anxious person, the thought going through my head is “what if this doesn’t work for me?” I know for sure, even though this might or might not help you, I know something will and “things will get better,” so don’t give up.
This next nugget of advice, is a support system I use often when I feel like my anxiety is spiralling out of control. It comes from Tumblr post from the author, John Green, replying to a question from one of his readers.
In his post he talks about how he treats his anxiety.
“I treat my anxiety the same way I treat any other illness: I accept that I am sick, listen to my doctors, pay attention to peer-reviewed studies of what helps in treatment of the condition, and stick with the treatment regimen.” — John Green
For me, whenever I feel like I am losing the fight against my anxiety, I always go back to basics. In my case, whenever I can’t win whatever is happening in my brain, I call my doctor and follow the treatment. This usually means taking a walk or taking my medication.
I hate taking medication. It makes me feel like a loser because I feel like I can’t control myself — by myself. However, just thinking of my condition as simply a medical condition that needs to be treated by a doctor has helped me tremendously. We learn that as a child that if we are sick, we go see the doctor, and accept the treatment. It really is as simple as that.
outofmythoughts 