My Beautiful Relationship With Anxiety

Life should have been good. I was living in London after a year spent traveling the world and I had landed a great new job in sales. It should have been a hedonistic time of socializing with friends and enjoying the regular paycheck that I had missed for so long. But, that wasn’t to be my reality. In retrospect, I can see the main problem was transitioning, overnight, from living out of a backpack, spending my days sitting on a beach, to a daily tube commute, rent to pay and a job with high sales targets. The shock of going from one world to another resulted in a spectacular panic attack! I was walking home from work one evening when I suddenly felt my chest tighten, my heart beating so hard I thought it would be visible from the outside. My vision blurred and sounds became deafeningly loud. All I could focus on was getting back to the flat so I could call an ambulance to save me from the heart attack I was obviously having. Right then and there. My boyfriend called an ambulance and the paramedics, who were wonderful, tried their best to reassure me I was not about to die and what I was feeling was a panic attack. Oh, how simple they made it sound. And there started my beautiful relationship with anxiety.

Too Marvelous For Words

I’ve worked hard to understand the anatomy and chemical reliance of the brain, and I’ve explored how holistic approaches such as meditation, counseling and reiki can soothe the anxious brain. I want to pass on what I’ve learned so that it can help you too. In some instances, I’ve even found ways to be grateful for the anxiety. For me, anxiety was debilitating and sometimes paralyzing. While anxiety is a frightening experience, I want you to know that it is fixable and not something you have to endure. You may feel you have tried everything to overcome your anxiety and nothing works! Practice the methods without judgment. Read the explanations with curiosity. Look at yourself in a different light and say this will get better. To live without anxiety, you need to approach your mental health with welcoming, compassion, and understanding. To start, let’s try to answer, what the heck is anxiety anyway? Not just of the panic attacks and the other debilitating symptoms, but also the feeling I was ‘going crazy’. My feelings were so intense, I had a really hard time rationalizing what was happening, and therefore the only conclusion I could come to was that I was going insane. I would sit for hours contemplating every intrusive thought, every muscle twitch, every jitter of my hands, and how they must mean I was losing my mind.

Memories Are Made Of This

This was utterly terrifying and gave even more power and energy to my anxiety. After my first child was born, my anxiety found a whole new sphere to work its magic in. Not only was I anxious for myself, but I was now also anxious about her and my ability to look after her! I’d had no idea of the crushing responsibility I would feel by actually becoming a Mom. I was anxious that my anxiety would stop me from loving her, and looking after her properly. In addition to these worries, having a newborn has a huge impact on our sleeping patterns, so I was torn between desperately wanting to sleep and being too afraid to sleep in case she needed me. My anxiety robbed me of those precious first weeks with my new baby girl. But I also learned a lot during that period. Understanding what was happening biologically and neurochemically gave me confidence in my ability to control my thoughts, feelings, and, ultimately, my anxiety. Have you ever crossed the road, and some driver almost runs you over because they didn’t see the red light? Or perhaps you have sat watching television, and out of nowhere, you hear a loud bang coming from outside your window? In both examples, your heart races, you start to sweat, you begin to shake, you may even feel nauseous, and your thoughts are going a mile a minute. This feeling is anxiety. Every person on this planet experiences some level of anxiety. It’s what keeps us alive and motivates us to stay away from danger.

If It Makes You Feel Good

However, for some of us, these feelings of worry and fear become too extreme and prolonged. They overload our systems and sometimes pop up out of nowhere without any obvious cause. This is when anxiety is no longer a straightforward safety mechanism and is often referred to as Anxiety Disorder. There are many types of anxiety disorders. Although I am not a physician or medical practitioner myself, I know that if you have felt what I have for more than six weeks, you should definitely see a doctor to get a clinical diagnosis. However, you may already know you have an anxiety disorder, and that is why you are here. Years of medical and academic research have shown that no one knows the ultimate cause of anxiety disorders, and there is very rarely just one cause. However, we do know anxiety levels can be influenced by the way we live our lives and by our behaviors. We may sometimes avoid a situation because previously it has caused an anxious response, which then makes us believe, If I avoid that situation, my panic won’t happen again. This way of thinking is a completely understandable coping mechanism, but it can make anxiety worse and encourage patterns of anxious thought. Often, we look to identify what triggers our anxiety and start to search for solutions to avoid them. How it filled me with distressing thoughts and made me question my ability to really be a mother. It was crushing and utterly exhausting way of life. What if she needed me in the night, but I couldn’t help her because I was asleep? Can you see how questioning and obsessing can create more anxiety?