Anxiety Blog 1: A Ramble About How I Am Learning to Cope with My Anxiety

This is me, struggling to keep it together, after a day of being in a busy centre surrounded by adults barking orders, baby’s crying for milk and children shrieking as they run from their friends. This is me, just before I had an anxiety attack and before I vomited up the lunch I had eaten seven hours before – a reaction to stress and the back pain that I suffer daily.

I come home, tired, aching and irritable. I look in the mirror and see a mess staring back at me. Hair out of its bobble and knotted, tired watering eyes, and a red patchy face where my skin has begun to react from the stress. My partner asks me if I’m ok, and I nod, unable to express how I’m feeling for fear of breaking down into a blubbering mess. He tells me that the day was fine, it was ok. For most people not suffering with anxiety it would be. Sure, it would have been busy, but nothing to sweat over. They would step out of the staff door and shake off the day. They would go home, make some dinner, maybe watch a show on Netflix, and they would put the day behind them. But me? I get home and I can’t eat straight away because the anxiety has caused my appetite to diminish, I vomit up the little food that I had ate that day, and I don’t want to move from the bed that I had collapsed on because I’m in so much pain from my back. My partner (who is in the same job as me) gets on with his evening whilst I wallow in something very close to self-pity.

The point that I am attempting to make- albeit very ineloquently- is that for people who suffer from anxiety, situations (and emotions caused by them) are often magnified. A person without an anxiety disorder may experience a situation which they are comfortable with; for example, meeting new people. The exact same situation may cause a person suffering from anxiety a high level of stress, nervousness and panic. Anxious people may come across as shy, quiet and unsociable, and this is often because we are- especially around people we do not know. All fears are suddenly magnified; we do not speak because we worry about coming across as stupid, or weird, or we worry that we will have verbal diarrhea and say completely the wrong things. We worry that other people won’t think we’re pretty, or smart, or that we don’t “fit in”.

But I am learning that none of this matters; it is not important what other people think of you. It is not important that someone doesn’t like you because you’re not into sunbeds or don’t play the Xbox. It is not important that you walked into a lamp post a week ago in front of a cute guy and you can’t stop replaying it in your head. Instead of spending time and energy worrying about the opinions of others, ask yourself “Why do I let [insert relevant thing here] affect me?” I am learning, slowly, how important it is to take time for myself. I am learning to stop focusing on the negatives and start focusing on the positives- the negatives are often hurdles that we overcome for improvement. But most importantly, I am learning that anxiety does not define me. I am in charge of me. I am in charge of my body, my mind and the decisions that I make. I am in charge of who I surround myself with, and what things I allow to affect me. I am learning that I am not my anxiety. I am not my fears. I am not my doubts. I am outgoing, kind and passionate. I am successful- not because of a job or the material possessions that I may own- but because I am dealing with my anxiety and finding happiness in myself. In the words of Lady Gaga, “Be you, and be relentlessly you.”