6 Tips Dealing With an Everyday Monster: Anxiety

So if you have anxiety, you know exactly what I’m talking about, and if you don’t, here’s what it feels like: time is running out while you are stuck on the inside with no ability to help the situation. It’s not a trivial. Sometimes you can’t even see beyond that point, it consumes everything in you to stop/ help/ alter the situation.

People deal with things differently, here are some things that worked for me.

1. Keep a notepad next your bed to jot down all the ideas and things you have to do tomorrow . Why not use a phone? because the lights from the phone wake you up,  and once you’re up YOU ARE UP,  falling back to sleep ain’t a simple task. Whether it’s thoughts, brilliant ideas or things to do, once you write them down you won’t forget them.
2. Don’t bury/swallow your thoughts, when a thought comes to you if you immediately suppress it, it will fester on the inside like rotten food it will go bad and you’ll eventually have to get it out your system, by “throwing it up” which is a metaphor for ugliness and mess that you’ll go through to get it out.  But letting thoughts  come in and then having an internal conversation with them helps you stand on solid ground, acknowledge that you are having a crazy/ bad thought, then pick which way you want to deal with it. But denying that you even have these thoughts to not deal with them is the worst thing you could do. I generally personified my situations and has concertsayions with them, crazy I know 🤷🏽‍♀️
3. Listen to your body, sometimes for a variety of reasons we overwork our bodies to always be doing something. Your body is a machine that sends out warning signs when it can’t function such as headaches, exhaustion, and nausea, but we as human beings have a tendency to snooze everything, until it’s too late. If your body needs to rest do so! Find what helps your body relax and release the tension in your mind.
4. Keep a journal with how things that you thought were dooming and things turned out okay. This helps you look back at how you dealt with previous things and whether there were learnt lessons or methods that worked that you could always come back to!
5. Finding people that you can share your crazy unrealistic episodes with, without being judged is a major one. One of my friends we literally laugh our heads off a couple of days after I have an episode, but during that time she listens and she works through it with me rather than judging and saying how crazy I am. She’s not a therapist, she’s a friend who also deals with anxiety; because you understand what it feels like you know how crazy it can get, you won’t judge and point fingers. For some strange reason even if you deal with anxiety, but looking at someone else’s life you are able to differentiate between things worth worrying over and taking into consideration and things that are just pure anxiety craziness; and you have much clearer view. Well at least that’s what happens with me, I have a more logic approach to her problems than I do with mine.
6. Then there’s the obvious one, talk to a counselor, or a therapist. Why? Because yes, although you pay money to talk to someone, sometimes you need perspective and support that is more concrete, someone that may be able to give you coping mechanisms but better than that can work on the source of the anxiety. Imagine you have a wound that’s bone deep and you keep covering it up with a bandaid. It gets infected and then does some crazy stuff. You need to clean it out (that will be a little bit lore pain at the moment) but in the long run you’ll clean up that wound and it’ll eventually heal, and all that’s left of it will be a scar of where there was once a huge wound.

Now I’m not saying that I no longer deal with anxiety, because I do, the monster still comes out. But it’s not as  controlling monster as it used to be, holding me captive day in day out. There are days where I can predict it’s attacks and lock the door, others I’ll push him back into his cave, but there are still some days he comes out and it’s not pretty.

It’s a work in progress. Find out what works for you. Nothing is set in stone. Find your own rhythm your own weapons to fight your monsters. Then once you do share it, we all need someone who’s been in our shoes to help!