Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I felt 100% relaxed. I’ve had anxiety for around four and a half years. It’s exhausting. But I’m the best I’ve ever been, purely because I finally feel a little more in control of my anxious thoughts, albeit still far from being completely at peace, nonetheless rest assured i’ll get there.
Its World Mental Health day, a day that is seriously important to me however always makes me feel very emotional. I will always post an instagram on world mental health day. However I definitely never thought I’d post about my own experience with mental health, talking about my own struggles is something I find immensely difficult. There will be friends that will be only finding out by reading this. Why? Because I think people won’t understand. I think I shouldn’t be feeling what I’m feeling. I’ll be labelled as wanting attention, being over emotional. Do they really care and i’m just being a huge burden. But it’s true what they say; it really is okay to not be okay. Mental health is slowly becoming a less taboo subject. More and more people are sharing their experiences with their own mental battles and I think the more we do that the more that negative stigma that still hangs around mental health in some circumstances will soon be no more.
My anxiety is off the back off a pretty tough time I went through in my early/mid teens. Something I still can’t talk about very easily at all but maybe one day i’ll be ok to talk more about that too. I’ll let you know. I suffered pretty badly with anxiety when I was around 16/17. I’d go to parties, gatherings, and end up feeling so anxious i’d get my mum to come and pick me up an hour after she had dropped me off. I once went to a festival about 2 hours from home. I lasted around 8 hours out of the 3 days I was meant to be there and got the train straight home. Although i’m a lot more in control now, I still get anxious about all kinds of situations, socialising with people i’m not 100% comfortable with, , being out of routine, the gym, what i’m eating, to name a few. If you laid out some of my thought processes on a piece of paper, it would be a textbook image of a little anxious brain. I still overthink situations making them out to be 10x worse than they really are. I still tend to isolate myself in my little flat with my own thoughts. Truth is I love my own company but theres still points where I know I could get out more. I am a girl of routine and get incredibly anxious if something interrupts that routine. I also over think what words come out my mouth. Am I saying the right thing? Anxiety comes in all shapes and forms. I sometimes can’t breathe and feel there is a huge weight on my chest. Sometimes my anxiety comes through in silence or in anger to the point where i’m in a state on hysteria and i’m back to square one, not being able to breathe properly. However, I’m managing those anxious thoughts a lot better and learning to take life as it comes. It took a long time for me to be able to do this. But I thought I’d share the process of how I managed to grab that little more control thats given me the ability to calm my mind.
I found the stressful experience that started my anxiety – For me my anxiety came from a pretty traumatic experience. Finding the experience that kick started my anxiety aided me in validating my anxious thoughts and reassured me that I wasn’t just going insane crying over ‘spilt milk’. Its never the milk that was spilt that you’re getting anxious over. Its whats behind the spilt milk, and finding that will start you on your journey to being and feeling a little more at peace.
I deciphered the main situations where I felt anxious and why- To realise the situations in which I feel the most anxious and linking them back to that first stressful experience, all of a sudden made it all make a little bit more sense. It makes me realise that actually the situation i’m going into with anxiety on my shoulder won’t ever bring back that stressful experience and nothing will happen. To know what makes you feel anxious gives you the opportunity to think “Ok so I know I will feel anxious when it comes to doing that or going there so what I can do to ease that anxiety now” Write out a list of all the positives of that situation. Write out what it is about that situation that is making you feel anxious. This usually brings me to the conclusion that nothing bad is going to happen and at the end of the day I am the only one who is in control of that situation.
I realised i’m not stuck anywhere with anyone doing anything. No one is in charge apart from me – That situation thats making you feel anxious? You are not trapped there. You can leave the party if you need to, you can leave work if you need too, tomorrow is still there to go to the gym or to get your diet back on track. Try your best to stay and enjoy yourself. Try to rationalise the thoughts. But at the end of the day you are always in control of you and what you do.
These are the three thought processes that I try to take when feeling anxious. Although it can be very difficult to get your mind in a calm enough place when feeling anxious, take yourself away if that works for you or talk to someone you trust about how your feeling. Then take these thought processes to bring a little bit of peace back into your mind.
I am not a therapist. This is what works for me. You may find this doesn’t work for you. We’re all different.
World mental health day can come and go unknown to so many people and when they’re told they acknowledge, then go about their own day without actually giving it a second thought. And that’s by no means their fault AT ALL. Still NO ONE thinks about it enough. We pass so many people each day. If they have a broken arm or leg, you notice, you feel empathy. However mental health isn’t visible and is very easily masked. Walking to work in rush hour you will pass hundreds of people who actually are in a battle with their own mind daily. For some one who does not suffer from mental health struggles it can be difficult to empathise and understand. But one thing we all have in common is that we all need comfort and support at some point, so be kind, be empathetic even if you can’t quite get your head around it. Your comfort, patience and ability to listen will mean more than you realise to someone who battles with their mental health.
‘Be gentle with yourself your doing the best you can’
OLIVIA SAPEY 