Beginning to Deal with Anxiety

Anxiety is your friend.

If someone had said this to me a week ago I would completely disagree and assume they haven't had the delight (and I mean the kind of delight that is a living hell) of dealing with some kind of anxiety disorder. You might be thinking that too but bare with me. A conservation with my counsellor last week made me change my perception of anxiety.

When I think about anxiety I have very angry, bitter and sad emotions towards it. I feel like this because it is something horrible to feel and to make it worse it has awful physical effects on you. While I am over actively and unnecessarily feeling it, it prevents me from being happy or even content. I try to fight it and repress it however it seems to be a battle I very rarely win.

My anxiety happens when I am anticipating or experiencing something that makes me feel uncomfortable or unsafe. My counsellor told me to think of it as your body warning you of this situation that you think is dangerous. Your anxiety is only trying to protect you so we shouldn't feel angry with it. It's just like if your parents know you're going to do something that could put you in danger, they would warn you not to do it. If you ignore them or fight back, they are only going to persist that you shouldn't do it and argue with you. Anxiety is like the protective parent inside us it can just be a bit too protective sometimes.

Instead of being annoyed at your anxiety, you should thank it. This seems kind of crazy I know but it makes sense right? Anxiety is a part of you, a part of you that is trying to protect you. When you start to feel anxious then just say to yourself "Thanks for the warning. I am a fully functioning human being with the instinct to protect myself." Then try to comfort the anxiety just like you would comfort an upset friend. Focus on the thought you are having when you are anxious and counteract them with calming thoughts. Tell yourself that you can handle the anxiety you are feeling because it can definitely feel overwhelming. I don't know what you think when your anxious about something but I find reminding yourself that things are temporary and you can't handle them helps. 

For example I have a German speaking exam tomorrow and I keep thinking that I can't do it and I'm going to mess it up. I remind myself that I have practised. I don't know I can't do this unless I try. If I do mess it up it's not the end of the world. If I feel embarrassed and bad about it going wrong that the feeling is only temporary and I can handle that feeling. I just have to get through the less than 10 minutes the exam will take and by this time tomorrow it will be done and I can forget about it.

I have tried to fight against and control anxiety for a long time and I have never found that it really works. Remember the old saying 'two wrongs don't make a right'? Well fighting the negative feeling of anxiety with another negative feeling of anger and frustration will not make you feel positive. Instead I'm going to try to work with and sooth my anxiety. I will try my hardest to inject some positivity into my low feelings. I know that after having these different thoughts and change perspective on anxiety its not going to go away and I won't now be able to handle it easy-peasy but its a start. It's a method that I can practice and improve on that will help to contain and deal with my frequent and horrible anxious thoughts.

I don't really know if this made any sense or was very helpful at all but thank you for reading.

BTW: the photo is just meant to be calming, nice to look at and to make the blog post look pretty.

Lots of love

Becca x