My name is Jay, and I have anxiety. My journey with anxiety has been a long one. I believe it has existed probably since I was a pre-teen. At least that’s what my therapist believes. It didn’t start becoming a noticeable problem for me until maybe a couple of years ago. The aggravation: my job.
For a long time, I lacked the tools I needed to effectively manage my anxiety. I did not know how to set proper boundaries or manage my expectations. One of the major causes of me having panic attacks and overwhelming anxiety episodes over the past couple of years is due to employment. “Ye shall eat by the sweat of your brow,” that curse put on to us by God, if you believe in that sort of thing, was nothing but a set up for anxiety – to teach us to worry about our jobs and how we perform on them because we know we need them to eat.
My job was stressing me out so badly that there were moments I could feel as if I was on the edge of a mental breakdown. Yet and still, I would report to work faithfully, never called out, and the days I did call out, I felt guilty for doing so. I get my work ethic from watching my dad and his brothers. No matter what they had going on, they got up and went to work, faithfully. The babyboomer generation taught my generation that self-care was secondary to taking care of the house and family.
You are only as good as your reputation and your work ethic and so, I believed that I had to work to show myself approved.
Today, my anxiety is not as intense because I quit that stressful job and went on to another one, but the effects of anxiety still plague me. If I’m faced with stressful situations, I am not as strong to handle them like I used to be. I notice I may get triggered much easily now. My mind immediately spazzes out and my body follows suit with insomnia, elevated blood pressure, moodiness, and the desire for solitude. The anxiety detaches me from my emotions because I’m shaking inside just trying to get to the next minute. And let’s not talk about large crowds.
This is anxiety!
Managing my Anxiety
You can’t be everything to everybody and not be the best thing to myself
One of the ways to manage anxiety is self-care and self-awareness. Sometimes that includes telling your stressful job, I can’t see you guys today. After another sleepless night, today I realized anxiety kept me up. When it came to deciding not to go into the office, but work from home instead, anxiety had me thinking about my roles and responsibilities, but then it sat with me that perhaps I need to manage this a bit better.
Perhaps I should consider that I have a real health issue going on here, and this job, those people, those employees will just have to understand. We are taught not to manage our mental health. We are encouraged to stay in bad marriages, bad jobs because they pay well, just bad everything. However, do we realize the opportunity cost that’s there?
I’ve been on high function status for over a decade, and at times, I feel depleted, drained, and zombie-like. As I tell myself that I can’t be everything to everybody, and then not be the best thing to myself. I’m learning to self-care, disconnect, and plug in to my spiritual power in God.
My first day of therapy with my therapist who I think is just phenomenal, went a little something like this. Her name is Dr. Spirit Canton.
Spirit: “So what are you worried about”
Me: “I don’t know.”
Spirit: “Anxiety is when you’re worried about something that does not yet exist, and it may never exist.”
What I love about my therapist is she asks me “why” a lot. I’ve learned that we tell ourselves all types of stories and it creates worlds in our mind that feed anxiety. When she sees that I’ve created a narrative in my head, she asks, “but why?”
It forces me to ask myself why I think a certain way. After that first session, I felt myself exhale. She said, “You’re so caught up on what’s going to take place later, that you are not allowing yourself to live in what’s taking place now.”
Then she added, “And if there is something that you have a legitimate concern about that may happen later, create an action plan on how you will handle that should it happen.” It was the best advice ever. Ironically, I went into my first therapy session in 2018 a ball of nerves and anxiety and left feeing empowered.
So with that being said, take care of yourself. Go to a park, bond with nature. Call out sometimes, and get a therapist! I got the book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, a year or so ago. It wasn’t what I thought, but the main idea is that perception is the secret sauce to not giving a fuck. So there you have it. What narratives are you telling yourself about life, about your spouse, about your job, or your kids? Hakuna Matata.
Additional thoughts from my journal…
I started 2021 off by disconnecting from a lot of negative stimuli. No TV, no social, no land animal meat, and no recreational drinks. I needed a reset. In the place of those things, I committed to reading some of the many unread books on my book shelf, write in my journal more, and meditate. It’s working, and I can say I see clearer about some things and prepared to make choices about other things.
I wrote the first part of this storytime post on Monday, 1/4/2021, and then the day after, I read some old journal entries. And found this below – how fitting and look how precisely I was able to recap my journey.
Penzu Journal Entry: January 31, 2019 (Almost exactly two years ago) – notice how I took myself too seriously to type out “fuck.” #growth
My thought for today is that I should slow down. I had an aha moment today while listening to a new audio book, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.” I like the concepts being taught and it has allowed me think about some things. This reminds me of what Spirit pointed out to me during my first session last year. What am I racing to, and why do I feel anxious about it?” I felt the ability to finally woosah. Why was I racing? I don’t know. I find myself still racing though. But in my racing, I may be missing “moments”. Moments to spend with my love. Moments to enjoy a good sit down lunch by myself, which I really do enjoy doing. Solitude is a drug for the empath in me. Perhaps, one day next week, instead of rushing home to bury myself in school work, I’ll take a drive through the country, another thing that brings me comfort.
How do I feel?
Right now, I feel content. As I left work, I felt some anxiety. I think it’s because the office politics can be a bit much. I’m learning to “just be” and know that people will be people. I have to learn that I cannot judge and gauge everything that seems to be out of order. Life is not in order and the things around me won’t always be in order. I should adopt that. Maybe I’ll make that my daily mantra.
“Life is not in order and the things around me won’t always be in order.”
Soon enough I’ll learn, sometimes things not being perfect is okay, just live in the moment.
I’ve stopped worrying about how I can’t get to every email at work daily. I say to myself, I‘m only one person, and the world won’t end if this doesn’t get responded to today. Today, I figured that I should manage the influx of emails, now that my team is larger, by prioritizing what gets responded to. That’ll be my action item for tomorrow—establish a hierarchy of who gets responded to first. I think this audio book is helping me come to some conclusions about what to give a f*ck about.