Personal essay: Anxiety is anything but linear
Photo courtesy of Tina Sara / Unsplash
If you have anxiety or depression you might be used to words like disgusting, worthless, or degenerate swirling around in your head the same way I am. These are the types of thoughts I encounter daily as somebody learning to live with anxiety and depression, the most classic combination of mental illnesses to plague the minds of hundreds of millions of people around the globe. The intensity of these thoughts can vary, and it can be rare to encounter a long period where they don’t happen. As frustrating and terrifying as they can be, I bring good news with me today – it’s possible to get better, and, contrary to popular belief, it does.
In full transparency, I didn’t know what anxiety and depression were until very recently in my life. I’m not saying that I hadn’t heard of them before, I just truly did not know what those two words meant individually, and I didn’t understand what they meant when they were put together.
What I first learned about anxiety is that it is more than just nerves. Through tough experiences and a lack of self-care, I have become extremely aware that anxiety is a corruption of small thoughts that can turn even the most confident person of all into the quietest, most petrified mess to exist. That person didn’t look at me the right way? Oh, simple answer. It’s because someone started a rumor about me. After all, I didn’t smile at them correctly and everybody thinks I’m a raging b*tch. Simple thought followed by a simple conclusion.
Ultimately, that’s how anxiety gets you. It turns deceptively simple thoughts into overcomplicated folklore that takes the forefront of your mind. Before you know it, you’ve spun out so hard that anxiety has tired itself out and depression has to take the wheel.
And of course, depression is much more than sadness. I’d actually argue it can sometimes be the opposite of sadness. Depression is the overwhelming apathy of life. Nothing has mattered, currently matters or will matter in the future, and the only thing that may matter is the amount of sleep I can fit into a single day.
At their worst, both of these all-consuming, intense emotions completely overtook my life. Personal hygiene was out the window. Procrastinating necessary day-to-day activities was a regular occurrence. I even found myself talking about myself in the past tense, as if I’d passed away and the ghost of my once-bubbly and extroverted personality was buried in the ground of once before. “I used to be so fun,” I would say. “If I weren’t anxious and depressed, I would’ve loved that.”
It wasn’t until my therapist pointed out this past-tense talking behavior that I began to realize that anxiety and depression tend to make themselves all-defining traits when they’re at their most severe – all emotions completely dissipate, and I become anxiety and depression (which I like to think of as a severe case of emotional main character syndrome).
I realized that there are two ways to go about dealing with this emotional combination. I’ve learned first, I can just let it be what it is, which is what I did before seeking help. Yes, the anxiety moment will eventually pass, and yes, I won’t be depressed at every waking moment, but it can get pretty damn close to that. At a certain point, even the strongest individuals can no longer pretend that waking up with an upside-down stomach every single day is okay because it’s not.
I thought I was stronger than the worst of my anxiety and depression, and part of the process of learning to heal and seek appropriate help is to admit that sometimes, I’m not stronger, and that’s why I need to seek tools to help me deal with it. Once I was able to admit that to myself, my journey of self-help was in full swing, and I began an era of change.
Recently, I found a way to come down from a moment of high anxiety by utilizing green noise, which focuses on mid-frequency vibrations and creates a natural sound that can pretty easily bring me down from a panic attack (or the start of one). When I’m feeling physical anxiety and can’t find a way to calm down, I’ve found that a quick green noise video through YouTube or music streaming can do the trick: closing my eyes, breathing and letting my body relax as much as I possibly can.
Another way I’ve taught myself how to cope is the idea of not judging my thoughts unless they need to be judged. Let me explain. Say you’re driving down the road, and a car cuts you off. It’s pretty easy to let the anxiety and anger of this moment overtake you and affect the rest of your time driving. One way that I try to catch myself is by not “judging” that thought (or putting emotion into it) before it gains traction and affects my mental state for the rest of the day. If someone were to cut me off on the road, ultimately this is an inconsequential thing that happens, so it isn’t worth it to judge that thought and get emotional over it. So in this scenario, I would simply say “That person is an asshole,” and move on. They are an asshole, so I’m not putting emotional stock into it.
One final way I cope with my anxiety and depression is audio-journaling. This is probably my most utilized anxiety tactic, as it’s easily accessible and able to be done anywhere with just myself and my phone. When I’m having an overly anxious moment or a highly depressed moment, taking out my phone, hitting record and talking into the void can help bring some perspective to unrealistic thoughts or issues. When I’m feeling like I need to let go of what I’ve said, I sometimes have a ceremonious deletion of the recording after I’ve finished, as if I’m metaphorically burning those thoughts away.
So, all of those coping mechanisms can be great, but if there’s one thing that I want to stress, it’s that my progress has never been and never will be linear. When dealing with these things, everybody has ups and downs. There are bad days, including days where I slip up and do something that goes against all the principles I’ve set for myself. And it’s okay! Messing up is what leads to progress, and it is completely fine to have bad moments because they are the catalysts for making me into a better person. With every slip-up and correction, I am better than I was before, and that is what makes striving for progress worth it.
