TW: anxiety, mental health, feeling and being sick.
I have coped with anxiety in my everyday life for as long as I can remember. It might not have been diagnosed until I was 16, but I don’t remember a week that I haven’t felt a knot in my stomach, thinking of an outcome so unlikely but so seemingly obvious to me. I’m lucky enough to have mostly overcome this now, but when I was at my worst, I was working myself up so much that I was being physically sick extremely regularly.
Living with intense anxiety for a long time led me to discover numerous ways to calm myself down inconspicuously, prevent myself from becoming overwhelmed, and overall reduce my prolonged feelings of anxiety, and panic attacks themselves. It might be different for everyone, but a lot of us have the same overwhelming thoughts and feelings, and relating to someone who’s been through it and is almost out the other way may make you feel a little more hopeful.
Focus on the realistic outcome, not the worst.
A massive part of anxiety is that the worst outcome possible becomes the most realistic outcome to you. Exam results are something that a lot of people feel anxious about, so a really good example of the cycles.
During my peak of anxiety, my thought cycle would look something like this:
I’ll fail my exams --> I won’t get into the University I want to go to --> I won’t do well because I won't enjoy myself --> I won’t get the job I want --> I’ll be miserable and stuck forever.
Now, the cycle looks like this:
I’ve revised hard for this exam --> I’ve done the absolute best I could --> even if I have done badly, there’s nothing I can do about it now --> there are plenty of other paths I can do to get to my goal.
It may seem easy written down, but it took me years to get it right. Even when you’re not feeling anxious, check where your thoughts go. Am I thinking realistically? Why am I thinking realistically now and not when I’m anxious? What’s different and how can I change it?
What am I actually anxious about?
I’ll feel my heart pick up, my stomach tighten, and myself getting dizzier. I have been an extremely anxious person for 20 years, and my anxiety won’t just go away, even if I’m doing better now than before. Now I have to ask myself the question: what am I actually anxious about? Is there a reason I’m feeling this way?
A lot of people who suffer this intense anxiety have a default position of anxious states of mind. Their brain will be over-analysing situations which haven’t happened yet, will never happen. Your whole body is protecting itself by entering fight or flight mode, without even having a trigger. By recognising the fact that you aren’t actually feeling anxious, that it’s your body on auto-pilot, it helps your body to get into a new routine. You’ll start noticing how often you feel anxious for no reason, and hopefully learn to reduce this in future.
Carry on living life.
I used to get extreme panic attacks from many everyday scenarios: going out for socials, being messaged by a boy, having to navigate an argument over messenger – everything I did regularly, I would be worried about being triggered. I am definitely an extrovert. There is no reason that I can find that I was so worried about these things. I felt overwhelmed from tension, but it would lead to me either being sick, or feeling so nauseous that I could not eat or enjoy myself. I lived in a state of perpetual fear, concerned every time a conversation got serious in case I would have to run out of the room.
The most important thing for me was not to ignore these situations, not to shy away. I continued to go out with my friends to parties, because once I got there I loved it. I continued chatting to new people, because who can go through life without doing so?
I took certain precautions to reduce my likelihood of having a panic attack. For a long time, I didn’t go on social media just before or after dinner, to let myself settle before anything could upset me. I would eat certain meals before going out which I knew wouldn’t sit heavily, and would get to most parties early with a friend to reduce the tension I felt.
Anxiety sometimes means you have to plan around yourself. You know yourself better than anyone, and if you feel something you could do will help you feel more at ease, do it, no matter if you think you might look odd doing so.
Find strategies which work for you.
By the time I finished counselling, I was armed with a lot of methods to help me in future. My favourite was analysing my own thought processes (as above), because it has really helped me long-term.
I still feel very anxious from time-to-time, and still have lots of in-the-moment techniques to calm myself down. From spotting 5 things I can see, 4 I can hear, 3 I can touch, 2 I can smell, and 1 I can taste, to focusing on breathing in for 6, holding it for 7, and breathing out for 8, distraction techniques are something I can do in any situation, without explaining myself to anyone.
This is something which is different for everyone. Find your technique which works for you when you feel like you’re becoming overwhelmed.
Look after yourself.
I always feel more overwhelmed when I’m stressed, tired or have a lot on. Planning is essential for me. When I feel stressed, I work for certain hours, then make sure I take a few hours off to pamper myself, watch TV, or see family. When I’m tired, I focus on getting to bed early and having a relaxing evening if possible. When I have lots on and feel overwhelmed, I write lists to make sure I don’t forget anything, and start working through them.
Everyone has situations which increases their chances of anxiety. You can’t avoid them, it’s just not possible, but if you know what they are, even if you can’t prevent them, you can reduce the effects they have on you.
Everyone says that I’ll always be an anxious person. I might not seem it, and other people may not believe me, because I am still confident, but I am. If you think of it as something that will always be a part of you, but will not always control you, then it makes it just a bit easier to feel less overwhelmed. You won’t feel this way forever. You won’t have to avoid certain things forever. You’re much more than your anxiety.
---- Mary Collingridge, Women’s Officer
