What the Anxiety Feels Like

via We Heart It

Hello hello my lovelies. I've been playing around with this idea and I've had a scandalously bad morning so I thought perhaps it was time to put this Idea into Words. (FYI: after two Kava calms and two Neurofens to calm me down, and a large glass of coffee and Coke to wake me up again, I feel a hell of a lot better).

I'm an anxious person. I've always been an anxious person and have been prone to Freak Outs throughout my entire life - and I'm not talking about the funky Seventies kind. The kind of Freak Outs I'm prone to can involve (but are not limited to) hyperventilation, tears, much rage directed at anyone nearby. However, it's only been in the last three and a half years that I've really been aware of what's going on during my Freak Outs and have been able to do something during the early stages - what my therapist would call Being Kind to Myself.

I roughly divide my anxiety moments into two categories - the kind that involves me experiencing a kind of low level but constant guilt over a period of hours or days, and the kind that involves a pretty rapid build up and then me flipping out in a spectacular fashion.

What does the Anxiety feel like? The first kind of anxiety feels as though someone is sitting on my chest. I feel like a bad person but in a general way. It's more of a feeling of inadequacy than a particular thought. I usually wander around feeling like crap and worrying about everything and everyone, until I notice that I'm picking away at myself and demand that I STOP. Some Cognitive Behavioural Therapy whatsits tend to work in this situation - I'll think about the good things that have happened and try to nut out what I'm feeling and find a better way of feeling about it. If I'm feeling crap about something that I'm procrastinating about I resolve it as soon as I can. In this situation I think the best thing that I can do is just refocus and be aware of myself and what's going on around me. Also, tapping (EFT) is quite good if I take time out enough to do it.

The second kind feels like - well, it's difficult to know physically how it feels, because everything is in my head. I feel as though my head is about to explode from thinking so many thoughts - about my own inadequacy, about All The Things going wrong, about every imagined slight... The room feels as though it's closing in on me and All The Noises are too loud. At some point during all of this overwhelming head oppression I lose it entirely and end up bawling in the loos somewhere or (better still) hyperventilating in an effort to stop myself crying. Or holding my breath in an effort to stop myself hyperventilating. Which necessitates more hyperventilating.

The most practical way of dealing with this is again to STOP when the thoughts are whirling around my head. Be aware of my body. Feel myself sitting, standing, touching. Feel the inside of my own skin. Be. Mostly what I want to do is sleep until I can deal with it again. Unfortunately, this is not a practical way of dealing with a Freak Out at work, and to be honest, spending a lot of time in bed I think pushes me towards depression which isn't really the most ideal outcome.

So, that's my Anxiety! It's a pretty big part of my life, even if I am managing it well (and at the moment I've been finding it quite hard to manage it well. So it's like, my hobby). If at any time you'd like to meet my Anxiety in the flesh, you can list my inadequacies to me after half a bottle of gin. YAY!*


*Humour is a good way of disguising true feelings, non?