Tag Archives: mental health

Learning to live with anxiety

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I live with anxiety.

It’s something that I really didn’t have an understanding of until I considered that I may be living with it, researched it, and the pandemic, plus some brewing personal situations that I needed to resolve was really the impetus for me figuring it out.

I think, when people think about anxiety, they think of the stereotypical suburban housewife in the 80s and earlier, taking Valium, not able to cope with things; which does a real disservice to women and stigmatizes what anxiety is, and how it can be treated.

We’ve come a long way since then and while mental health is still misunderstood, the treatments, compassion and care that exists today versus what I’ve seen friends go through, say, in the 80s is night and day.

NOTE: This blog entry discusses my mental health journey and while aspects here might help you, I am not a mental health expert and I advise you that if any of what I have written resonates with you, do consider speaking with a therapist.

Consider being in a situation that involves someone else where your mind is racing trying to figure out all the angles, possibilities and outcomes of the situation in advance so you’re prepared to get through any variant of the situation – a perpetual what if machine. 

You’re nervous about saying the right thing in the right way because it’s super important to you, you have often been misunderstood in life, so you want to make sure you’re heard and understood. It consumes you and takes up valuable cycles you could be using to focus on other things in your life.

You become irritable, emotional – you want to do the right thing- you want to do the right thing for yourself, you also want to be considerate and do the right thing for the person you need to talk with and open up to, but you can’t because you’re trying to find the perfect way to meet your needs, their needs, to be sensitive to the other person and true to yourself. 

You agonize over it.
You beat yourself up.

At least, in how anxiety has been showing up for me, this has been a common scenario. I recognize that anxiety shows up in a multitude of different ways for different people. Overcoming and learning to live with anxiety is a unique journey for everyone.

There are a few approaches I figured out for myself that seemed to work

  • I write it out as it helps to get out of your head – a theme – and allows me to collect and organize thoughts. I can spin so hard, its very hard to keep thoughts organized.
  • I talk to others to get out of my head – starting to see a theme? Mainly because I have the sense to say, “I need help!”. I know I’m stuck inside, and need to check in with someone else who is outside the situation to get a reality check, to be challenged and ultimately to help stop that spinning so I could do what I needed to do – which was to talk the person I really needed to.
  • In some situations I’m able to talk directly to the person, which really is how it should be, but it’s not as smooth as it really should be, and even in those moments, when talking things out, my head can be spinning hard.

That spinning is not kind, it will pull in other baggage, and it’s very hard to dig out. I knew that if I talked directly to the person involved about the situation I’m spinning about, it’s not going to be pretty. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

In all honesty, no matter how weird or meandering or even ugly the path to the resolution to the situation you’re in is, dealing with it straight up is actually better. The people that can and do see past your baggage will be the ones that will help you figure things out and support you in seeing through your anxiety and triggers.

The character of Anxiety in Inside Out 2, a recent movie from Disney-Pixar, anthropomorphizes a great representation of anxiety. I really feel that if I had this story growing up, it may have given me some good food for thought or at least planted a seed where I could have realized earlier what was happening and lessened the impact on my life.

I’m not going to talk here about how I was able to connect the dots that lead to me learning how to mitigate my anxiety as it did involve some unconventional methods. The parts I will talk about are 

  • it did involve looking at situations that were triggering me. At the time I was dealing with triggers constantly going off from multiple sources – I am surprised I kept it together. For me, this was typically the starting point for where anxiety starts for a given situation.
  • I had the sense to take the time to understand why I was triggered – what in my past is trying to inform me that I’m in some form of “danger zone”? This part of my looking inward journey was huge and I had to build courage to go there and face my interpretation of the past, and heal from it. I had to go back and deal with my past.
  • I spent time with my therapist to talk through what I was seeing and experiencing.
  • Most importantly, I have some amazing family around me who gave me:
    • a safe space for me to be able to deal with whatever I was dealing with in real time as things came up, 
    • while they called me on my shit, it was clear they had my back and loved me and stood for me being a better Iain, and they were invested in being part of my life just as I wanted them in my life,
    • the space to make mistakes and learn from them,
    • reminders that I was worthy of that support and love,
    • a voice, that would be listened to, where I felt heard, and people took the time to understand me and what I was dealing with,
    • where I could get reassurance and learn to trust that reassurance,
    • where I could express emotion and not feel locked up, that i was wrong for just feeling and expressing that emotion – that my emotions are real and valid,
    • challenged me in a good thought provoking way – during that whole period I was constantly hearing “Get out of your head, Iain”,
    • giving me the love and respect that I really needed to get through such a weird space that I happened to get into, that I needed to dig out of.

While only I could do the work, having that support network was what I really needed to sort myself out. Definitely a gift the universe has given me.

Today, I can say my mind is the quietest it has ever been, ever. I cringe thinking about the times it lead to awkward and explosive situations. I’m not comfortable with it, and all I can do is accept that it happened and where required clean it up. learn from it and be a better person.

Anxiety has shaped my life for an incredibly long time. I can go back to my childhood where it started. I have no idea if it’s something that I’m predispositioned towards or a learned behaviour – I suspect a combination of both. 

I certainly recognize what I went through, and the situations that made me a pro at the spin and keeping things to myself. My strong independent streak because I couldn’t rely on or didn’t even have the support I should have had when I was younger, and keeping things to myself as a result, among other things, all this adds up, and I am not surprised at how this turned out. It was a perfect storm.

I am proud of the man I’ve become, I’m proud of the hard work I’ve done on myself to be a better human. The true me has always been upbeat, personable, hardworking, someone who wants to do the right thing, make the world a better place and an introvert-leaning ambivert willing to look inwards, 

The people that matter, I know, are also proud of me. I would not be where I am without them.

The Caretaker

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I am a care taker and a fixer personality.  I do my best to take care of people.  I’ve been doing this from the age of 13.

I learned to take care of myself and my own needs, taking control of how and where I get cared for.  Unfortunately, with that experience of not feeling I could ask to be taken care of, and especially at that time of not being taken care of when I should have had that support, I learned to take care of myself.  

35 years later I’m realizing the degree to which that has impacted me and my ability to ask to be taken care of, and letting others in.

Me constantly giving has been my call for, “I want to be taken care of” too.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually do enjoy taking care of others, and will continue to do so, though, it should be mutual instead of one-way and not to the point of no capacity, to the detriment of myself.

I’m at a point where I want and need to let others in, I want to ask to be taken care of however that looks – simple stuff, the basics, such as just being held – to feel that affection – the anxiety of asking for it and the fear of rejection shuts me down. I’m afraid of that.

There’s a part of me that’s tired of asking, I just want someone to take the reins and, for once, or even simply ask me, “What can I do for you?”.  I want to be confident in that I can actually say, ‘This is what I want and this is what I need” without that fear and anxiety.  I’m often doing it for others, why aren’t they doing it for me – OR – what am I actually missing because i don’t recognize that people may, in fact, already be doing this for me.

Is my head really that deep in the sand? 

I don’t know how to ask for it – yet I know I can ask for it; I don’t know how to ask for affection – yet I know that all I have to do is to speak up; I want to be seen, and yet, I know people see me, I know people love me.  I’ve only just been able to see how people love me, and actually accept it – for example, my partner before me heading home saying, “Get home safely” in his Dad voice.  It threw me for a loop and initially my walls went up but then I realized that was his way of showing me love because he values and cares for me, and I was able to accept and I deeply appreciate that intimate moment.

It’s a level of intimacy I want to experience and share, and I sort of have, but really letting it out and letting go is scary.  I hold it tight as many of us do.

With being so hungry for it, with the anxiety, I can come across self centred and at times selfish.  When you’re in that deep, it can be really really hard to communicate effectively and I know I’m doing my best to say, “Hey!  I’m here and this is what I need”, and I know I’m holding myself back to the frustration of my partners.  

I often feel alone, despite being with people, despite my amazing family around me – my husband, my boys, and my partner.  Not uncommon for people who are care takers.

The anxiety I’ve been living with leads me to completely misinterpret people’s actions – the opposite of what is truly intended and I’ve had to actually ask, “Do you actually mean…” to challenge my understanding and world view.  It hurts, greatly, and even more I hate having to ask at times, but it feels like I am hurting my partners in the process and it’s just another strike against me.  I hope they realize that I’m healing and getting better each time I ask and open up. 

Someone asked me recently, if I felt like I was entitled to and deserving of love, relationship, and connection.  That hit hard.  I sometimes feel like I’m not deserving of any of it – when I know damn well I am worthy and deserving.  I push down my needs, saying I don’t matter, constantly putting myself and self care with it, letting my anxieties take over.

I want to stop the ups and downs of the rollercoaster I’ve been on, and I want to be more consistent and settled.

I have a much better understanding of what has happened in certain points of my life.  Spaces and relationships that were once considered ‘safe’, perceiving being rejected and my needs not being met, becoming ‘insecure’ and the insecurities that come with it. 

I want to feel secure in my relationships. I need to be secure in knowing where I stand.  I no longer want to be that nomad searching for my place.  I want to be able to interpret how people show me love as love and appreciation.

I’m tired of love being transactional, but it’s all I’ve ever known.  I’ve had a taste of what true love and the connection that comes with it, and it feels amazing.