Where Do We Even Start?

A common problem with anxiety is that it feels like it’s tailored to the individual. Nothing bad will happen to you. Bad is a subjective term, but I deem bad in relation to the topic of anxiety as the feeling like you’re about to die, or something awful is about to happen. Always remember that feeling anxious cannot do this to you. The longer the feelings and symptoms continue, the more likely we assume something is wrong upstairs. Upstairs I mean our constantly ticking, never resting brains. One day we’re feeling fine, then the next day we feel completely different and the world around us also feels and appears different. We fall prey to our feelings and emotions and our reality becomes a superficial projection of what’s actually going on. I, like many others I have helped and likewise have helped me, found it such a relief when being able to identify and relate to the symptoms which can occur with anxiety. Some of these symptoms present as very strange and may have you questioning why and if they relate to anxiety at all. The simple answer is that when we are in an anxious state, our body operates on a different level, and over time this different ‘mode’ of operation takes its toll on the body and mind. This is all to do with adrenaline and other bodily chemicals which will be explained in depth later on.

Life Is Just A Breath Away

The first step any anxiety sufferer should take is to simplify their chaotic world of worries. It’s the first step that should be taken when beginning to take control of anxiety. When anxiety is high and blinding confusion has set in, you’ll know that it can be extremely difficult to prioritise, organise and focus on your problems in any logical order or with any rational sense. We have so many different worries, which amount on top of our underlying worry of not feeling right, that we simply just don’t know where to start. Have you tried waiting for the feelings to go away? You’ll know it simply does not work like that. Now let’s scatter a few examples around in a similar fashion to the anxiety maps. I once again suggest that you take this opportunity to use your own experiences whilst utilizing these examples as a guideline. Can you see how hard it must be to prioritise a single worry to deal with? Where do we even start? Of course it’s normal to have every day worries such as work and social issues, however these worries can soon multiply and increase in intensity when anxiety is present. Anxiety can soon act as a barrier to resolving every day issues, which results in worries building up very quickly. Worries and stress become harder to resolve causing an accumulation effect similar to that of the common snowball analogy. Take everything that you’ve ever assumed and worried about with regards to how you feel and throw it under a metaphorical umbrella. Label it anxiety and voila – your problems are simplified to one manageable problem.

One Of A Kind

If I’d have known all that time ago that all I was experiencing was symptoms of anxiety I’d have saved myself a hell of a lot of time and energy. Five years worth of time to be more precise. You can see, the umbrella symbolizes anxiety as a whole and the rain drops symbolize some of the components or symptoms that form an anxiety condition. Instead of trying to deal with every issue or symptom separately, I challenge you to try and allow all of your worries to be associated with anxiety. This not only simplifies the problem, it allows room for reflection and a point of blame if life simply becomes too much. I’m handing out labels and pills. In the introduction I referred to the term anxiety from a more generalised perspective, when in fact it acts as more of a forename for a plethora of conditions which fall under several different subcategories. Of course there are other strands of anxiety that fall under different categories, but the list above consists of the names that tend to float around the most. Furthermore, I can openly admit that each of the labels listed could, at one time, be associated as a condition that I have personally experienced and been through. We sometimes put labels on ourselves to provide some false sense of understanding about what we’re confused about. It acts as a comfort blanket and simplifies complex issues that we’re unsure of or uneducated in. I’m not boldly stating that you have been misdiagnosed, and that I am contradicting the views of a trained medical professional, but what’s remarkable about what I have found in my research is the importance sufferers place on possessing a medical label to make sense of what appears to be a complex problem.

Before The Beginning

A large proportion of the anxiety sufferers I have worked with use these labels to make sense of something they fear, therefore taking the edge Where do we even start? of an issue that they find incredibly scary. The advantage of openly acknowledging you have an anxiety condition is that conditions can be changed. It is merely temporary. However, I’m asking you to acknowledge anxiety as a changeable condition – one that can be immediately challenged and laid to rest. The first thing I had to do to tackle my anxiety was to lose the labels I held above my head and structured my life around. I knew I was depressed, I knew I was scared to leave the house and I knew things were a lot different from before. What I realised is that it wasn’t the medical condition crippling me, but the constant and overwhelming fear that overcame me on a daily basis. After much deep thought I decided that if a medical condition was to dictate my life it could do so, but I was in no way going to let my life be dictated by a negative emotion.