It’s Time To Switch From My Normal Anxiety to My Festive Holiday Anxiety
I consider myself a laid-back person who only cares about two things:
Every person on earth and their opinion of me; and
The crushing psychological weight of being alive.
I have anxiety.
Hands up if you have anxiety, too. Hands up again if anxiety makes you accidentally act weird and then think about it for the next 50 years or doubt yourself one second and then worry about your doubting yourself.
You are not alone.
On an Anxious Scale of one to ten, with one being relaxed and chill and ten being severely anxiety-ridden, I usually function at a 5. Some days, that number rises depending on how much I obsess and overthink. Rarely does the number go lower. That is my normal. Do you want to know what else is my normal? A gut that is in perpetual abort-mission mode and is never, ever ever EVER the voice of reason.
So, what does a typical day look like for a person with anxiety? It goes something like this: Wake up and say, “What could possibly go wrong today?” and have your anxiety answer with, “I’m glad you asked! I’ve got some tricky tricks planned! Let’s get this party started!”
That is followed by briefly obsessing over the day's activities and potential socializing because sometimes anxiety makes you scared to hang out with your friends. (Yes, you read that right.) You eat lunch while overanalyzing how someone who spoke to you seemed a little off from how they usually talked to you and try not to misread any handshakes or hugs that happened that morning or some random morning 23 years ago. Then you experience neck pain, chest pain, and stomach issues and mentally order your anxiety to stay in its lane BECAUSE IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE A MENTAL DISORDER! And then, when you have a few extra minutes, you overthink your overthinking because you’re that good of an overthinker.
By dinner time, you’re exhausted and wondering where your Oscar is for acting like everything is fine and saying “No worries” on repeat.
(By the way, when I say “No worries,” I mean no worries for YOU because all the worries are mine now. I have anxiety; therefore, I have all the worries. You get none because I’m stealing yours. If you want your worries back, that’s too bad.)
For me, the most difficult part of any day is the nighttime ritual when I think I’m going to get some sleep. I run through my routine, brushing my teeth, pulling the bed down, adjusting the room fan on the right setting for white noise to drown out the late-night intrusive anxiety thoughts. The goal is to relax to the max.
Meanwhile, my anxiety is like: “Here I am, girlfriend! It’s time for ME to shine!”
That might sound crazy to non-anxiety folks, but it is what it is. Just allow me to ask you one question: If you’re not doing all that in your day, what do you do with all your extra time? (Ha Ha!)
On a side note, I found a cure for my anxiety. All I need is for everyone I know to tell me they are not mad at me once every fifteen minutes until the end of time. That’s doable, right?
Seriously though, anxiety is an invisible contradiction. You can sound confident and have anxiety. You can turn up at the gym or work every day and seem fine. You can appear happy but feel miserable inside. You can look attractive, but be convinced you’re ugly. You can smile or make jokes and be anxious at the same time, and often, no one will know how you really feel unless you tell them because anxious people aren’t weak. They know how to suck it up and fake it and are some of the strongest, most capable people you will ever meet.
If you have anxiety, don’t be ashamed because there are millions of us out there having it right along with you to various degrees. Again, there is no shame in having anxiety. Zip. Zilch. Nada. So, if you are reading this and identifying with that, show yourself some grace and stop feeling that way, okay? (You wouldn’t be ashamed if you had, say…diabetes, right?)
Anxiety and I have cohabitated for four decades, and I’ve learned how to manage it. Now, it’s more of a background noise than a disorder that is actively trying to incapacitate me. I’ve learned to view my anxiety as something that is not menacing but more of an annoying, unwelcome presence - kind of like that Kimmy Gibbler girl on Full House in the 1990s.
Anyway, if you need to chat, are looking for advice, or just need to vent about what a pain in the ass having anxiety can be, I’m here, I’m a vault, and I have a lot of great resources to share.
I love you, my blog-reading friends! Remember to stay calm, breathe deeply, be kind, and appreciate every minute of every day.