How I Am Managing My Chronic Anxiety
I currently live in the downtown core of Ottawa, Ontario where I was born and raised. When I was younger I always loved coming to the city for its energy and the feeling of suddenly being "somebody". Today I would much prefer being "someone". We all know there's a lot of pressure from society to make it or to become somebody, but rather can't we just "be"? I come from a fairly large family composed of five girls, and let me tell you things would go "missing" quite often in the household! Though, this doesn't speak for the financial struggles associated with a single mother trying her best to raise a family on a low income. Although we were girls, we'd eat like growing teenage boys, which obviously speaking didn't help with the financial aspect of things. Today I wonder if these absences and experiences have anything to do with my daily stress and difficulty dealing with life.
Despite of it all I was a happy child filled with dreams and hopes, hopes that one day things would all make sense and fall into place, and that soon I would wake up from this dream. As a teenager I never stressed over anything. Fine life wasn't always easy, but there was always a solution to each and every obstacle that would block our avenues. I was that middle child who never sweated the small things. I was soon called the Zen one of the family. I've always been a master at day-dreaming; my mother would constantly remind me to get out of the clouds, though, I'd prefer playing different scenarios in my head over my reality. That was me at home, however school was different. Due to the fact that I didn't feel like I belonged with the other kids in my class, or with anyone for that matter, I developed certain traits that would keep me from merging and the need to be accepted by my environment. I quickly learned to be satisfied by myself, with myself, and in fact I preferred it over dealing with the stress coming from people's expectations of me. I knew who I was and that I had something to contribute, so I accepted the fact that I may be different, or at least wanted different things in life. Ok, I made peace with myself, but there was one problem which was that I wouldn't speak out my insecurities or personal troubles with no one, and it was only in my early twenties when things started to get out of hand, which resulted as a depression. What is depression? Please allow me to explain in my own words:
Firstly, nothing mattered. I wasn't looking forward to anything and nothing would excite me anymore. Everyone around me seemed happy but me, and yet I couldn't understand how they could possibly be happy. I'd even asked myself why they would act certain ways, just to show you how big the gap was.
I felt the need to distance myself from my friends and family just so that they wouldn't feel the mental and physical pain I was in. I would keep isolated and question everything; my existence, anyone's existence for that matter; and mainly the meaning of life. And confidence? Why would anyone want to be confident?
Getting up in the morning was very uncomfortable and really had no point to it. The very minute I'd wake up my entire body would hurt from head to toe and I couldn't stop or prevent it from happening, or even did I know why I was hurting.
I'd stay up late wondering and yet not accomplishing anything. I'd look forward to night time to come for the fact that I wouldn't have to deal with no one. Seeing people smile and happy would irritate me and get on my nerves. I'd lose patience over meaningless things, hence the start of a mood disorder.
Life suddenly had changed its course. It felt meaningless and just plain painful. My cousin Dreams moved far away, friend Self-control took me off Facebook and Mrs. Faith changed her number. Though, Mr. Hope stuck around for a little bit... The accumulation and combination of physical symptoms and mental illness's took a hold on me, and finally that Dude so called anxiety came knocking, and that's when things got worse. I slowly started fearing every obstacle, idea or thought that would arise. Physical pain was also more noticeable and my ability to mentally process thoughts or even one-on-one conversations became unbearable. I would get a headache just by thinking, as far as thinking about of thinking. I didn't know what was happening or what was wrong with me. At that point I just wanted peace of mind... depression wasn't so bad after all. At the time I was in search for another working position. My angels must have been around because I ended up obtaining a position in my field, which I was very happy of. However dealing with it wasn't quite the miracle I was expecting. Here comes the worse part, getting myself there and back was the most painful experience I had ever surpassed. Let me give you a little bit of a scenario:
I would take the public transit to get to work, and of course it had to be a forty-five minute commute. Trying to maintain myself for this long was impossible, yet I made it happen everyday, twice a day. I would experience mini anxiety attacks throughout the bus ride.
I felt completely stupid for it, so I actually stepped out of the bus many times to avoid the continuous humiliation, or even from passing out, at least on my way back home. Being surrounded by people and locked up in a bumpy vehicle was by far the last place I wanted to be.
Some other symptoms I would experience on a daily basis were afraid of falling asleep, sudden waking during sleep, trembling, cold sweaty palms, fear of dying, difficulty speaking or expressing myself, shorten of breath, bad posture, back pain (in fact my whole body), foggy mind and vision, numbness or tingling in my fingers and legs, hair loss (I now keep it short and like it that way), skin rash or oily skin, public phobia, phobia of being alone, lost of One-self and trouble looking at my reflection. I actually took myself to the emergency on a coupe of occasions but only to be sent back home and told that there was nothing wrong with me, and that in fact it was all in my head. Stubborn as I am I refused to accept the medication doctors prescribed me because I wanted to fix the problem from the root instead of covering them. Back at step one, with no improvement. Deep down I truly felt like a complete idiot for going through this, which actually felt like some type of mental illness, because it was confirmed... it was all in my head. One thing I noticed was that I was able to control some symptoms and prevent attacks from occurring, especially the mini ones. And in my opinion, it's either all in my head or not at all, so I explored various methods and techniques, such as yoga, mediation, natural sounds or vibrations, nutrition and self-convincing. Another tip that I found very helpful was thinking back before all of this started and try hard to let in that feeling again. Slowly and very slowly it came back to me, piece by piece, month by month and years later. Aside from juggling with various tools, I would spent time self-searching to find who I really was, who I wanted to be and my life's mission. Doing this exercise provided me with a sense of awareness and belonging at the same time, because I felt nowhere close to neither. Consequently I came up with a game called, well you guessed it, Finding the missing pieces of the puzzle, where I had an imaginary puzzle in progress on my bedroom all. Of course not literally, but every aha moment I would catch on, I would add it to the puzzle. This additional technique not only gave me strength but it also helped me realize that I was heading towards recovery. I then had a new dream, which was achieving total peace of mind. Throughout this journey I refused to sit let it take a hold of me. I made a conscious choice of doing it "naturally" vs. taking medication, although I believe that medication can be a powerful temporary fix while looking at the root factors. I did lots of research on the subject and came up with my own remedies which seemed to have worked fine for me, though I will not endorse anything that is or will be recommended, because we're all different and not everyone can or will benefit from these methods. Eating healthy has always been who I am, and although this wasn't a contributing factor to my symptoms, I believe that it can be. In my case, the key element for coping and defeating anxiety and depression was reconnecting with myself. I had let myself completely go to the point where I had lost connection to my Soul, if that makes any sense. Here's a simple equation I put together to assist me in hard times, because it is a journey, which is Soul Connects The Mind > Mind Connects The Body. Without our Soul we are nothing. We are our Soul and nothing more or less. A simple disconnection can lead to total catastrophe. Like dealing with an addictions, it takes time, effort, dedication and discipline before we can see profound results. In my opinion, anxiety and depression are only a "state of mind", which we all know can be controlled with our will. Our minds just like our muscles can become damaged over time if not cared for, and requires regular training in order to see change happen. I won't be taking too more much time on this subject because I wouldn't want to keep you too long, but instead I wished to give you a little insight on my struggles, how they came about and what I am doing today to keep symptoms at a bare minimum. Please stand-by because there is plenty more to come! I am telling my story in hopes that my experiences can benefit some, and even you. I am no doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist or a nutritionist for what matters, but I wish to elaborate on further causes and triggers of anxiety and depression because my story doesn't speak for everyone out there. We all lived different paths and wish differently, therefore there is no need to judge. Instead we can try to understand and listen, because that may be all we can do. Today, I accept my suffering and am grateful for it because I feel as if it was an important message which I had to listen to and take note in order to flourish and live a happier life. It's definitely not easy to put myself out there in this sense, but I feel that my mission is to help and in any way that I can, so this is it. These kind of mental "dis-eases" can be life chaining and no one should go through them. I would have never thought to experience something this frightening, something that feels so close to death. I'm happy to be able to reach out and say that hey, there is sun after rain after all, but mainly, miracles do happen, because I feel it took one to get through this. The lesson I learned from this experience is that internal happiness is the most precious treasure that life can give, and that is only when we decide on it. Wishing you a full and long lasting recovery. Peace. M.P.B.
