Anxiety

Anxiety sucks. It is probably one of my least favorite things about myself. I get anxious so easily about the dumbest things and I am not gonna sit and here and say I don't cause that's not true. I want this blog to be all brutal honesty because if you have met me in real life, you know that that is how I am. I am a very brutally honest person whether people like it or not. I have taken medication for anxiety and I know a lot of people do. If you feel like you are someone who might benefit from that reach out to someone and ask for help. I can not stress that enough.

Anyway, for this post I wanted to get personal with you about my experiences and how I handle anxiety. For me I get anxious over small things like, homework, misplaced things, tweaks, being unorganized, and being unprepared and those are just a few examples. With this comes anxiousness and thoughts of failure or uneasiness, My biggest physical effect anxiety has on me is stomach aches. When I am anxious my stomach beings to hurt and I feel like I am gonna throw up. It is not fun and it makes me even more anxious because I really do not want to throw up in that particular situation. Anxiety is not an joke or it'd not something people just say, it is a serious thing that can screw with peoples lives.

Anxiety does have a sidekick which is a super power that toys with your emotions and your motivation. For example, when I become anxious I will lose all motivation to do anything important and my emotions will get the better of me. I will get angry with myself and pissed off. I do not understand why this happens but it is not really something I can control. However, I can lower the anxiety levels. Here's how I deal with anxiety:

I did a lot of these exercises when I was in the hospital because I would get such bad anxiety I would start to have panic attacks. So a lot of the times I would have my sister help me breathe in and out. This is EXTREMELY important because with a panic attack you aren't breathing normally. So she would help me with that. The other big thing I would do would be mindfulness which is to attack the problem head on and realize what is happening and just understand it and breathe. It was either with breathing or a written exercise given by my psychologist. Either way it worked most of the time. Now that I am at school and by myself it is a lot harder to use these exercises so I have come up with some on my own time. These include; reading, painting, comedy tv/movie/special, and basically anything to distract me from the anxious situation. I have found out that the more I just sit there and think about the thing that is making me anxious makes the problem worse. So I have learned to take me away from the situation for awhile and do something fun or that I enjoy and come back to the problem when I am ready.

If you have anxiety don't be embarrassed, it is a common thing and just because yours might be worse than somebody else's does not mean anything! You will be okay and get through it. Also nothing is as big as it seems! Just remember to find the ways that help you handle your anxiety and do them! Even if that thing is due in 2 hours, step away and a bad grade will not effect you in the long run. The most important thing is not grades, it is your health and that should always come first. So just breathe and believe you can do it and you will.

xoxo Haley :)