I would not classify myself as an anxious person, but I do have a predisposition towards feeling anxiety once in awhile. When I’m feeling anxiety, there’s an unnaturalness in my brain, a threat of unpredictability in the world, and an extra layer over my reactions to people and events. My brain catches all of my sad, scared and angry thoughts and holds them in a net, so that it’s harder for me to sort through them and find the silver linings. It’s as though my default mode has switched from positive/optimistic to negative/pessimistic, and I’m not the one who flicked the switch. I don’t even know where the switch is. 
It lasts for a day or so, then goes away, and I feel more capable of living the way I strongly prefer to live: acknowledging both the good and the bad, then choosing to highlight the good in my mind with grateful mindfulness.
I have gotten to the point where I’m able to recognize this switch has been flipped and that I may not feel like my best self for awhile. I have gotten to the point where I see it as a temporary illness, not something that defines me. This has taken years, and I’m thankful that I can recognize these things. It makes me feel like I’m managing the anxiety, even as it’s trying to manage me.
Let me pause here and be clear: I’m only talking about myself and my own anxiety. I’m not a psychiatrist, and I know that everyone experiences this condition differently. However, it may be valuable to someone else if I share my experience of anxiety and how I’m working through it.
For me, the trigger that the switch has been flipped comes when I start asking myself more fear-based, “what-if” questions. What if my kid gets sick today? What if my students aren’t prepared for their concert? What if I can’t produce the blog post that I need to write for this deadline? What if I can’t handle it all? Even as I type these questions, I can feel my heart rate start to climb. I can feel the tension wind up the back of my neck. “What-if” questions are unanswerable, and therefore they are both useless and terrifying to someone who likes to have some measure of control over her life.
“What-if” questions are the symptom of fear: fear that whatever happens next isn’t under my control. But the thing is, what happens next is never under my control. I can plan what I’d like to have happen, and hope that it does. But I can never, ever know that my plan will be executed. I can never truly know how each day, each event, each loved one’s life will unfold. That’s something I can accept and live with under ordinary circumstances, but when anxiety flips the switch, I start to despair.
I have realized, though, that even though I can’t control what happens in the future, I can control one thing: I can have faith in myself to handle whatever happens.
I’ve lived through difficult times in the past, and I’ve survived. I’ve handled everything that came my way, and I’m still standing. If I’ve done it in the past, I can do it in the future. I can trust in Future Leanne to get it right.
It’s my only weapon against anxiety: faith. Trusting myself. Believing that even if I can’t control what happens, I will be able to control how I handle it.
Do you ever experience periods of anxiety? How do you manage it? I would love for you to share your story in the comments, but if it’s too personal for the public, please feel free to email me at leannesowul@gmail.com. The best way to combat anxiety and depression is to bring our struggles with them out into the open.
Wow. There are a lot of similarities between how your anxiety manifests and how mine does. The triggers are different, but the way it stems from fearful / obsessive / negative thinking and how faith (among other things) have helped me manage mine better… I don’t just sympathize or empathize. I’ve been there – or, rather, I am there, in my own way.
The funny thing is, I’d been thinking about blogging about my anxiety and the things that have helped me manage it better over the past year or so. This post may have convinced me to do just that.
Thank you for sharing this, Leanne. 🙂
A truly valuable lesson: Future Leanne will be able to handle it. I feel like 2017 was the year that brought that same lesson home to me, when we were preparing for Hurricane Irma. At one point, it looked like we were going to be hit directly by a really strong storm, and I was freaking out about how to prepare. I finally realized the freaking out wasn’t helping matters, the storm would or would not destroy our house, and there was nothing I could do about that. What I could do was realize that whatever happened, we would handle it. We came through unscathed except for having no electricity for four days, and I felt like I could handle the inconveniences involved much better since I hadn’t worn myself out with worry beforehand. I’m sure I’ll need to revisit this lesson in the future, but I’ve found it very, very helpful during anxiety spirals.