Anxiety Strikes Again

 Anxiety strikes again. I have talked a few times on this blog about anxiety in general and my own struggles with anxiety. And every once in a while my anxiety rears its ugly head in an expected way and we talk about it again. That’s probably the biggest pain about anxiety. You think you have it in check and have made it your bitch and then you find yourself in a situations having intense anxiety thinking what the hell? You know what makes that feeling even better? When it happens in front of someone you have just recently met and has no idea that you struggle with anxiety. Welcome to the story that inspired this blog.

A few weeks ago I went on a date with a new fella and we hit it off right away. Only hitch was he was getting ready to move for work and would be residing in a city about 3 hours from where I live. We decided not to let the distance stop our relationship from moving forward since things were going so well, so last weekend I went to visit him. The city he is living in is quite a bit bigger than the city I live in and more importantly I had been to this city a grand total of one time before this and driving in unfamiliar cities is one of the things that sets of my anxiety pretty quickly.

 So I set off Friday afternoon with my map and directions in hand, directions mind you I had read SEVERAL times prior to leaving. I only got turned around once and successfully made it to the hotel with minimal issue, but I had been so tense driving I felt like I just finished a marathon when I arrived. This is what driving in unfamiliar places does to me. So now that you know that, let’s fast forward to Saturday morning.

Saturday morning we get in the car and are headed to an art museum (which I had looked up directions for from the hotel), as we pull out of the parking lot my fella says I want to show you downtown before we go to the art museum. I said okay but you will need to tell me where we are going and how to get back to the art museum. He agreed an off we go. We get to the middle of downtown the freeway is about to split in about 6 different directions and I ask okay which way are we going? My fella says I don’t know.  Excuse me what? He says just figure it out, this is how you learn a new city. I'm immediately anxious and losing my mind, what do you mean you don’t know, I told you to figure this stuff out, I don’t need to learn to navigate this city I don’t freakin live here. These are all things flying out of my mouth as I’m desperately trying to remember the address of the museum so I can put it in my GPS. (Just for the record I don’t recommend ever typing anything while driving on the highway).

 Fear not we eventually made it to the art museum and I calmed down and we had a wonderful time. However this happened again on Sunday when I was dropping off my fella before I left town. This time he didn’t have an address of where he was going and he was navigating on sight. That time we got into a little bit more of an argument because again my anxiety was spiking pretty high. Ultimately we got to where we were going got him dropped off and I got myself headed home.

As I was making the three hour drive home it finally started to click to me that anxiety was the reason I had gotten worked up (yep sometimes it even take a therapist a while to connect the dots of her own brain). And then I started thinking about how much of this do I explain to a guy I haven’t known all that long and how I do even go about doing that. I have been very blessed in my life that I haven’t had to explain my anxiety to too many people, many of the people in my life have been very understanding without much conversation or explanation.

While thinking all this through on the way home I was also found myself concerned with how he would react. Would he understand? Would he respect my need for a little more planning or would he continue to think the best way to help me is to put me in incredibly uncomfortable situations thinking he was helping. As I contemplated all these different questions I also started to get angry. Angry that my brain works this way and gets all worked up over things that really aren’t a huge deal. Angry that my anxiety had interfered with my weekend and caused us to get in not one but two arguments that just weren’t necessary.

By the time I got home I was exhausted, not just from a fun filled weekend but from having to spend SO MUCH time thinking about how to introduce a new person in my life into the craziness that is having an anxious brain. If I had to guess I would imagine that many of you out there struggling with anxiety can relate to this on many levels. Coping with anxiety can be exhausting in and of itself. Explaining your anxiety to people have been in your life for years and you know care about you can be a challenge. Finding the courage to overcome anxiety and meet NEW people can be a HUGE challenge. And then you get through all those hurdles and you find yourself in a situation where you feel you have to explain yet again, and to a new person, why you are freaking out over something that you know isn’t a big deal.

Some days it can all feel like it’s more work than it’s worth. But I think we can all agree that we know that isn’t true. Yes there are times when we are rejected by people we care about and who we thought cared about us because of our anxiety. But the times you find someone to add to your support army, who gets it or at least tries to get it and can be there for you makes it all worth it.

As for my current situation. I haven’t talked with him about my anxiety in the days that I have been back, and I’m still not sure how I want to go about it or how much I want to share with a person I don’t know very well yet. He did notice my scars over the weekend and didn’t run away screaming so maybe there is hope for this one yet ;). If any of you have suggestions or techniques you use when you are telling someone about your struggles with anxiety, I would love to hear them so leave me a comment below.

                                           *All images were taken from Google Images*

Sometimes the Little Things Aren't So Little Afterall

 Here’s the reality of being a therapist, 98% of the time I absolutely love my job, I love talking with people hearing their stories, trying to put the puzzle pieces together to get the complete picture. No matter what happens I think I will always be a therapist in some capacity, I can’t imagine my life without that being a part of it.  At the same time my job is not without its frustrations. Progress is generally slow because change is difficult and most people, even if they want it, are somewhat reluctant to do it. People rarely say thank you for your services, but are more than happy to blame you when things with them or their children don’t change fast enough. But most days are pretty uneventful and at times you can feel like you are spinning your wheels. BUT in between the boring, frustrating, and upsetting moments there are nuggets of pure gold that remind me why I do what I do. I had one of those this past week and I want to share it with you and what I learned from it.

“Mary” is a woman in her 20’s who has struggled with anxiety for most of her life, but it has worsened in the last few years due to a couple of traumatic events. She currently lives with her parents and wants move out but has a great deal of anxiety about living alone. “Mary” also spends a lot of time worrying about what others in her community think of what she is doing. We have spent a lot of time talking about coping with anxiety and have recently eased into making a plan for her to move out of her parents’ home and put a deadline in place.

A couple of weeks ago “Mary” came into my office and in many ways seemed like a different person, she came in with a stack of apartment listings in her hand talking about what she liked about some and what she thought she could afford. “Mary” also made mention that she had accepted a dinner invitation with a male friend that was significantly older than she was, despite having concerns about what other would think and say. During our next session (this past week) “Mary” continued to talk about moving out and wanted to move up the target move date and that there had been some frustration in other areas of life but stated she was done with bullshit.

Sometimes you've had enough

 Towards the end of our session, I asked her what had changed in her thinking that was spurring all of these changes in decisions and attitudes. “Mary’s” response was very casual and nonchalant “I don’t know, I’m just tired of always having to live by other people’s standards. I mean yes some of these situations have made me anxious, but it’s not going to get better unless I do things in spite of being anxious.”

It’s not going to get better unless I do things in spite of being anxious. A seemingly mundane statement, said in casual tone. But in that moment it was like the heaven’s opened up and the hallelujah chorus started. She got it!! After weeks of talking about coping with anxiety and how anxiety works and effects the body she got it!!! She understands that her anxiety, uncomfortable as it may be, isn’t going to kill her and if she can use her coping skills to face it she CAN do all the things she wants to do.

I know to some this may seems like an eh interaction and what’s the big deal. Well let me tell you getting someone to face something that causes anxiety and fear and to understand that that anxiety and fear isn’t going to harm them is a GIANT win. It opens up the world to someone with anxiety, everything that once seemed impossible is NOW possible. It’s like when you FINALLY got your driver’s license and all of the sudden your world got bigger and you could do more things and go more places because you had learned a new skill.

 While I was soaring no cloud 9 and enjoying the sheer happiness I felt for my client and the progress she had made, it caused me to pause for a moment and think about my own life. It’s no secret that I have had my own struggles with anxiety, and lord knows it has gotten in the way of me being able to do the things I want to do. It has gotten substantially better over the years but it’s still there at a times, and the discomfort of that anxiety shapes my behavior to a degree.

 As I talked with “Mary” about her experiences over the last couple of weeks and the way she felt as she faced some of these anxiety triggers, it was a refresher and an inspiration to me to continue to challenge myself in my own walk with anxiety. To do a check in with myself and make sure that I was still on top of the anxiety battle and using the skills that I spend my days teaching to others to better my own life. Sometimes as a therapist you catch yourself in a “do as I say not as I do moment” we are human too.

These are the golden nuggets of being a therapist, when the pieces come together for a clients and they start walking out all the things we have talked about. When they are able to take on the challenges they have avoided for so long. And yes even the moments when a conversation with a client inadvertently calls you, as the therapist, on the carpet for the areas of your life that you need to continue to work on. These cloud 9 moments keep me going when I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall or getting yelled at for something that isn’t my fault.

 I LOVE being a therapist and this is why. I would also like to pass this challenge on to you. What are the areas in your life that still need some fine tuning or work? I challenge you this week to take cue from “Mary” stand up and face those challenges and know that the as uncomfortable as it may be, feelings can’t hurt you. Maybe you can face your anxieties or fears head on and that’s great. But maybe for some of you standing up to those challenges is reaching out to a friend, family member, or even a professional and saying I want to change this but can’t do it by myself, that’s as much of a win as anything else. No matter what it is, just don’t let it keep your world small anymore. J

If you are struggling with anxiety and don’t know where to start, I would recommend you check out my review of my new favorite book on the subject, F**k Anxiety HERE. If you feel like you need to talk to a professional, but don’t know where to start I would recommend Psychology Today to find someone in your area to get help.

I went sleeveless!

The title of this entry may seem like an odd statement.  I mean I live in Iowa and it is September (and has been ungodly hot this weekend), it's not like I'm announcing that I ran around sleeveless in January in 3 feet of snow.  But none the less this is sort of a big deal in my world.  Allow me to explain.

I went to a wedding in Chicago last weekend and like all girls needed a new dress for the occasion. I found a delightful sleeveless number that I LOVED.  But I hesitated before purchasing it because I haven't always been comfortable showing off my arms to the world. The reason for that has nothing to do with the fact that when I wave it looks like I have flags attached to my arms and everything to do with the fact that I have quite a few visible scars and some of the most visible are on the upper part of one of my arms.  At minimum when visible people will stare, awkwardly and uncomfortably.  On occasion people ask, with a very concerned tone in their voice "what happened?"

Me and my sister, pre-wedding all dressed up.

"What happened?" Simple enough question and in my head there is a simple enough answer "I did it to myself." But those words rarely come out of my mouth because I know that makes everyone uncomfortable, including me. Let's be honest I'm not particularly proud of that part of my life (that part of my life being almost a decade ago, I have not cut myself in about 10 years*).  So for years I've kept my scars mostly hidden to avoid the awkward questions and on the occasion that it did come up mumbled some lame excuse about having a bastard for a cat. People will believe just about anything you tell them, no matter how far fetched, to get out of an awkward situation. I did these things not just for the comfort of others but because I also wanted to avoid the gut wrenching anxiety and shame I felt about what I had done to myself.

In recent months and weeks, however, I started to realize that somewhere along the way my thoughts about my scars had changed.  I am not as ashamed of them as I once was, and I've realized that most of the shame I do still feel is related to how others in my family feel about my scars not how I feel about them. There are still awkward interactions, stares, and some anxiety in my gut when I know someone is staring but I have stopped hiding. It's damn hot in the summer around here and I'm tired of not being able to wear what I want, and having the scars of my past always be a part of me getting dressed in the morning. Frankly I have allowed that part of my past to take up too much brain space over the years.

 But as frustrating as it is to have your past haunt you in the clothing decisions you make every morning and the desire to take some of that brain space back and use it for other things, it took much more than that frustration with the status quo and desire to shift my thinking. I had to find a way to forgive myself for the choices I made so long ago.  For me that forgiveness came from recognizing and accepting the fact that at that time I didn't have any better coping skills.  It sounds silly but it's true the circumstances of that time were so overwhelming my brain essentially shut off because I didn't even know where to start let alone how to adequately cope.

Another important piece of me forgiving myself, and something that some people struggle to understand about self harm, is remembering that I didn't want to die. Yes I had had some suicidal thoughts, but my self harm was not about wanting to die it was about trying to find a way to survive the pain I was feeling for just one more day. At the time I was in a very real fight for my life and as destructive and unhealthy as some of my choices were in that time, I survived. And really at the end of the day how can I be ashamed of myself for fighting so hard to stay here?

The answer is I shouldn't be.  And while I still have, and probably always will have, visible (what I now call) battle scars I don't want that to be the reason I don't dress the way I want or don't go to the pool or won't change clothes when other people are around. I don't want them to be a reason for me not living my life to it's fullest and in the way I want.  Those scars are part of my history, a part I can't make go away and quite frankly a part of my history that has contributed hugely to the type of person and therapist I am today.  And I like that person (most days) so I chose to embrace her and all her baggage :)

So that's it. That's the story of why me wearing a sleeveless dress to a wedding in the middle of August is a big deal.  Moral of the story?  Be proud of the battles you have won and the ways you have grown and changed even if you aren't always proud of the tactics you used to get there. Some days that is still hard for me to remember but that's okay, we keep truckin.

And along those lines please understand that I am in NO WAY glorifying self harm encouraging any one to use self harm as a way to cope with life or any situation, it is simply part of my journey. It is not a HEALTHY or POSITIVE choice and quite frankly is VERY DANGEROUS. If you or someone you know is struggling with self harm, depression, anxiety, or suicidal thinking please see the references I have included below. **

I hope you all don't mind my sharing such a personal story pretty much right out of the gate (at least on this time around in my blogging adventure) but it's something that has been on my mind this week, is something I wanted to share, and was the topic that got me thinking about blogging again.

*The short version of my history is that when I was a sophomore in college the world as I knew it started to fall apart (I changed majors after failing a class, lost a job I loved, and my mom was diagnosed with cancer) and I had my first serious bout with depression.  As part of the battle to cope with that depression and cope with my world crumbling around me I turned to cutting.  I did seek therapy almost immediately. prompted by some VERY good friends but still struggled with self harm for a few years until I was able to a) develop more constructive coping skills and b) felt I was worth enough to stop harming myself.  As I stated above I have not self harmed in about 10 years.  Please feel free to ask if you have further questions about anything in this blog post or my own journey with self harm.  I am hoping my story will help others in some way shape or form.  However, that being said I try to be an open book as much as appropriate, but I reserve the right to decline to answer any questions I am not comfortable with or feel would take this discussion in a negative direction.

**If you or anyone you know is struggling with self harm or suicidal thinking please seek help.  You can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24 hours a day.  For more information on self harm including signs that someone may be self harming and other general information click here. I also recommend checking out Skin Game: A Memoir it is the story of one woman's struggle with and overcoming self harm.