Peace among the pieces: Standing up to anxiety

Here is person who looks
like she is being offered excellent
  anxiety ass-kicking instructions 

Not pieces as in ruins.

Pieces as in all the things going on in our heads about all the things going on in our lives: working, parenting, friending, spousing, dating and, especially now, college-ing.

My blog topics are pretty eclectic but I've been watching my analytics to see what people care about most. Of all the topics, those related to anxiety are in the lead.  

By a lot.

It's not surprising; one in ten people will suffer an anxiety disorder this year. One in four will suffer an anxiety disorder in their lifetime.

As I've written before, I am a recovering anxiety sufferer. But more important, I am an anxiety veteran who knows that anxiety's ass can be very effectively kicked.

This week, I was contacted by a reader who began suffering terrible anxiety with the start of a major life transition. I could feel the distress this person was experiencing from the words on the screen alone, but also because here is what is different about  anxiety today versus twenty or thirty years ago: nothing.

When I was a wee anxiety sufferer, like wee anxiety sufferers do today, I carried the feeling around that if I was free of worry, I was probably not looking hard enough.

As a twenty-something, I no longer expected worry to hit me from behind, I just started to scan and plan anything out of my life that could be worrisome.

My "brand" of anxiety at this early-career stage of life was to fear mistakes; not small ones, but catastrophic ones,  ones that would be permanent, unfixable, humiliating, and to make it especially terrifying, would cost me the respect of people I really liked.

I knew I couldn't avoid mistakes so instead, I avoided attaching to anyone enough to care if I lost them. And that is what anxiety sufferers do. To avoid the feeling that life is bigger than they are, they shrink it.

That's sad, of course. But what is really sad, is that only some know in their hearts that it's not  okay to be like that, that they do not have to live that way, that they were not born that way,  and that life will not be a long-ass uphill trudge, punctuated by moments of stark terror and the intense need to flee.

It's not. They don't. They weren't. It won't.  

Somewhere in those anxious twenties of mine, when the only thing that seemed right about my life was my appearance, I changed this behavior with one decision. I looked up a psychotherapist – the mere word was terrifying -  and made an appointment.

"Do you know where I'm located?" he asked.

"No, but it's okay. I'll figure it out," I said.

"Would it be easier if I just gave you directions?"

It was the bravest thing I'd ever done to that point, and I'm not kidding. For some people it is just as hard as it ever was.

This therapist was a sensitive, mid-thirties guy who exuded warmth and affability, a person you could not imagine being at odds with anyone.

At the end of the first session, he looked at me and said, "Well. I believe you're going to be fine."

It was the sweetest thing I'd ever believed  with no proof that I should.

The feelings at the heart of anxiety are so powerful that whether you are a wee sufferer or veteran, you begin to feel it must mean something about the thing that's triggered them.

If you are a college student for example and are experiencing unbearable homesickness and loneliness, it's probably wrongly crossed your mind that you aren't ready for college.

If you are an older individual going back to work and feel anxious every time you see that someone has responded to your resume, it's probably wrongly crossed your mind that you are no longer a fit for the workplace.

If you are trying to make a major change in your life, and the uncertainty of it all makes you nervous and upset, it's probably wrongly crossed your mind that you are making a fatal mistake, one that will saddle you with lifelong regret and so on.

Basically, at glacier speed because I challenged everything before I embraced it, I was taught to separate  the feeling of anxiety from the situation that triggered it. I was to treat it as a thing to observe and feel until it passed, but no longer infuse with meaning, no longer trust to guide my behaviors toward or away from anything.

Anxiety stopped managing me, and I began managing it.

Do I occasionally step on a rake on the lawn? Absolutely. Do the feelings of anxiety feel better? Not at all.

But when they come, I know they're going to go and go they do, and whilst waiting, I make no sudden moves or decisions.

And it is the best feeling in world after knowing you're going to be fine, to start knowing you are the one making it happen.

It feels good to be your own proof. 

If this post is about you, believe, however you do it, you will do it.