Living with Anxiety
Molly Nichols
Throughout this pandemic I have grown to learn a lot more about how I personally manage my stress, and why I take on stress in such big ways. I have never been a person who had the ability to go with flow and wait to see how things work out. I have always had a tendency to strive for more, to achieve things beyond that next level. Luckily, it has never gotten so extreme that it has caused any medical problems for me. I am aware that some people are not as lucky, and I pray for them to realize just how amazing they are.
Personally, I had recently just started to feel like my life was so routine, I would wake up, schoolwork, swim practice, eat, sleep and repeat. Every single day. Occasionally I would be able to spend time with friends and family, but I had just taken on so many new responsibilities this year, that those times were few and far between.
It wasn’t until early September that I realized that the reason I was feeling so stressed and uptight all the time was because I had severe anxiety. I hadn’t even realized it creeping in until it slapped me in the face. I was not only anxious about achieving the goals I had set for myself all the time, but trying to achieve some impossible standards set by society. And while doing this, I had begun to spiral. I was anxious about everything from being with friends to submitting my assignments on time.
For anyone who knows me personally, I have always appeared to have my head on straight, and earlier this year I just couldn’t pretend anymore. I was scared, my parents didn’t see a need for me to go and see a therapist right away, so maybe in a weird way that convinced me that I was okay. The truth is, I wasn’t okay, I was very much not okay. I had always been very social, and suddenly I didn’t have the energy to be social anymore. I had loved to write, swim, and read and suddenly didn’t feel like doing any of that anymore either.
And the truth is I have never faced a problem that I couldn’t handle without professional help. So it was terrifying for me to realize that I was in need of professional help. It was intimidating at first, there are just way too many misconceptions and stigmas surrounding mental health. I didn’t want people to think it was a cry for attention, that I was lazy and unmotivated, or just to acknowledge the elephant in the room... I didn’t want people to think I was crazy.
The truth is... I wasn’t crazy, and it took so many people to tell me that before I believed it. All those times that I cried without having relief, I needed someone to tell me that I wasn’t crazy, but I wasn’t okay, either.
After even just a couple months of therapy, I am feeling so much more calm. I don’t feel crazy or weird or scared. I explain to people that I am just taking better care of my mental health than I was before. Just like every single other person in therapy, no one is crazy or hopeless, we all have problems, some of us just need more help coping.
Therapy has helped me to have a less black and white perception about life, I am for the first time ever okay with not being okay. I am alright with knowing that I have anxiety, and I am just fine with other people knowing it too.
The best advice I can offer for others is to try and recognize the problem. If you’re not okay, then you’re not okay and that is just fine. There are countless people in this world who want to help you, if you’ll let them. I needed to learn that lesson, and that is a lesson I hope all of you can resonate with after reading this post.
Don’t be scared of the emotions you feel, they aren’t permanent, I can guarantee you someone else has felt the way you do. Don’t creep around the fact that you are struggling, face it head on, let others help you to face it head on. Mental health is a silent killer, but I am here to tell you that you have the tools to fight this, you are so much stronger than you can ever convince yourself of, don’t let this beat you.
Fight.
“Just know that if the version of you from five years ago could see you right now, they’d be so proud.”
Keep Going.
-Mindset Therapy
Love, Molly
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