As someone who lives with anxiety, my brain often feels like it’s moving a million miles per hour. I think we all feel this way at one time or another; we have so many things to do, and it doesn’t seem like there’s enough time to do it all. I’ve noticed the themes of relaxing and slowing down on my posts in recent months, and I think that’s a response to my current state of being. I always deal with the challenge of a busy mind from time to time but lately, I feel like it’s a daily struggle. Why is my brain trying to do everything, everywhere, all at once? And what can I do about it?
Continue readingstress
A Lesson in Stress and Mental Wellness
After months of mentally training to overcome COVID obstacles, I faced a few new challenges in November. They are fairly common obstacles that many people deal with throughout the course of adulthood, but because of the circumstances of this year, it felt like an entirely different challenge than anything I’d been experiencing. However, those challenges were also very common, real-world experiences, so I started to examine my relationship with stress because of them. Since then, I’ve learned how I handle stress in these situations, and it’s taught me more about myself and how I manage mental wellness.
Continue readingFinding Our Sources of Strength
This hasn’t been a good week for me. I’ve had trouble controlling my emotions and keeping myself in check, and it hasn’t been easy. I constantly feel like I’m on the verge of breaking down, and I’m doing my best to avoid it if I can. I’ve had days, weeks and months like this before, so it’s nothing new. But being pushed to your limits physically, emotionally or mentally is exhausting. Fortunately, I know what to do when I feel this way: lean on my sources of strength.
A Reminder for When I’m Stressed
Yesterday I missed an appointment with my psychiatrist. I got stuck in a meeting at work and by the time I reached the doctor’s office, I was too late. It’s easy (and obvious) to see why something like that would cause me stress. Heck, it would cause anyone stress. But while I was waiting to reschedule my appointment (to today, thankfully not too long!), I got rid of the stress. Or rather, the stress got rid of me.
It’s safe to say that life is pretty stressful. Every day brings its own challenges and decisions to make, and every single one of them can affect how the rest of your day goes. It’s enough to make anyone a little overwhelmed on a day-to-day basis. But what if those decisions weren’t such a big deal? What if everything wasn’t some huge decision. What if a choice was just a choice?
I’m sure a lot of you already know where I’m going with this – long story short, s*&% happens – but you might not know why, and why it’s so much easier said than done. I have a difficult time accepting when things don’t go according to plan. It’s not because I’m a perfectionist, though; rather, it has to do with how I view myself.
As I’ve said before, I don’t like myself very much. And so when I mess up, I assume people don’t like me because of it. Why? Because I don’t like me because of it, so I assume people must not like me either.
But that’s ridiculous, right? In my experience, few people get that upset when mistakes are made every once in a while. It gets more frustrating when it happens on a more common basis but for the most part, people forgive an innocent mistake. But I don’t see it as a mistake – I see it as a character flaw in myself.
Now we could talk all day long about why I view myself that way, but I think the more productive path would be to discuss the things I remembered that reminded me that it’s going to be okay:
- It’s going to be okay
- It’s not the end of the world
- Your life will go on
- These things happen
- It will work itself out
Now I hope in a future blog post I will be able to elaborate on these but for now, I’ll just say this: it’s one thing to say these things to yourself to make yourself feel better; it’s another thing to believe, really believe them.
I’m not saying I fully believe in any of those things in the long term. But I believed them today, and at that moment, and that was enough. That method of thinking got me through that moment and on to the next and got me to continue on with my day and my life. When you’re feeling stressed out I would take that phrase – s*&% happens – and add two more words to it. Stuff happens to everyone. We all go through it, and that’s one of the common experiences we have as humans. So maybe you made a mistake today. Maybe something went wrong. Do you need any more proof of your humanity than that?
My Brain's Not Broken 