0 
0 By Kate Carre
“Of course it’s happening in your head, Harry, but why on Earth should that mean it isn’t real?” – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In denial
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this lack of insight, but for a long time I didn’t think that anxiety was ever a feature of my mental health issues. Or rather, I didn’t want to admit it.
Why? Because I could rationalise depression as something chemical, physical and organic. Something that wasn’t my fault. Whereas, anxiety… well, I associated that with being generally a little bit neurotic and needy. With being unable to rationalise and unable to cope with life. I viewed anxiety as more of a personality trait than an illness, and not a very desirable one at that. It got in the way of my view of myself as capable and competent, as well as my need for other people to see me in that way.
I was missing something
I was missing something vital. Which is that anxiety is a physiological response. It is a universal experience. And also that it is impossible to separate the psychological from the organic.
Our experiences, particularly in early life, affect the physical development of the brain. The good news is that our brains are plastic and capable of laying down new neurological pathways. The bad news? They don’t do this as easily as they did when we were very young.
My denial wasn’t conscious, however. I only recently recognised my overthinking, analysing and reassurance-seeking as symptoms of anxiety. I was so good at avoiding the things that make me anxious that I didn’t recognise what I was feeling as anxiety.
We all have different anxiety triggers. I don’t wash my hands more than necessary, check whether I’ve left the gas on or (usually, except in times of extra stress) worry about my physical safety or that of my family. But I do tie myself in endless knots about social situations.
My anxiety triggers
I have come to realise that overthinking and obsessing over details is my attempt at over-preparing. Just as someone who feels anxious about public speaking might rely on copious volumes of notes, which become overwhelming in themselves. And this triggers further anxiety when the person realises they can’t possibly process all the notes whilst simultaneously giving a clear and concise presentation.
My notes are in my head. Volumes and volumes, covering every contingency and every possible faux pas. Every possible negative, every turn of events. It’s as though preparing for and suspecting the worst case scenario will prevent it from springing itself upon me unexpectedly.
But therein lies the rub. The preparation, i.e. the overthinking and obsessing, is impacting my life more than the anxiety. Avoiding anxiety is the thing that gets in my way.
The fear is of not making the grade socially. I bring that about myself… because I am quite frankly at times, bloody hard work. I am bloody hard work because I have anxiety. Catch 22.
Anxiety is a fear response
Anxiety, as I said, is a physiological response. It is a fear response when we perceive a threat. And to some extent, I think everyone engages in some degree of avoidance when they feel anxious. I developed so many coping mechanisms to avoid experiencing anxiety, that I didn’t know I was feeling anxious. It was so effective that I even fooled myself. What I hadn’t realised was that the cycle of anxiety and avoidance was creating bigger problems than it solved.
And after each event that has caused so much anxiety in the preparation stage, comes something even worse. The post-mortem. This is a self-defeating extravaganza in which I replay the event on a loop in my mind. It’s like some kind of nightmarish caricature of film analysis. It is a deconstruction, scene by scene, in which I analyse every look, every comment, every tilt of the head and every subtle movement. I’m looking for the evidence that I am the object of ridicule, that I am disapproved of or that I am getting things wrong. And as I watch my performance and find it lacking, I feel mortified, which gives rise to, you guessed it, further anxiety.
Anxiety breeds anxiety
I become more anxious about this ordeal and the prospect of feeling anxious, than the actual event. Anxiety breeds anxiety. And my ways of coping have kept it going even further.
Take yesterday. Our village has an annual fun run. It’s a lovely event in which the community comes together to raise money for local charities. For me, it is an anxious nightmare. It requires me to “perform” in every possible sense. It taps into every insecurity I have and heralds my annual meltdown.
I am anxious because I am not as fit or as fast or as slim as I used to be (understatement).
I am anxious because every person in the village is in the same place at the same time. And I am required to “do” the chit chat I find awkward and difficult, for an extended period of time.
1in4 UK Book Store:
[amazon_link asins='1977009336' template='ProductGrid' store='iam1in4-20' marketplace='US' link_id='ffcb5f04-1297-11e8-8b2c-c721ea9703cc']
I am anxious because I have a child with a health condition that might be affected by the running. I want to give her freedom, but I want to keep her safe, and I always feel I get the balance wrong. I also worry that people think I am a drama queen or overly anxious… or conversely, that they judge me as neglectful or not attentive enough.
Creating a monster
These are the kind of anxieties that most people have, to a point. I suspect that even the most outwardly confident people have worries and insecurities. Somehow I have managed to inflate these, explode them, create a monster of epic proportions. So that literally weeks each year are taken up with anxiety around this event. I so badly want to be able to turn up, take part and go home without giving it a thought, without analysing who likes me and who doesn’t. But I can’t. I am ridiculous…and knowing it makes the anxiety worse.
I whip myself into a frenzy of distorted thoughts leading me to a land where “well done” means “you’re a big fat heifer and we’re surprised you made it round the course without collapsing”. And “didn’t the children do well” means “why were you making such a fuss about your daughter, there was clearly no issue”. Totally without awareness of what I am doing, I mould the most innocuous events into evidence of my own failings, mocking vessels handmade from the tainted clay of anxiety.
And it is bloody exhausting.
It needs to stop.
Doing everything to avoid being anxious
Now that I am aware of it, I realise how much of my life has been devoted to avoiding anxious feelings. I don’t drive. I don’t use the phone. I don’t open mail. I don’t go to parties. I have starved out the anxiety until all I could see was a narrow dark tunnel in which all that existed was counting, scales, and thoughts of food forbidden. I have stuffed the anxious feelings down my own throat along with copious volumes of cakes, pizzas, and sweets followed by my own fingers. I have attempted to cut out the anxiety, carve it away in the hope that punishment and retribution would relieve the guilt it brings. I have even tried to extinguish myself in the hope of obliterating it.
Since then, I have learnt more acceptable coping mechanisms. I have learnt to distract, distract, distract. I have learnt to talk it through or write it out, and listen to others’ reassurance when I can’t find that reassurance within myself. I have learnt to exercise it away. I have learnt to cut off from it. What I have never learnt to do is live with and tolerate those anxious feelings, and to learn for myself that they do subside.
That is my task for now, and I have to admit that I don’t quite understand it. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be physically doing when the anxiety strikes. I’m not sure how much reflection becomes overanalysis. I’m not sure when healthy sharing crosses the line into obsessive reassurance seeking.
Know thine enemy
But I now know that I suffer from anxiety. It is an overwhelming place to be, but it is a start. Know thine enemy. I can at least identify that I am feeling anxious. That has to be a small step towards managing it in a way that doesn’t impact my life so damn much, that doesn’t infiltrate every area of my existence by stealth without me noticing.
The idea of tolerating it and feeling it is scary and it involves losing every coping mechanism I have so uninsightfully developed. But I will try. That’s all I can do. I won’t keep doing this to myself now that I am conscious of it. And I will address it openly in the hope that there are others experiencing the same internal screen analysis and feeling like the central character in a farcical play, day after day. And that those people will recognise it and feel just a little bit more normal, even for a moment, in reading that someone else does this too. And that it is an entirely understandable and human thing.
Hopefully, just for a minute, someone might feel less ridiculous and pathetic. I hope that removing the shame and isolation that anxiety brings will take away its power… for those reading, and for me. I hope that taking away shame and isolation will reduce the power and the hold this thing has over us. So that then we won’t live in fear of fear itself and spend our lives running from our feelings for fear that we might drown. We quite literally won’t have to hide any more.
Reproduced with permission, originally posted here: onmymindblogging
UNITED STATES
UNITED KINGDOM
I’ve never read anything before that has made me think “That’s me!” as much as this article. It accurately describes what I go through on a daily basis. I’ve only just realised recently that I’ve been suffering with anxiety for years. I thought that the way I overthought about everything was just normal and everyone else was going through the same thought processes but I’m now realising that this isn’t “normal”. I’m now just trying to jump in and do things instead of worrying about them for hours or days beforehand, but it’s really hard to change your way of thinking overnight. Just need to take little baby steps in the right direction!
[…] During my time at college, I always denied that I had depression, and felt like I would never have it. I was aware that I felt sad and unmotivated at times, but I really never believed it… […]