As a long-time sufferer of acute anxiety, over 40 years until I learned how to clear it, I have learned a lot about it, especially since it went.
I personally found that anxiety made me feel like a fool, stupid for feeling the way I did, even though I was working full time, running an amateur dramatic group, writing and producing plays. I…felt…stupid!
The unexpected consequences of anxiety
One thing that is clear now is that it wasn’t always ‘my anxiety’ that was the problem. Sometimes I was genuinely upset for excellent reasons. I was in an unhappy marriage, living in a house I didn’t want with grandma’s furniture and 4″ moth holes in the decades old curtains. I was in a job I never wanted that my father dared me not to get so that I didn’t embarrass him. My friends and family envied me as we had money, and I had a posh house more suited to middle aged people. I hated that house. I never wanted it. You get the message.
If you suffer from anxiety, or know someone that does, I want you to think about something for a moment: What has gone wrong? For you or that person.
That’s an important question, when I look back now, and frankly what I’ve written is the tip of a very large iceberg, I wonder why I ever questioned why I felt so awful all the time. It was because I blamed my anxiety for everything. Every bad feeling, every angry feeling, for not wanting to live in that house, for not wanting to do that job, for wanting supportive friends, fun, laughter, experiences. In my mind everything that wasn’t right was my fault, because I also blamed myself for my anxiety. Frankly it was a wonder I was sane.
Keeping this brief
I’m not going to go any further with this blog, because I want this important fact to stand out loud and clear:
Don’t fall for the idea that everything you’re going through is anxiety. You may feel anxious, but being anxious for a reason is not an illness, and it’s curable. Look at your life, write down what’s wrong, see those reasons on paper. BUT DON’T PANIC.
Even if you have lots of reasons to be upset, you’ve now separated them out from your anxiety, and you’re realising that far from being ill, you have real problems. They make take time to solve, but now you’re aware of them. Think about the trap you’ve been in, continually living an unhappy life because you thought you were suffering mental health problems. When in fact you have real reasons that can be changed.
Obviously don’t try to change anything immediately, just sit with that idea and realise that you’ve just taken control of your life. If you think I’m being a bit simplistic about this:
I didn’t own the house I lived in. I was aware that he and his mother could throw me out anytime. I spoke to a solicitor and she said that after all the years we’d been together a court would award me 1/4 of the house value, but that would be spent on solicitor’s fees. I didn’t earn enough to get a mortgage. When I left him I met my current husband a few short weeks later, everyone put 2+2 together and made 22, as I’ve said before. They all turned their backs on me. I lost my job, couldn’t get a mortgage, and everyone in my family said no to taking me in. Thank God Tony did.
I still kept going, sorted things out, put my life right. I discovered I wasn’t just an anxious mess, I was that way for a reason and I had a great deal of strength when I stopped masking it with anxiety. When you consider that I was a complete mess who worried in case there was something she should be worrying about and had forgotten what it was (seriously), if I can do this you can. One step at a time.
To the beginnings of a joyous life
Deb xx
Deb Hawken - Amorah 