When You Beat Anxiety

when you beat anxiety - coping strategies

I say beat, I don’t really mean ‘beat’, more like manage. You see, anxiety doesn’t just go away if you think happy thoughts. You can’t ignore it and think you will win, you need to sit with it, talk to it and listen to it.

You may not beat it completely, but you can live with it until it passes. It’s kind of like living with a new flatmate that you don’t really get along with, they are always around, but you learn how to be in their company.

So I wrote the first paragraph of this post a day ago, and didn’t get around to finishing it. And guess what, since then my anxiety has me in its grip again. Kind of makes the title of this blog post a bit redundant eh? I’m not going to change the title though, because this is a good example of how living with anxiety can be. One minute you are fine and feel like you can conquer anything, the next you feel like the world is disappearing into a black hole.

I wrote a post about how if anxiety was an animal, it would be a cat. My black cat disappeared for a few days, and then decided to come home again. It’s especially frustrating when anxiety hits, despite it seeming like you were doing better. I had been doing better, I was like hey anxiety, guess what, you are not going to win this time. Those irrational silly worrying thoughts you are throwing my way aren’t going to get through.

It’s now another day later, and I feel back on track again. It’s interesting because there are some things that you really don’t need to be worrying about, and others that are perfectly OK to get stressed over.

Sometimes, we put ourselves in situations that we know will test us by choice. I think what got me through this challenge was knowing in advance that it would stress me out, and that’s perfectly alright. That didn’t mean I sailed through it, quite the opposite in fact, I really struggled, but I struggled with awareness. I sat with my anxiety and let it play out, like a film going on in my head waiting to reach the credits, and I learned a few things along the way.

You know when you go to a counsellor and they tell you thats it’s good to talk, well, I have discovered over the past few weeks – sometimes it’s not always good to talk if you have anxiety. When I voice my irrational worried thoughts to my boyfriend, mum, sister or friends, it doesn’t always help.

Sometimes it’s good to get things off your chest, but other times it just reinforces the problem. If I talk about what I feel anxious about it can spiral my thoughts further into the depths of a bottomless pit. It wasn’t me who figured this out, it was my boyfriend. After I realised he wasn’t just trying to shut me up but was genuinely trying to suggest something helpful, I listened.

I then looked back on the previous days when I had felt anxious, but had just kept my thoughts to myself, and realised, that eventually, they disappeared. I’m not saying this will work for everyone, as I’m not an expert, I’m just reflecting on what has worked for me. I think sometimes you have to figure out whether you are talking to someone about your problems because they can genuinely help you, or to just feed your worries and anxiety.

So there you go, I have put myself in stressful situation where I have been tested, and it wasn’t great, but I have a few reflections and helpful new coping strategies. Apologies, this has been a bit of a waffly post, but I guess sometimes these sorts of posts can be the most refreshing. Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences below.

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