Ask me if I’m anxious…
Apparently, most of us from all different age groups will respond yes to this question at some point in our lives, with about 18% of the general population being diagnosed with a specific anxiety disorder (and this is all Pre-COVID).
The year 2020 stands alone in creating an unprecedented amount of anxiety across the world, and certainly with good reason. But in recent years, way before the pandemic, feeling anxious has become such a common complaint from people of all ages. Even our pets are thought to be anxious!
Speaking from my own experience, I never knew what anxiety was until I felt weird one day. I felt anxious. Several years ago, it crept in slowly and emerged from my “perfect storm,” which I nicknamed the difficult time I went through surviving the onset of menopause and the passing of my dad all at the same time. Hormonal changes and grief can certainly trigger anxiety, but does it ever go away? It never did for me, and I suspect it wouldn’t altogether disappear for many other anxious people.
Since this very uncomfortable but non-life-threatening problem wasn’t going away, the solution was to learn somehow how to live with it.
The first step was to define anxiety, and in my case, define what it wasn’t. This helped me best understand how to deal with it. Looking back ay my younger years, there were many days I felt nervous; the first day of kindergarten, the day of my road test, taking the SATs in high school, the night before my big Italian wedding, feeling my first contraction when I went into labor with my firstborn, and many more.
I’m sure each of us has similar stories filed away. Most of the time, after being caught up in a nervous frenzy and then finally succumbing to total relief, the fit of nerves just dissipated, and life went on.
But anxiety is very different. It’s a combination of feeling overwhelmed, scared, walking around in a brain fog, incapable of focusing and completing one task, either physically or mentally. It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop when you have no clue to what pair of shoes you were wearing in the first place!
Experiencing a fit of nerves usually leads to a climax of worry with a specific problem in mind, which resolves itself somehow, and then calmness prevails. Whereas with anxiety, there’s no resolution of an issue resulting from all that chaotic energy. It just ebbs and flows, and is oftentimes made worse by added stress and lack of sleep.
The good news is that anxiety can be controlled or at least lessened, and you can still live a relatively normal life, despite it all. And maybe it’s not always a bad thing? I did manage to lose almost 30 pounds several years ago, when my anxiety first surfaced. I felt physically fit, but it was in a very short period of time, so did I not only gain it back quickly but also it wasn’t intentional and that in itself added to my worries. And therein lies the problem.
In my opinion, the big upsurge of people suffering from anxiety lately comes not from feeling helpless because we are unable to control all aspects of our lives, but from the refusal to admit that is the dilemma. It’s only human nature to control people and circumstances that affect our lives and those of our kids.
But of course, there’s such an enormous amount of things you can’t change or control. And the realization of this becomes only stronger as we age. Just feeling a bit sorry here for my millennial generation kids, who try their very hardest to plan and control, more than any other generation we’ve seen so far! So proud of their humongous effort at being so successful and being great and attentive parents themselves, too.
But sometimes it’s best to let some things go. Feeling anxious is sometimes necessary to be productive, but only to an extent. Excessive anxiety is detrimental, both emotionally and physically.
Trying a few different strategies has helped me cope and make my anxiety level manageable over the years. On extra anxious days, I try to engage in physical activities, even household chores. It’s all about the release of endorphins. Secondly, I take a break from the routine. I opt for take-out rather than cooking, and I pick up a book instead of my phone. I also make a point of occasionally indulging in an activity that is number 102 on my to-do list but is something I really enjoy (like trying to gather all of my 4 kids’ school pictures from the past 30 years!). It breaks the monotony and, in the long run, takes the edge off for a couple of hours. I try to interact daily with others often, even by text. Human connection is the best therapy.
Lastly, try and avoid getting anxious about your anxiety!
It is ok to feel it. Own it. Some days may be better than others, and on the bad days, move past it. And maybe one day, my answer will be, “No, I’m ok. I’m not anxious.” In the meantime, I truly believe that this too shall pass!
