Overcoming Anxiety – 1

There is another very important topic I would like to discuss prior to us going into specific behavior changes. And that is anxiety. I would like to tell you about my personal experience and how I overcame this condition.

At no shape or form I am saying that the anxiety is not serious or doesn’t need medical attention. But my personal belief now, after what I went through, is that people with mild forms of anxiety can treat it themselves.

And I know that there are a lot of people like me out there, who are trying to cope with anxiety, with similar experiences, whom I can help. If you were diagnosed with severe anxiety and are currently being treated for it, do not make any drastic changes prior to talking to your doctor.

For most of my life I was not feeling good about myself or my surroundings. I didn’t know what was wrong, nor did I even acknowledge the fact that something out of the ordinary was happening. Even though it was very disturbing, it became my normal everyday state. I was feeling anxious, always worried, nothing was ever enough, regardless of what it was, and there was always a shade of depression that accompanied me on my life journey.

Besides the constant worry, I have had many other circumstances that were impacting my life very negatively. One of them was that I couldn’t sleep much. For the most part, I could not fall asleep on my own, and when I did, I would wake up in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back asleep. I woke up exhausted, even on those rare occasions I got a good night’s sleep.

My remedies were: sleeping aid, which did not impact me positively in other aspects, or drinking some wine. And when I’m saying “some”, I’m not referring to half a glass of wine… 🙂

What I did not realize was that throughout the years I have experienced anxiety and at times it was severe.

I have heard of anxiety, but the reason I have refused to accept it was that I’m a factual person; and I needed to have a reason of why would I be feeling anxious. The idea that it was an anxiety disorder seemed ridiculous because I had everything to be happy about! I had (and still have) an amazing family, amazing kids, a roof over my head, food on the table, and so much more.

I finally decided to talk to a doctor regarding this, as this increased anxiety became unbearable. With lack of sleep and constantly feeling worried, I started losing my strengths, even though I’m tough by nature. And at that time I was even willing to accept already that it was an anxiety disorder, even though I have had no reason for that, by my life rules. 🙂

So I went to a doctor, and she told me that what I was going through is very common and a lot of women go through this. That made me feel much better for a few different reasons.

First, I realized it’s not just me, it almost made everything that I have experienced normal, as well as I felt that nothing is wrong with me personally, it is just a common state for women. And in essence, I started feeling that I belong to a group, which always makes us feel better, feel like we are a part of something bigger.

Doctor has prescribed mild antidepressant and anxiety medication. She advised me that it could take a few weeks before I felt the effects, but not long after, I started falling asleep easier and sleep better overall. That by itself was a win. That feeling of constant worrying started to fade away. Those things that irritated me before suddenly didn’t bother me that much. I stopped being agitated, I started speaking more softly, and I did not react to situations or words that I would usually react to.

But something still didn’t feel right. Something bothered me, I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Something didn’t “sit right with me,” as they say. I went to the doctor again, and she suggested that I take different kinds of pills, (still a mild medication), as certain pills don’t work on everyone the same.

I followed the doctor’s advice and switched to other medicine. And again, I started to see some initial improvement. I slept better, and I wasn’t irritated, bothered, or agitated. It didn’t matter to me anymore if my daughter made five spelling mistakes in a three-word sentence! I wasn’t upset when a grocery bag slipped from my hands and dropped on the floor (to say nothing of the two dozen eggs in that bag). I didn’t even care when my husband forgot to do something that I asked him repeatedly to do, even after I sent a calendar reminder, sent a text, and called numerous times! 🙂

You might say: “Well, this is good. The medicine was working.” But what I realized was that good things became irrelevant to me as well. Those things that used to excite me suddenly seemed unimportant to me. I just didn’t care that much about anything anymore.

As I was reading about the positive effects of anxiety medication, I came across someone’s description that said that after they started taking this medication they went to a peaceful state. As I thought later on about this whole experience, I would rename this state from peaceful to neutral. I was in ‘neutral’ permanently.

Life was passing by… I started to realize that when those negative emotions were taken away from me, my life was taken away as well. I literally started to turn into a vegetable without emotions! I realized that this is not a solution for me, and I wanted to find another way. That was a tough decision to make after experiencing that worry free state, for the most part, after being able to fall asleep at night, not feeling constant frustration and so much more. But I wasn’t willing to live for the rest of my life in that “plastic state”.

And I immediately stopped taking those pills. My goal was to achieve that state of natural happiness with genuine emotions, if it was even possible. And when I was looking at those “pumped up”, happy people, I was automatically assuming that they were “full of it”. I thought that these people are either taking something or they are pretending to be happy. But I had to explore for myself if that happy state was even a possibility, if it was a real thing…

To be continued…

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