When the Anxiety Takes Over

My anxiousness has crept up on me again and it’s been a bit of a nuisance. For anybody who doesn’t experience ongoing anxiety, consider yourself lucky.

When I explain it to people, I explain it like this: You know that first day worry and anxiousness you have on the first day of working in a new place? That’s what I experience every day that I go to work. I am anxious about many things, more than half will probably not happen. It can get debilitating. It sometimes makes me physically sick. I have missed a lot of work because it’s so easy to work myself up into a frenzy. I love my work 90% of the time. I love what I do, but that fear of not doing a good job lingers.

I have the same feeling sometimes in public. It’s constant worrying. For example, did I shave my head right? Does it have stripes on the back of my head that I missed? Is it red? Is it razor burnt? Everybody sees it and they’re judging me for being sloppy and unkempt. In reality, people don’t scrutinize that much, but my brain doesn’t accept that all the time.

Today I was at the gym and was worried about everybody looking at me. Am I doing things right? Do they notice that I shake a lot? In reality, no one really cares. My brain just didn’t accept that.

It has been really bad in the past without it being controlled. I control it a bit with medication, but I use cognitive behaviour therapy as well to help myself. Lately it’s just been a bit sloppy. I don’t know why and it kind of bothers me a bit.

A lot of what I DON’T do is because this anxiety takes over. I could be so much more productive and happy without it. Some days I don’t let it bother me. It’s just hard to do lately. I don’t release my projects to the public because of it.

My husband is my mental health expert. It’s hard sometimes because he’s able to diffuse some of my negative thinking patterns and make me realise that I am overthinking things. It has been up to me to get by since I moved.

While out today after the first workout I’ve had in a very long time, I thought about my life in general and need to make some changes. I want to unleash my full potential. I’ll get there, but it will take time. But you know something? I think that’s totally acceptable to me.