Dancing Through Anxiety

The other day I was talking to my therapist and she asked me something along the lines of what makes you happy? Later in the day, I was still thinking about this and thought maybe it would be a good topic to write about some day. That night, I started watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and in the first episode the main character changes her life after seeing an ad for butter that asks what makes you happy. After watching this, I knew it was a sign that this was a topic I needed to write about. So here we go. It's such a simple question, but at the same time it's such a difficult one to answer. As I think about it, I can think of many things that make me happy: reading, writing, hanging out with my family, friends and cat, cross-stitching, among other things. Then I started thinking, is this really what this question is asking? I mean all those things do make me happy, but it's an in-the-moment happiness that goes away when I finish the activity. Not that these things aren...

I know there are a lot of people like me out there who are still trying to process the tragic events that have recently taken place. From the Las Vegas shooting to the California fires, not to mention all the other things that aren’t directly affecting me, there is so much sadness in our world right now. I am really struggling with how to process it all, especially the shooting. I know we all process things differently but I’m still hoping we can help each other out, because I for one don’t even know where to start. How do you even begin to process something that doesn’t feel real? How do we process something that we will never understand why it happened? How do we process something we will never really have the answers for? How do we do it? I’ve been telling myself that I’ve been processing everything and handling it to the best of my ability, but honestly I’m beginning to think these are just empty thoughts. Thinking these things and fully feeling them with your body are two c...

I’m still, like so many others, trying to process what happened in Vegas last night. It seems so unreal that someone would want to hurt and kill so many innocent people. I was just hanging out on Sunday night when I opened my Facebook and saw a friend post that she was okay but she was next to someone who had been shot. I had no idea what was going on and quickly took to Twitter and turned on the news. I was immediately enveloped in fear, terror, and sickness. Why, why, why? How? I can’t grasp it. I stayed up for hours watching and reading coverage. My heart broke over and over again. It broke for everyone there who was part of this tragedy whether they were witnesses, injured, or tragically lost their lives. It broke for the loved ones of the concert goers. It broke for the city of Vegas. It broke for our world.  My heart also broke for the mental heath world trying to break the stigma. This was a terrorist attack plain and simple in my opinion. I write this blog proudly ...

So I'm not really a fan of the saying "trust your gut" because, well, my gut doesn't really seem like something with knowledge. I much prefer the saying "trust your instinct". If there is one thing that I have learned from therapy, and is something that I continuously have to work on, it's my ability to trust myself. Since I tend to have a lot of self-doubt, I also have a large inability to trust that my instinct is right. This is especially a problem when I'm going through a down period. When I'm suffering from my depression or my anxiety, part of coping is understanding that my brain is lying to me, but at the same time I need to take care of myself and trust my body enough to know what I need. How do I trust myself when I'm lying to myself at the same time? How do I know which thoughts are the positive helpful ones and which thoughts are the negative sabotaging ones? I tend to fight my instincts and what my body is telling me it needs...

I don't know about you, but when I am feeling down and anxious it is so incredibly easy to throw myself a pity party. It's not that I want to, it's just what my brain is telling me to do and I don't have the energy to fight it. My pity party always takes the form of "why me" statements. Just an example of a few: Why is this happening to me? Why do I need to stay home and work on myself while other people who have anxiety are leading normal lives? Why doesn't my progress always stay? Why do I have to fight the same battles more than once? These are just a few of the thousands of thoughts that cross my mind during one of my pity parties. They are so unhelpful, but yet when I'm already down I really struggle with fighting them. They consume me and then I start to believe that I am incapable of getting better and that I'm just incredibly unlucky. Wow, how annoying right? Even just writing this is embarrassing, because at this moment the...

When I first started out with my therapist I was pretty blind to what panic disorder was, well along with everything else I was going through. I simply thought that panic attacks were a part of having anxiety. I didn't realize there was a whole other being that made up panic disorder. To help me truly understand what it's like to have this, my therapist lead me to a site called Centre for Clinical Intervention . This site has different modules to help you understand your feelings and going through the panic disorder one was like a light bulb going off in my head. I highly encourage you to check out this website and go through the modules, especially if you are someone who suffers from these illnesses. In the meantime, though, if you don't have time to check out the modules for yourself I want to summarize some of my favorite takeaways to help better explain what living with panic disorder is really like. I think the most important thing to start off with is giving a ...

I feel like when I write my posts I tend to take on a positive tone even when I'm talking about my times of depression. I wanted to do something a little different and show you all what my thoughts are like when I'm really struggling. I don't want your pity or anything, I just want to show you how it is for me on my bad days. How depression is real, and how my thoughts turn negative when it's a rough day. I found some entries I wrote in my journal from some really bad days I have had and thought I would share them. I wanted to give an example of the true thoughts that run through my mind during the bad days to show you what people with a mental illness have to overcome on a daily basis. Just a disclaimer, this is really vulnerable and completely out of my comfort zone. I have an easy time sharing my progress and my good days or even reflecting back on my bad days but this is different. This is an inside look into exactly what my brain was going through during a de...