Dancing Through Anxiety

From the very beginning of my official diagnosis of anxiety, along with my other issues, I've always said the hardest thing is knowing that I'm the problem and the solution, but not knowing how to fix it. It's such a defeating feeling knowing that everything you need to overcome an issue lies within you, but still not being able to get better. Why am I stopping myself from being okay? Why am I self-sabotaging and telling myself I can't do something that I know I can? Obviously, over time I've learned that I'm not consciously telling myself to not be okay, but that's what my brain tells me. I have this image in my mind that it should be as easy as snapping my fingers to find the solution to my anxiety. I know I know, you can laugh with me on that one, because I know there is not a solution to my anxiety, it's more learning how to live with my anxiety and dance with it, creating a relationship. During my therapy session on Monday, we realized that I...

Happy November friends! November officially starts the holiday season in my mind and this is one of my favorite times of year. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday I enjoy getting to spend so much time with my loved ones and creating new memories. November especially is a time to give thanks for our lives and what makes them special. I'll be honest with you though most days it is very hard for me to focus on the positive and not the negative, but like I mentioned in my last post I am trying to focus more on what makes me happy and living in the moment. I think November and the holidays are the perfect time for this and am hoping the holiday spirit will help me be able to find the positive in all aspects of my life. I'm personally going to participate in the 30 days of thankfulness whether it's in my blog, social media, or personally in my journal. I really want to spend this month focusing on what I am grateful for and learning to appreciate even the smallest...

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...