Things They Don’t Tell You About Anxiety

Bobby Tables
Jul 24, 2017 · 4 min read

If you know me even a little, you might know that I have moderate anxiety. The last 7 months this anxiety has certainly reared its head and left some of my days nothing short of a nightmare. Some days I would wake up and my head would be foggy, unable to focus, and feel utterly useless. These days certainly come back every once in a while in the last few months but February to April were some of the most trying days of my life. It’s incredibly difficult to push forward when you’re not sure if your body is really telling you something is wrong or playing tricks on you. Because of this, I wanted to write some of the things I’ve learned the past few months about anxiety that aren’t commonly noted when you simply Google “Anxiety Symptoms”.

Things you loved can become a trigger

I personally love a good cocktail. I always have since I was a legal drinker. I was fortunate enough to work with some avid enthusiasts of a good drink early on in my career. I’d have a cocktail damn near every single night. I even started making Old Fashioned’s at home.

So it was weird when alcohol turned against me. In February I started dreading even the idea of having a drink. I hated the very idea of going out with friends because that likely meant having a few cold ones. When I did have a drink, I could physically feel my body start tensing up. My head would all of the sudden start to have random pins of pain. It wasn’t uncommon that I’d have half of a drink and leave the rest of it on the counter these nights. Alcohol, once my friend, became an enemy, and fast at that.

It’s a well known fact that Alcohol can make anxiety worse. But it’s hard to pay attention to that detail when it used to be a big part your life. That’s exactly what happened to me.

Talking about your anxiety can become a trigger

Talking something out can help relieve a lot of anxiety. Simply explaining what you’re going through either to a friend, replying to a /r/anxiety post on reddit, or even just typing as I am here, can be a very cathartic exercise. Until it’s not.

This is likely more of a personal problem but for me, when I constantly talk about the same damn thing over and over it makes me anxious because I loathe the idea that I could be annoying someone. So what happens is you know you want to talk about it, but stop yourself because you don’t want to be annoying. This inner fight you have with yourself only makes things worse. This problem was probably one of the worst causes of my anxiety because I was getting stuck in the perpetual cycle of not talking about it but wanting to.

You have the look of someone who has it all together

But you might not. As a defensive mechanism I’ve become extremely good at essentially fooling people into thinking that I have it all together. Let’s get something straight: not even a little. There’s a lot of cultural influences that come into play that aren’t described as an anxiety cause. But the very fact that I’m a white male with a well paying job can actually make anxiety worse. Because as American culture currently stands, Male’s must be strong and show basically no weakness. Of course this is all perception and not at all true, it’s more than enough to make anxiety it’s own jail cell. I hope this doesn’t come off as a “woe is me” statement.

Little things become big things

When you struggle with anxiety, your mind is constantly pointed inward towards itself. It’s difficult to change your focus from “shit I’m about to die because of this headache” to “I just need to finish this one feature and I’m done with this project”. A little heart palpitation can throw your entire day off. It’s not uncommon that I’ve had a small twitch of pain in my head that eventually transpires into my thinking I’m having a stroke. So much so I actually had a coworker go with me into a conference room where I told him I was going to sing to him, and asked him to tell me if I stutter because I know that’s a common sign of a stroke. (Sorry Rafael).

Closing Out

These are some of the many things that I’ve had to go through to eventually understand what they are. I’ve had a lot of days recently that I had to start giving myself a “peace of mind” strategy. But it basically goes like this: “Everything is more than likely fine, you’re a healthy adult as told by your doctor, you are employed, whatever is going on right now is a minor nuisance”.

Having daily goals also make it much easier to pull yourself out of an anxiety attack. Whenever I have a fit now I just remind myself of my goals for that day. The days I don’t have goals to focus on are usually some of the most challenging days because your anxiety can and will spiral your focus out of control if there’s nothing else you care about that day.

I hope this was helpful to at least one person. As most of my posts are, it was cathartic for me to write. Cheers!

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