How hard it is to work in the middle of an anxiety attack
My recent experience with living through this type of situation
Today is one of those days where I woke up and I felt weird. Where I immediately started worrying about a lot of things. I tried to calm down while preparing my breakfast, but even after drinking my coffee, I couldn’t shake the worrying, as I normally do.
I tried to focus on the work that I had been given, but it wasn’t possible — my focus just wasn’t there. And now, I’ve just made the mistake of looking at the clock; it’s almost time for my English class and I haven’t made any progress on my work. It’s easy for me to notice how anxious I am today once class starts because I can’t stop talking.
As the day continues, I start worrying about some tickets that I have to buy for myself and a few other people. But when I try to purchase them online, the webpage won’t allow me to; so guess what… I start feeling more worried about it since other people are depending on me to get those tickets because I had a discount for them.
In the meantime, my project manager for one of my projects has written to me to give me another task to work on, even though I still haven’t finished the previous one. And of course, this floods my brain with anxious thoughts like “I’m not a good professional today because I am not able to finish my duties.”
But the anxious thoughts aren’t just job related, they include personal things like when I looked into a mirror this morning and saw how fat I think I look. And yes, the thoughts just keep growing all day, following me around everywhere.
I was even thinking of skipping the gym so I could get more work done, but that’s a bad idea. I need to exercise and maybe go out for a bit to see if that can help me shake the anxiety. Something that I have found has helped me combat this anxiety is to start listening to rock music as well as writing down my feelings like I’m doing right now.
I intend to continue finding other coping strategies too, though. In this great journey that we call life, finding out how to live with anxiety is important and I will keep growing up to feel in control of it and at peace. Namely because anxiety just brings a lot of negative thoughts, making you feel that you are not in control anymore — a state of mind that I do not want to constantly be in.
It’s a fight against myself, though; a battle that keeps raging over and over again because in the end all these emotions, feelings, and thoughts are created by my own mind. I just need to remember that I’m not what the anxiety wants me to believe I am and that the anxiety is just a mix of different things that alter my reality while not being the reality itself.
Another coping mechanism that I found helpful was listing my priorities. So after I started writing, I also started creating a to-do list to prioritize the things that are important to me. Then, I started doing one thing at a time — the easy ones first because those were quicker to complete — which gave me the sensation of control.
After completing some of them, I was more relaxed and started feeling better. I don’t have any more negative thoughts in my mind. I’m not nervous anymore, I am in control of myself again, and I’m starting to be productive again.
It is exhausting to experience this type of anxiety attack over and over again, but we know that all of our feelings and thoughts are created by our own minds. Knowing that, it is our duty to find the things that make us feel better and more productive. This is how we can be in control of ourselves and start living our lives not through anxiety, but for ourselves.
These techniques that I implemented were recommendations from my psychologist in the past. At the beginning of this journey, it wasn’t easy to do these things, but I encourage you to visit your psychologist and to start trying different techniques because it is time that you are in control again! But most of all, don’t forget to believe in yourself and try to be better than yesterday.