MOVING FORWARD

I Have Crazy Anxiety: Here’s How I Manage to Stay Calm and Get Sh*t Done

If you’re an anxious person, either before or since the pandemic, this may help you move forward.

Illustration: Aew/RawPixel

Over the past year, my family and I have been through quite a bit, but nothing as devastating as others have experienced since the onset of the pandemic. Though we lost a lot, we gained much more and managed to thrive through the shenanigans that come with doing our best to survive what too many have not. I feel incredibly blessed and am immensely thankful for the way things have turned out for us thus far. Still, none of it was by happenstance.

2020 was an impossible year. Still, I intended to stay focused on the circumstances I could change instead of the multitude of super-stressful world events happening last year. There was nothing I could do to stop the pandemic and racially motivated murders or the civil unrest and protests I could hear from my bedroom window back in Los Angeles. I’m not the sort of person who would march in the streets or call my congressmen every day to demand change. I’m not the sort of writer who pens investigative social or political essays and to be frank, I’m not the kind of woman who delves too deeply into either. I am, however, a woman with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and I function best when able to schedule, compartmentalize, and organize everything within an inch of its life.

Because of my anxiety, I live in a bubble and can only digest increments of what happens outside that bubble. When friends attempt to dump too many personal, political, or social grievances on me, I often say, “I don’t need all the information.” Instead of harping on everything that goes on in the world, I prefer to focus on my life, what I can change, and how I can adjust to circumstances I can’t alter. I think this trait is a large part of what helps me move forward, stay diligent, and thrive in the worst circumstances.

My ability to schedule, compartmentalize, and organize my way through a crisis is much more than secretarial, however. It’s a symptom of my functional anxiety. To remain grounded and not spin out of control with anxiety attacks, I have to control my surroundings as much as humanly possible. I can do this primarily in my home, personal, and much of my professional life. Once I step out into the world and around others, very little is under my domain.

That said, it becomes more obvious why I don’t want all the information and why harping on things I cannot control or change is never part of my strategy for survival. I prefer to focus my attention during this unprecedented time on taking care of my family, career, and finances. I have also elevated how I take care of myself with a better-curated bevy of products, supplements, and dietary and exercise regimens. I’m all about moving forward, getting and doing better than before the pandemic hit, and coming out on the other side of it healthy, happy, and whole. My mottos for this scary time are: make it worth it and reposition yourself. Repeating these mantras every day helps to remind me of my goals and why I set them in the first place.

That brings me to how I manage to stay inside my bubble regardless of how crazy things get on the outside, and a few tips I hope will help you do the same.

1. Set goals: This should go without saying, but you need to have a set of goals for your immediate and long-term future. To do so, first, imagine your ideal lifestyle. In a perfect world, where do you live and work? What do you drive? How do you look? Where do you vacation? What’s happening with your kids and your current romantic relationship? Set goals for one, three, and five years from now, no matter how “crazy” you think they are. There are no limits to what you can achieve other than those you put on yourself. Set goals big enough to scare you. Then, do it scared.
2. Make plans: Once you have your goals set, it’s time to make plans. Basically, making plans is equivalent to finding or building the right roads to get you to your desired destination. Essentially, you’re creating a roadmap to your ideal future. This may include returning to school or looking for a new job in a new city. It may involve leaving everything behind and starting completely over. Take a look at your goals and create a plan to reach each of them.
3. Focus forward: With your roadmap figured out, it’s time to focus forward — eyes on the prize, as they say. Looking ahead means there’s no looking back at what has already gone. It’s over. And it doesn’t matter what else is happening in the world around you. Put your blinders on and keep your sights ahead. This usually means you’ll have to block a few callers and send a few others to voicemail while you’re busy working on your first or next set of goals. You’ll miss a few social events and vacations, but it will all be worth it when you’ve reached your goals and found room to breathe.
4. Move forward: Now that your sights are firmly on the prize at the end of this next adventure in your life, it’s time to hit the road. Stay the course, and don’t get discouraged if the road to your new life gets blocked by unforeseen events. Delay is not denial, and there is always another road home. Sometimes, what you thought was the next step is actually the last and you need to reconfigure your plan a bit. Sometimes, the road everyone else takes isn’t for you and you have to take the road less traveled. That’s okay. Plans are meant to change, so don’t be discouraged if things don’t go exactly as you expected. Just keep revising your plans and moving forward.
5. Create a self-care bubble: Imagine yourself walking on this new road with a bubble around you. In it, you’re allowed to take only the people who love and support you, those who make you feel happy and safe. Who would they be? For some, there are only a few people they can trust. For others, there isn’t one person in the whole world they would take along on their journey. There are no wrong answers here. Just be sure that only joy, love, peace of mind, and motivation live in your self-care bubble, no matter who else is in it. Also, anytime someone you have allowed inside your bubble stops making you feel good, give them the boot. Residency in your bubble isn’t permanent or promised to anyone.
6. Limit your input and output: With your self-care bubble well insulated, limit what you let into your mind and out of your mouth while on your journey. Anything and anyone that makes you feel anxious, angry, stressed, or drained has to be cut from your diet. This includes the ugly side of social media, the news, or relationships you might still have. Just as you should be putting healthy foods into your body, everything you feed your mind needs to be healthy and supportive as well. To that end, everything you think and say to yourself and others also needs to support your growth and betterment. So, no naysayers aloud and that includes you.
7. Repeat: Life is unpredictable, and many times, we are required to go back to the drawing board, reorganize our plans, and reroute our course. Don’t you worry about that; it’s all part of the design. Expect to repeat these steps and others regardless of if you stumble or make it to your destination unscathed. There is always a new set of goals to make and a brand new journey ready to take you there.

Being an anxious person sometimes means not being able to do certain things, like being in crowds, on airplanes, or on elevators. It can also mean not moving forward, not planning, dreaming, or setting goals. From my personal experience, I found it helpful to develop systems that allow me to do the things that scare me. Then, I trust those systems. For more on that, I wrote this:

Whatever Happens Probably Will: The Art of Doing It Scared