MENTAL HEALTH
These 3 Principles Helped Me Finally Overcome a Decade of Anxiety
I quit college, drank copious amounts of vodka just to get through the day, and attempted suicide twice. Then I got better.
Most people have certain events in their life that fundamentally change how they view the world. For some, it may be the first time they experience losing a loved one, for others it’s the first day they enter the corporate world, for me it was my 19th birthday. Nothing was ever the same after that day.
Celebrating my birthday with friends, I began to feel nauseous, restless, and had the overwhelming urge to get out of there. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that was the first panic attack I ever had. And it was one of the scariest experiences of my life. That experience was the catalyst that led to the worst year of my life. I quit college, drank copious amounts of vodka just to get through the day, and attempted suicide on two separate occasions.
After several failed tries, I found a medication that helped get me back on track. This is how I carried on for the next few years. The antidepressants at the time were invaluable, but I couldn’t let go of the feeling that this wasn’t a permanent solution to the anxiety.
I knew there had to be another way. My mind had got me into that situation, so surely it could get me out again. So on the advice of the modern-day philosopher Will Smith I began to read:
“There’s no new problem that someone hasn’t already had and written about it in a book.” — Will Smith
Reading has become a lifelong passion and has helped me overcome countless obstacles throughout my life. These are the 3 principles that made the biggest difference to overcoming my anxiety.
1. The Feedback Loop from Hell
Whenever I speak to anyone that suffers from anxiety, I always ask if they’ve ever read Mark Manson, specifically “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.”
It’s probably the best book I’ve ever read. And it goes against almost all the other self-help advice on the market. Several principles in that book completely flipped my beliefs on life, but one principle stood out the most:
You’re angry at yourself getting angry about being angry. Fuck you, wall. Here, have a fist.
Or you’re so worried about doing the right thing all the time that you become worried about how much you’re worrying. Or you feel so guilty for every mistake you make that you begin to feel guilty about how guilty you’re feeling. Or you get sad and alone so often that it makes you feel even more sad and alone just thinking about it.
Welcome to the Feedback Loop from Hell.
I re-read the above passage until I etched it into my brain. The problem isn’t the initial emotion, it’s the emotion that comes from feeling that in the first place. Every time you feel anxious, it’s not the initial anxiety that makes you feel like shit, it’s the constant anxiety you feel because you feel so anxious.
Initially practising this technique was infuriatingly difficult, but as the days and weeks progressed I noticed that my anxiety was starting to decrease significantly.
2. Nothing is Good or Bad, But Thinking Makes it So
I always thought that philosophy was a way for academics to stroke their own egos, that was until I read Ryan Holiday’s accessible guide to Stoicism: “The Obstacle is the Way.”
Every chapter of Holiday’s book begins with a quote of Stoic relevance. The quote by William Shakespeare hit me like a ton of bricks.
“Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” — William Shakespeare
It is not the event that is the problem, it’s your reaction to the event. It took me a long time to realise much of my anxiety stemmed from how others perceived me. I later discovered this was social anxiety, which according to the latest research affects as many as one in three people aged between 16–29.
Understanding this stoic principle put me in back in the driver’s seat of my brain, allowing me to slowly take control of my social anxiety.
3. Become Your Own Best Friend
We all have that voice in our head that criticises us. When my anxiety was at its worst, my inner critic was constantly set to 11. I couldn’t do anything without it having something negative to say: “You’re not good enough,” “They are going to laugh at you if you have a panic attack”, or “Why can’t you just be normal.”
One day I realised that this voice was in my control. It had just become so automatic to internally beat myself up that I didn’t think there was anything I could do about it.
I’m not quite sure where this principle came from, but I remember thinking about the way I talk to myself and how I would never talk to a friend like that. It wouldn’t take long to lose every friend had I said the things I said to myself to them. That’s when I became my own friend.
This took work. A lot of work. At first, very much like mindfulness, it’s just a case of being aware of those negative thoughts. There’s no need to have any judgment or to initiate the feedback loop from hell (see principle one).
After a few days of paying attention to these thoughts, I started to make a conscious effort to put a stop to them when they arose. I would shout “stop” in my mind and replace it with a thought that a best friend might say.
An example of this is when I was with a friend and I had a panic attack and had to leave after 10 minutes. Usually, I would beat myself up for having a panic attack, but by reframing this to the positive and realising that I spent 10 minutes with someone before having a panic attack, rather than say 5 minutes, I left the situation feeling hopeful, rather than defeated.
There will always be certain moments in our lives that come to define us. My most important moment taught me about resilience, and the power of my own mind to lead me to the darkest of places and then out again.
It was the three principles that helped lead me out of that dark place:
- Don’t get caught up in the feedback loop: If you’re anxious that’s okay, it’s when you start getting anxious about being anxious.
- Know you’re more in control of the situation than you think: You can’t control the event, but you can control how you react to it.
- Learn to be your own best friend: Focus on where you’re making improvements, rather than criticising every mistake you make.
When you live with anxiety every day you hope for a quick fix to the problem, unfortunately overcoming anxiety takes time, and progress isn’t always linear. Some days you’ll feel like you’re making great progress and then something happens and you’ll feel like you’ve taken two steps back. Despite the setbacks, remember you are making progress and ultimately that’s all that matters.
