Tales of Adolescent Anxiety, Conclusion: Summer of Self-Care

(Here's Part 1 and Part 2)

**This was meant to post a few weeks ago, but I've been traveling, working, going to school, and getting over a summer cold. Today has really been the first day that I've been home and had time to finish this up.**

This is meant to be an epilogue of sorts to the previous two posts.

A few weeks ago, I turned 20 years old.

At face value, that of course means that I have survived the dreaded teenage years and am now about to embark into the second decade of my life.

For me, though, it marks another milestone.

While there are a handful of other dates from which I could pick, June 26th, 2013 (my nineteenth birthday) really marks the beginning of my journey to healing...which first entailed a long, painful downward spiral.

The day started out like any other, really. I had to work that day. Things were pretty quiet, since it was the middle of the week, which is how I like it. After a full day, my  mom picked me up and we went out to dinner.

At dinner, though, things started to go south. I started to get "twitchy", as my mom often described my anxiety attacks/streaks. And, yes, for a really long time during this process, that's how my anxiety chose to manifest itself. I was very restless, physically and mentally. I would wring my hands, mess with my glasses, mess with my hair, tap my fingers on stuff, etc. I often felt like I couldn't stop my anxious thoughts. Everything that went through my mind was laced with anxiety, like some sort of poison. I knew that the feelings that I was having at dinner had kind of been building up for a few weeks since I'd been home, so when my mom asked if I wanted to go back to the doctor, I agreed.

Two weeks, one horrible 4th of July weekend, and many, many tears later, I found myself back at the doctor and...you know how the rest of the story goes.

But here we are, a year later.

As I'm writing this now, I've been done with class for about a month, and on top of joy and relief, I can't help but feel slightly overwhelmed. Before I finished up school, I had my last session with my counselor, which was a very bittersweet moment for me. On the one hand, I was saying good-bye to this person with whom I had just spent the last eight months, who helped guide me toward this better self and who also served as a listening ear for when things really weren't going great for me...but on the other hand, after eight months of hard work, I'm in a place in my life I never thought I would get to, and for once I felt okay with that. It's a good place. I felt okay with moving on.

I also expressed that my current state of mind was contentment with where I was at that point...but still looking to improve and travel along this pathway of peace and mindfulness that I had established for myself. And to have that mindset, to not necessarily looking for a certain state of mind, is huge. Very early on, I was always looking toward trying to feel the same way I felt before all of this started...which was over two years ago. And it wasn't until December or January when I discovered that that feat was impossible...mostly because it had been two years. That's a long time. Things changed, whether or not I actually wanted them to. To try to get back to the state where I started was to be going backwards, which is the opposite of what I was trying to achieve.

The majority of the last few weeks have been spent thinking about where I started out this year and about how far I've come. To put it simply, I was a train wreck. I was having panic attacks every day, sometimes several in a day. I was in this unshakable brain fog that made concentrating on things very difficult. I was shaky all the time. I didn't eat well. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a panic. I barely left my room. I stopped driving. But, with the help of eight months of weekly counseling, I find myself feeling better than I ever thought I could, even when I started this journey. I physically feel better; I feel like my body is running better, my mind is more clear, I'm sleeping better, I'm enjoying things in my life in ways I was unable to when my anxiety was bad. At the same time, it's a little scary to be where I am now, to know that I owe it to myself to continue this journey of healing. But I am pretty confident in my ability to do that, having spent the last eight months learning much more about myself...and how to take care of myself.

At the beginning of last year, most of my anxiety was based around the thought of not being able to take care of myself and do proper adult things for myself since I developed all of my anxiety/panic issues. Yes, anxiety about anxiety, which is one of the worst cycles you can get yourself into. But, I found a way out, and even though through this last quarter I was working on what seemed like some very specific things with my counselor (my grandmother passed away suddenly in February, which brought up some issues that needed to be addressed)...what I really was learning, finally, was how to take care of myself. I learned what I needed to tell myself when I could feel the anxious thought spiral coming on, when I could feel myself becoming restless and distracted; what I needed to do, physically, to center myself again (go for a walk, take a few deep breaths, ground myself, step outside class for a minute or two to gather myself); what I needed to do to support myself emotionally (talk to my friends, talk to my mom, utilize my time with my counselor, watch a funny movie)...and yet also knowing when I need to put on my big girls pants and know that it's just my anxiety talking and I need to move forward. And it was a long, hard road to get to that point and to be able to tell the difference between those times.

So what is 'self-care'?

It's pretty much exactly as it sounds, but it goes beyond the usual day-to-day maintenance (showering, getting dressed, eating, drinking water, brushing your teeth, etc.).

Self-care, I believe, it something that you actively chose to do. It's measures you take to make yourself feel safe, loved, healthy, beautiful, confident. You purposely say to yourself "I'm gonna do this thing/buy this thing/talk to this person/not do this thing because I want to and it's going to make me feel better." It's not always the most obvious or easiest thing, to take care of yourself, but it is so, so important. Buy yourself flowers or a new pair of shoes or a CD or a video game or a book or a new outfit. Go get a massage. Cut toxic people from your life. Go talk to a therapist or join a support group. Or just go for a walk. Get some fresh air.

Pamper yourself, buy yourself nice things every once in a while just for the hell of it. Take care of your body. Put good food into it. Keep yourself hydrated. If you've been feeling bad for a while, go to the doctor and get help. This is the only self you get, so you might as well take care of it while you can.

But, like all good things, getting through whatever hardship you personally are dealing with takes time. It takes patience and kindness toward yourself. If you want to do something nice for yourself but don't get around to doing it right when you want to, don't beat yourself up. If there's one thing I've learned this year, it's that nothing gets accomplished by beating myself up and getting mad at myself for my failures at self-care. This is called self-care, remember? You wouldn't take care of yourself by yelling about your mistakes, would you?

So that's my number one priority this summer: taking care of myself. I've been trying to eat well and exercise regularly and taking time out of my day to relax if I need to recharge. And if that also entails going back to counseling, then so be it. That's not to say I'll be taking this summer off completely, though. I've already started working again, I've already been on a week-long trip, I'm going to summer school, and I will be taking another week-long vacation later this summer. I plan on spending time with my friends this summer. I didn't see a lot of people last summer, and most of it was due to my anxiety, but I'm working to make amends with people this year. I feel so bad for backing out of things because my anxiety was being a jerk and making me feel bad all the time, and it's time to fix that.

And I'm not saying it's easy to work through something like this, whether it be anxiety or depression or bipolar or ADHD...sometimes, it's the hardest thing you can possibly imagine to do, to go outside, to get dressed, to get out of bed. And there will be some days where you can't do any of that. And that's okay. The important thing to remember is to try again tomorrow. Don't beat yourself up about your failures and missteps. Even when all seems lost and all hope is gone, the sun will indeed rise tomorrow, and you get to try again, because, damn it, the little victories add up, my friends, they really do. And it's so worth it to stick around to see them for yourself.

And I'm also saying that there's no single way of dealing with anxiety (or any type of mental illness, for that matter). Everyone's demons are different. Medication was obviously not a great option for me in the instances I portrayed, but that's not to say it isn't someone else's miracle. Sometimes even therapy isn't even the best choice (though it's often accompanied when you're on medication just to make sure it's not making things worse for you, but...I digress). Sometimes it takes a little bit of both. Sometimes it's just getting some fresh air every once in a while. Sometimes it's just putting on your big girl pants and facing the world head-on.

But, whatever the path you choose, I hope you never have to go it alone. You are not alone in this fight. I hope you, reading this, reach out to people and I hope the people in your life reach out to you. Share your own stories. Ask questions if you want. There's plenty more I have to share, but for now, I'll leave you with this:

I will have anxiety for the rest of my life, there's no doubt about that; it's an emotion, and my brain is just a little more sensitive to it. But with the help of counseling and the support of my friends and my mom, I went from having daily panic attacks to having them pretty few and far between with no real discernible pattern. It no longer has control over my life the way it did a year ago. But there is no "cure" for stuff like this. It's something that I deal with every day will do so for every day of the foreseeable future. I carry it with me wherever I go.

But the load is getting lighter every day.

**If you have been experiencing similar anxiety symptoms, please go talk to a professional. Even if I'm the only person to say this to you, hear me out: There are so many good things in this world, and you deserve to see them and enjoy them.*

Here's a few links I want to share with you as well:

• The National Alliance on Mental Illness has a great website. It has plenty of resources and information on everything from depression and anxiety to ADD and autism and bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and the whole spectrum of treatment options that are available to people.
• YouTuber Elio does a great job in giving an overview of  understanding mental illness, especially for people who don't necessarily have mental health issues. But I think everyone should watch it. It's pretty good.
• Fashion blogger/vlogger Zoella also opened up about her experiences with anxiety which, when I was first figuring stuff out for myself, were extremely helpful to me.
• A guest blogger over at Wonderly also did a write-up about her experiences with anxiety and getting the help she needed. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 (Yes, I know it's six parts, but it's really worth the read.)
• These are a few blog posts from people I admire who have and their own experiences with mental health issues. Both of the people I list have both depression and anxiety, and while I didn't have as many issues with depression, the two disorders often co-exist.
• Wil Wheaton has a few blog posts about his on battle with anxiety and depression. He is a far better and more experienced writer than I am and does a much better job at expressing his experiences. He has written several pieces on the topic, but these are some of my favorites: Depression Lies, you are not alone in this fight
• YA Author Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss, Lola and the Boy Next Door) also has a great write-up about her depression and what it's like to have depression while also maintaining a career.

Tales of Adolescent Anxiety, Part 2: The Path to Heaven Runs through Miles of Clouded Hell

**This post, as is the previous post is from a few months ago that I, as usual, meant to post but I then became occupied with other things and it got shoved away, collecting dust. That being said, I'm keeping the contents of the post as-is and will continue to post the entries I had intended to do a few months ago, but just never got around to doing. Some A lot of things have changed since I wrote the majority of this, but I think it's still important to post this. I'm working on another post that will include more current updates on what I'm about to talk about, so you'll just have to come back when I post that.**

This is a continuation of Tales of Adolescent Anxiety. For Part 1 of this saga, go here. Also, as usual, this is a  trigger warnings for anxiety/panic.

April, 2014

Two weeks into my school year, I mustered up enough sanity to make one of the more adult decisions I've made: I contacted my campus's counseling services and began weekly therapy. And, honestly, that's been one of the best decisions I've ever made. After my initial consultation, I was matched up with a young woman who worked mostly with students who have general anxiety and other facets of anxiety. I've been working with my counselor now for almost six months and I will continue to work with her until the end of the year. I really do feel a difference in my thinking and demeanor ever since I started seeing her. If nothing else, it's given me a space to come and vent about my week. What I love about this facility in general is that they cater specifically to college-aged kids and only work with those who go to my school. College kids are a very special breed. We are in a point in our lives where nothing is static. Everything from our living situations to our family and friend dynamics to our class schedules are changing at crazy frequencies. And with every change comes a development in how we will live our adult lives, whether we like them or not.

For most of my journey toward sorting out my anxiety, I never quite felt fully validated about what I was going through. I would fill out surveys at the doctor's office about having anxiety and/or depression. The results would come back and my doctor would tell me right-out that I didn't have depression.

Thanks for that, doc. I could've told you that myself. Then she would ask me if I was self-harming.

My honest answer: No.

Doctor: Are you feeling suicidal at all?

Me: No.

Doctor: Eh. You're fine. You'll get over it. You'll grow out of it.

Me: But..but...I still feel really bad all the time and I don't want to do things anymore that I used to really like doing and...

But by that time, the doctor would have left the office and I was left feeling just as hopeless and helpless as I had when I entered, which then caused me to question whether or not I even had anxiety...

Working with my current counselor has been a completely different story. Things clicked between us much better between us than with my other counselor. I feel validated, I feel heard. The relationship between a counselor and patient is a very delicate one; I've even heard that finding the right counselor pretty much equates to finding your soul mate. You need someone who understands how you think (or can help you understand how you think), who listens the way you need to be listened to, and who, of course, caters to your needs in a way that serves you. And there's no shame in having to try out a few people. That's probably one of the more frustrating aspects of going to counseling, and I feel extremely lucky to have found someone that works well for me so quickly. Even though it may take some time, it is so, so important to find someone you like...because if you don't like how they work, you won't want to listen to them, and you won't feel better.

My previous counselor gave me a book as we parted ways and in it, there was this whole section dedicated to the power of affirmations. The book recommended picking up some affirmation CDs and listening to them on a daily basis. So I did just that; I listened to them in the morning as I got up. I listened to them in the evening before I went to bed. I did this for weeks. And you know what?

They didn't do a damn thing. I was listening to these same positive affirmations day after day...and I didn't believe them. Believe me, I wanted to, I wanted to believe that I was going to be alright, that I had enough confidence to do the things that I wanted to do...but it was beyond my mental capacity that my anxiety had limited over the years to believe any of that.

And I hate it. I hate that I have anxiety. This past year especially, it's driven me from people and things that I love. I hate the thoughts that run through my head and keep me up at night and distract me when I'm trying to listen to a lecture at school or when I'm driving to work. At first, most days were really, really hard, trying to survive school on top of trying to work on my anxiety. Changes don't happen overnight, and they don't happen the way you want them to, either. At first, you can't really expect too much about how you're going to respond to the work you do with your counselor, especially when you've been experiencing these distressing thought patterns for as long (or longer) as I have. It's an extremely frustrating process. I didn't see big changes in my thoughts and behaviors for a long time...but, if you found someone and something that works for you, you start noticing little changes pretty soon. And all of those little things eventually add up to a few big changes. And soon you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Over Christmas, I read Allie Brosh's book Hyperbole and A Half (which you all should go read because it's hilarious), and in it she discusses her own experiences with depression. Toward the end of her story, when she realized she needed to get help for her issues, she conveyed a huge epiphany. She was traversing through this awful wasteland of depression and hopelessness, but she came to realize that she wasn't going to, all of a sudden, arrive at the end of this wasteland and feel better. In order to get better, she had to turn around, and go back through where she had just come from. And that's very much what I had to do. I had to experience these thoughts and sensations that I had been experiencing for months before...but now I had to stick with these thoughts and feelings, not try to push the away, using tools and techniques that my counselor gave me.

Basically, I was re-training my brain. Like an athlete trains for a marathon. We started out slow and kind of jerky, trying to figure out what worked and what didn't. Then we started to see improvement...but then there would be periods of setbacks, where we ha to re-evaluate things...but we still pressed on to where we are now.

And now? While I still have a few weeks of school left...getting to the end of the year seems a lot more possible than it did six months ago. That, in and of itself, is pretty great.

To be continued...

Tales of Adolescent Anxiety (Part 1): Hitting Rock Bottom

**This post is from a few months ago that I, as usual, meant to post but I then became occupied with other things and it got shoved away, collecting dust. That being said, I'm keeping the contents of the post as-is and will continue to post the entries I had intended to do a few months ago, but just never got around to doing. Some A lot of things have changed since I wrote the majority of this, but I think it's still important to post this. I'm working on another post that will include more current updates on what I'm about to talk about, so you'll just have to come back when I post that.**

April 2014

As you can see, it's been a long while since I've posted on here. You never even heard from me after I promised a new blog format in September.

My blog, my rules, though. THEREFORE, I'm pressing the reset button on this thing. I'd really like to continue to post things on here regularly again. Honestly, the last time I posted, I really did have a plan for this blog. But a few days after that things kind of got complicated in my life and the notion flew from my mind and didn't return until I revisited this site, like, now.

Before I get this going, though, I would like to issue a trigger warning for anxiety/panic, and other phenomena people can experience with panic/anxiety. I would also like to add that this post (and those that follow) is, in no way, a self-help post, and I have no real intention for it to be so. If you are looking for ways to calm your anxiety at this moment, I'm sad to say you probably won't find it here. This is just my personal account with it. If that helps you to feel more okay about your situation, or it instigates you to go get help, that's wonderful and amazing, and I wish you the best of luck. 

I've not exactly made it a secret on here, at least to those who regularly kept up with my BEDA/BEDSY posts, that I have anxiety and I've been battling it intensely over the course of the past two years since, at least, my senior year of high school. I didn't have anxiety over anything in particular, rather it had pretty much seeped into every aspect of my life. It was hard to pin down; every few months, some aspect of my anxiety would change. It came and went with varying intensities throughout my first year in college, but it wasn't until this last summer that it reared its ugly head and kind of stopped me in my tracks, on more than one occasion.

First, I have to back up a few months before my last blog post, to last June/July. I had been home from school for a couple of weeks, right after finishing up my first year of college. Things were pretty good, I'd say. I didn't have much of a break because I started work two days after I got back, but you know, whatever, it happens. I got into a sort of regiment between the days that I worked and the days I had off. It was definitely a bit of a shift between my routine at school and my routine at home, which were vastly different. But things got a bit...tricky. I was settling into my routine alright but I wasn't settled. I wasn't happy. I felt uneasy all the time. It all came together on my birthday when I had a pretty bad anxiety attack during dinner with my mom that forced us to end the night early.

Things just went downhill from there. After a miserable Fourth of July weekend (which really bummed me out because it's one of my favorite holidays), I found myself at my doctor, explaining my predicament for the third time in two years. Still kind of wary on using the medication option (she had already put me on birth control to perhaps help regulate my hormones because I was definitely more anxious around my time of the month), she suggested that I try some counseling. It was one of our last options, and all of my problems appeared to be thought-based, so I figured it couldn't hurt.

The place I got referred to is apparently really hard to get into. My doctor even warned me that they often had a waiting list. A place with a waiting list has to be good, right? A few weeks went by before we heard anything back from the clinic (also, we don't call them, we had to wait for them to call us), and we eventually got a call saying they had a spot open for me.

Three sessions went by, one per week, during the last few weeks of July. They went...okay. We had pretty decent conversations. After those three sessions, though...we were kind of at a stand-still. I felt better, kind of, and I would be missing that next week's session because I was going on vacation...so we decided to part ways at that point.

After that, things were...okay. They were kind of the same as they had been before I went to counseling, and so I spent the rest of the summer in this weird anxiety zone wherein I just felt...off. But I pressed on.

Fast forward to the end of the summer. Right after I last posted a blog, I had a really bad panic attack on the drive home from work that left me stranded 20 minutes away from home and I had to wait for my mom to come pick me up. I kept having bad panic attacks on and off for the next few weeks after (once more involving me getting stranded while driving home from work). The week before I started school I went back to my doctor, and, finding that we had pretty much exhausted all other options, she prescribed me to a daily regiment of Zoloft. That lasted for a whole two days. The first day I felt pretty good. A little jittery and wonky, which is to be expected for the first few days on the drug, but, for the most part, okay. The next day...not so much.

As I woke up and started to go about my day, I began to feel like things were...not right. I had this weird buzz going through my body. I couldn't relax. I would break out in a cold sweat on and off. My mind was all over the place and I felt like I didn't have the mental capacity to complete the most simple of tasks. This would be mildly okay if this occurred in the middle of summer. But it wasn't. It happened two day before I left for school, and I had done next to nothing as far as packing or laundry or getting things organized.

Engage full-day panic mode. It was like the worst possible panic attack combined with five shots of espresso. An I honestly think the worst part of it was that I was alone; my mom was at work until almost five, and I had been up since nine, so being by myself while I was feeling so bad just made it worse. Later that day, I had to go wash my grandma's car and bring it back to her house (I was using it all summer so I could get to and from work), and that was probably one of the worst drives I've ever had in my entire life. I had to pull off to the side of the road more than once to collect myself (keep in mind: the longest distance I had to drive was, at most, maybe ten minutes). I felt dizzy. I had so much energy and I didn't know where to put it. I felt trapped as I was driving. Even when I was riding in the car with my mom (we had to run a few more errands before we got home), I was feeling the same thing.

Here's the funny thing about anxiety and panic: once you have associated a severe episode of anxiety with a particular event/place/situation, it is often very hard to disassociate that place/experience/circumstance with that one time you experience a bad emotion. Unless, of course, you ave the right tools for it which, at that point and time, I did not. And I didn't for a very long time after that. I became very wary of driving and cars for several months after, leaving me feel more and more trapped by my anxiety. I haven't driven since that day, but I have made improvement toward being able to sit in a car for an extended period of time without having so much as a blip of a freak-out.

ANYWAYS...

The rest of the night didn't go smoothly, as you can probably surmise. I couldn't relax. I was shaky and twitchy and I had trouble concentrating. I even had trouble falling asleep that night. Eventually, though, my body just kind of gave up and let me sleep for a few hours. Later, my mom told me that she almost drove me to the emergency room because I was acting so poorly.

So there I was, at school, by myself, reeling from birth control detox and Zoloft detox. I gave myself a few days to collect myself (luckily classes didn't start until a few days after I got there), because I was convinced that a lot of what I was feeling (aside from the medication detox) was nervousness about getting back to school, and getting back to my friends. But after things didn't quite settle down the way I wanted to, after many tear-filled phone calls with my mother, I knew I still had to do something about this anxiety monster that would not leave me alone. If I wanted to make it through the year, I had to do something.

To be continued...

Hello, Friends

Time for my semi-annual check-in.

I've come to realize that I really do miss this space. But I've had trouble figuring out what I want to do with it. If you recall, the last time you saw me, I had a brand new project in the works.

Yeah, obviously that didn't happen. 

I'm working on a few things right now--honestly--and I'm not quite finished with them, and I don't know when exactly I'll post them or in what order I'll post them, but they should give some insight to what I've been up to for the last few months.

More to come. Stay tuned.