My Friend Anxiety

Learning my first coping mechanisms gave me something I had been desperately looking for: a way to respond to my anxiety.

I was still having anxiety attacks, sometimes even more frequently than before, and there was still a part of me that wanted to go to seek medical help. But now I had my breathing exercises, grounding, and my mantras.

Whenever the anxiety came, I would go through my routine and almost immediately notice a shift toward normalcy. Being able to take deep breaths was reassuring. I would tell myself things like, the fact that you are able to think this through is a sign that this is anxiety.

But I also started developing other ways to reassure myself.

I had once heard a story from a friend about someone experiencing a serious health problem. Certain details of that story stuck with me, and I started inventing little tests for myself whenever I became anxious.

I would throw my herbal inhaler into the air and catch it. Sometimes I would stand on one foot and test my balance. In my mind, being able to react quickly or balance properly was another piece of evidence I could use to tell myself that I was okay, tests that I had invented for myself because they made sense in my mind

Deep down, I think I already knew there was a problem with what I was doing.

I had stopped Googling my symptoms because I knew where that road led. I had even started using AI instead, specifically telling it about my health anxiety so that it wouldn’t feed me more things to worry about. Even then, I was already being warned about relying too much on reassurance.

So it wasn’t really a surprise when my therapist noticed the same thing.

He warned me that constantly testing and reassuring myself could become another obsession and might eventually become counterproductive. He didn’t tell me to stop using the coping mechanisms that were helping me. Instead, he told me to use whatever means I had to cope, but to try to limit them.

So for about a month, that’s what I did.

I still used my coping mechanisms when I needed them, but I tried not to overuse them.

Then one day, I came across a video on YouTube that introduced me to a different way of looking at anxiety. It talked about how constantly fighting anxiety could itself become a roadblock for some people.

Something about that clicked with me.

Maybe instead of constantly trying to get rid of anxiety, I could just let it come.

So one time, when I felt it coming, I decided not to fight.

I just kept repeating the first reassuring thing that came in my head:

Jesus, take the wheel.

Yes, like the song. I don’t remember why, but that’s what my mind came up with.

Whatever You decide, I’m good.

And I let the anxiety come.

For the next few days, something changed. I felt better. For the first time, I was beginning to understand that maybe I didn’t have to win every battle with anxiety. Maybe sometimes I didn’t have to fight the battle at all.

Then life happened.

I was facing the possibility of losing a major project. At that point, I had already given up my other projects so that I could focus on one and better manage my mental health. Suddenly, the stability I had tried so hard to create felt uncertain again.

The anxiety became stronger, and slowly I went back to my coping mechanisms.

At first, that felt like going backward.

But eventually, I found my way back to sitting with the anxiety again.

It wasn’t always comfortable.

The difference was that every time I tried, I seemed to last a little longer without reaching for a coping mechanism. A few days became a week. A week became a few weeks. Eventually, there were stretches that lasted a month.

I also started changing how I thought about what I was feeling.

Instead of immediately trying to get rid of every uncomfortable feeling in my body, I started reminding myself:

This isn’t completely new.

I had felt my heart beat strongly when I was nervous before. I had felt my body tense up during exciting moments. I had experienced powerful sensations when I was excited, scared, or even when I was happy.

What was new was how much attention I was giving those sensations.

I had realized that anxiety didn’t only appear during bad moments.

Sometimes I would feel it while watching football. Sometimes it happened while reading a book just as I reached a really good part. Sometimes it happened during an action movie.

These were things I enjoyed, and yet, they made me anxious.

During one of my meditations, a thought came to me completely out of nowhere.

You are actually my friend, anxiety.

I don’t know exactly what happened to me during that meditation, but I cried.

I started thinking about everything that had changed since anxiety entered my life.

Because of it, I had started taking my health seriously. I was eating better. I wasn’t drinking too much too often anymore. I was exercising regularly. I had become more aware of my surroundings and more appreciative of what I had, no matter how humble.

Most importantly, I had grown closer to God.

Before anxiety, days seemed to just zoom by. One day became another, and another, and another.

Now a single day could feel incredibly long.

I could go through so many ups and downs and feel so many emotions in just one day. I was noticing my life in a way that I hadn’t before.

Maybe anxiety wasn’t here simply to make my life miserable.

Maybe I could take everything that had happened to me and use it to turn my life around.

That didn’t mean I suddenly enjoyed having anxiety. I didn’t.

I still wanted something very simple.

I wanted to enjoy my life again without being afraid of having an anxiety attack.

I wanted to go somewhere crowded without worrying about it. I wanted to walk around a mall. Watch a movie. Go to a concert.

I didn’t want to spend my life avoiding things because I was afraid of what I might feel while I was there.

I was slowly learning that perhaps I didn’t have to wait for anxiety to disappear before I could start living again.

Maybe anxiety could come along.

And maybe that was okay.