Anxiety

Now for another reflection about an emotion I experience courtesy of reading Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown.

I have experienced anxiety for a large chunk of my life. According to what I have discussed with my therapist, it mostly can be categorized as a social anxiety disorder due to the triggers and situations it rears its head.

Social Anxiety Disorder: everyday interactions cause significant anxiety, self-consciousness and embarrassment because you fear being scrutinized or judged negatively by others

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/social-anxiety-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353561

I have been called shy since I was a kid. There were many times I can recall being told to do something as a kid that, in many parent’s eyes, would be a way to get a child to become more independent or outgoing but being so ‘shy’ I couldn’t speak and would hide, forcing someone else to either go with me or to do it for me. I would feel a constriction in the chest and throat, I would feel my body go rigid and my heart would race in a fear response.

I have also experienced my fair share of worrying about people’s perceptions of me, the judgement that people may or may not have viewed me with, the unspoken words said in a conversation or how what I said in the same conversation was received. I know I have been judged for speaking my mind and being myself over time. I can name times when I was judged enough by others and took it personally enough that it fully flipped my behaviour, causing me to add it to my list of things not to do to avoid an anxious situation. Its not that I have been so thoroughly afraid of things my whole life, but that I have increased the level of anxiety by internalizing moments that I felt free, yet was…discouraged from doing that thing again because of judgement or more.

Being the Center of Attention

Let me paint this picture (trigger warning for my fellow anxious folks):

Its the day of a big presentation in school, you are put into the situation where you have no choice but to present your essay to the class and receive a grade on it for performance, topic choice, clarity of point and engagement. You know going in that you are being judged because it counts for a high percentage of your grade, but how will your peers take you standing in front of the classroom? You are aware you have a higher pitched voice…what if they judge your voice? What if you sound stupid? Or worse, what if no words come out?! As it nears your time to speak, you bring out your notes, hoping to not rely on them too much, but you know they are the only grounding thing to focus on while being stared at by so many people. One person to go before you speak now, your palms start to get clammy, and your heart starts to race faster and faster. Your name is called as your classmate walks to the seat behind you. You were so focused on the rising fear in your body that you didn’t even notice their talk ended. You stand, taking breaths and hoping not to come across as mid-anxiety attack while in front of your peers. You turn around at the front of the class, noticing that you have all eyes on you. Hoping it will help, you look at the paper with your notes, seeing the lines blur a bit as a heat rises in your stomach, twisting around. Seeing the teacher waiting expectantly you start to speak. Oh gosh, your voice is shaking so bad that your syllables are stuttering out of you in a staccato making your sentences sound disjointed and breathless. The heat rises from your stomach to your chest, feeling like the embodiment of a thermometer with the redness making its way up your body as the flush creeps higher. Soon you feel your chest, neck, face, ears and body radiating heat, knowing you are turning red as a tomato and get more anxious out of embarrassment. As the presentation continues, you notice yourself getting more sweaty in places you hope aren’t noticeable to your classmates. You barely make it through the presentation and finally get to sit down, slumping in your chair mortified about what you must look like and what others may think after you struggled through that presentation…

This was what it was like for me when my anxiety was at its worst. I have since reduced the level of external symptoms that are visible to others, completely unintentionally, but the feelings haven’t gone away completely, nor has the ability to completely stave off these symptoms, they’re just less all-consuming. For example, I can mostly speak without a stutter now when presenting or talking to groups, but I do feel the creeping blush the longer people focus their attention on me.

While the severity of the symptoms has decreased, the self-conscious ruminating and worry is always there.

Fear of Being Judged

I am no stranger to being judged by people. As I mentioned in some of the posts prior to this, I have been judged on my physical appearance by partners and family, by family for quirky behaviour, by friends for music preferences, and by random people who have felt its their business to shout their opinions of me on the street. I realize that there is a lot of these things that would roll off people like water off a duck’s back, but for me with my anxiety, it just created an ever-growing list of things I should be self-conscious about when going out in public. At any time, I could be judged for the pitch of my voice, the extra curves of my body, the joke I thought was funny but others didn’t or lord knows what.

Anxiety for me is a constant struggle between the worry of going and the desire to practice avoidance and just not go. It can take a lot to work myself up into going anywhere new, or with people I don’t know well out of any number of concerns that bounce around in my head and easily spin out of control. I can try on a ton of outfits until I find one that makes me feel comfortable to reduce the amount of anxious fidgeting I would otherwise do throughout the outing. I can rehearse conversations and scenarios for hours in an attempt to prepare myself for any number of situations and how I would react.

Its exhausting, but there is more…

Relationship Anxiety

I have only had one relationship where my anxiety did not cause me troubles and that was one where I was not as enthusiastic about. It was one of those relationships where you know its nothing that will get serious because you just don’t feel that way with the person. Having no skin in the game allowed me to be fairly removed from the fear of judgement or being self-conscious.

All of my other relationships have come with some level of anxiety due to the fears of being judged, the self-conscious or embarrassed for anything from my quirks to appearance. To be fair here, I have had all of those fears come true in one form or another when in relationships from various partners. The small slights that often come out of their insecurities caused my anxieties to compound and I would often shrink myself to avoid causing any personal distress that the anxieties would be derived from with these people.

I often get into worry spirals when in relationships, though, after my recent relationship, I have learned its largely when my partner’s behaviours don’t meet my needs in a relationship. For example, my recent relationship was great at the beginning, where I was more trusting communication, the guy was considerate, open to conversation and more liberal with his words of affirmation towards me. I felt safe and, aside from the milder anxiety of being intimate with a new partner, I did not worry or feel I had to hide much about myself out of embarrassment.

As things progressed and he got busier with work and family, the communication changed, I felt less safe. He would say less things that made it clear he was on the same page as me and would often not leave room for me to confirm if things that I worried about were real or not. My needs of being able to communicate openly about any anxieties or discuss the situation we were in slipped away and I began to worry more and tread more carefully with him, feeling that he would judge me for being anxious or myself. Which honestly did happen eventually.

He started getting short with me, not listening to anything I had to say, it was all about him, and any of my needs I requested were set aside. My anxiety skyrocketed to the point that I was worrying so much that I would ruminate for a day at a time on what I was doing wrong or what he possibly thought about me. I often would have little sleep because I would wake up around 2 or 3 am only to immediately start worrying again until I had to start work later that morning. If you know of attachment styles, I definitely have an anxious attachment style when my partner no longer appears to be a secure style. I get triggered by these people.

Coping and Healing

As I said in some of the points above, things have gotten better than they used to be. However, I think that this has a lot to do with finding my way into group, work, friendship or general situations that don’t trigger my anxiety. In many cases its a slow growth of trust that I can relax or be myself without any evidence that malicious judgement or any need to be self-conscious is there.

The biggest example I have of this is my current job. In previous jobs, I was never truly accepted for my true gifts as an innovator and guide to new methods or techniques. I would often be judged or put down for my ideas. However, my current job has been open to all of these things and supportive in ways that have no created a pressure on me to be anything other than I am. So when I present now, specifically to them, I don’t feel the level of anxiety I have for presenting. I suppose, like some things I have read have stated, that anxiety is focusing so much on the negative that until its disproven to be an issue, it will be a worry.

That concept has happened with personal relationships too. I will be anxious about meeting new people until my quirks show or I do something embarrassing and it is not met with judgement. Learning to trust that the people or situations around me are not intentionally out to get me, in a way, has been how I have slowly gotten better. I will peel back some of the anxious shell a little bit at a time, and as long as it is welcomed, I will feel little anxiety. Once that is met with judgement or an indication that it is being judged, I have a tendency to fall back into the worry cycles.

I want to take a second to advocate for therapy here. I am not going to say that all of this healing has been because of therapy, because that would be a lie. I have been told I am a fairly resilient person and I have often taken it upon myself to aggressively lean into my discomforts. So while I have not gotten rid of my anxiety, I have learned to cope better by putting myself in anxiety-inducing situations (i.e. going to a new gym) and being mindful of grounding myself. However, with all of this, a therapist has been helpful in providing coping techniques and putting words to things that I didn’t have the vocabulary for.

I am 30 and I didn’t know I had a social anxiety disorder until two years ago. I had spent nearly three decades of my life unaware of what exactly I was experiencing because my family is not really involved in mental health education, so I was never exposed to it until therapy. I have been able to talk through situations, gain better clarity of why I have been feeling the way I have, what has triggered it, and what I can do going forward to mitigate the impacts of these moments to reduce – and ideally eventually avoid – the anxiety all together.

If you are facing any significant anxiety that is impacting your daily life – work, relationships, or anything really – consistently, I invite you to perhaps explore seeing a therapist or counsellor to see if they can provide further support for you. There is no need to go through the journey alone, and despite what your anxious mind may be telling you, they are not there to judge – they are there to guide and support you. I can say that it took a couple to find one that helps me best. Also, be aware that you can ‘shop’ around for the right fit for you. The best way to do this may be asking around or taking a few consultations to make sure you feel a connection with what the therapist is like to gain the best support.

If you are comfortable sharing, I would love to learn about your experiences with anxiety. Please write a note in the comments and let me know what your journey with anxiety has been like.

Thank you, dear reader, for taking the time to read my story. I hope you gained some clarity in reading it.

🍀