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Feeding the Beast

Coping with High Functioning Anxiety

By Jessie WaddellPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Photo by M.T ElGassier on Unsplash

The day I really started to get a handle on my anxiety was the day I started viewing it as something separate from myself.

Many people wear their Anxiety on their sleeve, almost like a badge of honour. There's nothing wrong with accepting anxiety as part of you. In fact, it's refreshing that mental health is becoming less stigmatised. Normalising mental illness is progress, but we should maintain our vigilance to help those who suffer to heal. It's fine to put your hand up and say, "I have anxiety", but you wouldn't put your hand up and say, "I have cancer", and do nothing about it. Even though we wear the anxiety, we need to prevent the anxiety from wearing us.

I suffer from what most refer to as "high-functioning anxiety". Meaning that unless things get really out of hand, most people wouldn't guess that I was an anxious person. I exist as a functioning member of society; I have a stable job, a nice house, a supportive family, a steady relationship with my husband and a beautiful daughter. It's ironic that these things would be a contributor to many of my anxious tendencies. Mainly those that stem from a crippling sense of over-responsibility and perfectionism. The weight of appearing to have my 'shit together' is one of my heaviest burdens.

When things feel overwhelmingly heavy, the anxiety tells me to run.

I learned early on that anxiety was a beast. The more I fed it, the more it grew. It's not a loyal beast, and it will bite the hand that feeds it. It will lull you into a fall sense of security, act as your companion, something that exists to protect you from the evils of the world. Asking you to trust it, follow it as it feeds on your fear and worries and slowly begins to take control.

With years of experience behind me, I'm mostly able to identify the triggers. Sometimes though, they still creep up on me. It starts as a dull tug; a desire to avoid starts to envelop me. I usually give myself a little grace and take it as a signal to slow down. Sometimes that's enough. The real skill comes in realising when it starts to get out of control. That first day you can't be bothered with the effort it takes to leave the house, and all of a sudden, you've stayed at home for the whole week. You skip a visit with the in-laws because you can't bring yourself to socialise, and then you're ducking every invitation for human interaction that comes your way. You go from reading a few chapters of a good book in your spare time to being obsessed with being lost in another world, so you read until your eyes hurt for fear of facing reality again. Each time telling yourself you're just giving yourself a break without recognising that you're slowly losing control.

This is feeding the beast.

Often, when managing anxiety, you are faced with a decision of whether to approach or avoid something.

Each time you choose to avoid, you're feeding the beast a little more. Feed it too much, too often, and you will find yourself isolated, depressed and struggling to regain control.

There is an art to recognising whether you want to avoid a scenario because of legitimate reasons or irrational ones. When the beast is in control, I refer to it as being "In the grip".

In the grip, the most irrational reasons seem rational.

"The Grip" feels normal. In the thick of it, you're in denial. You think you've got everything under control. This will usually be when you start lashing out at concerned loved ones and truly isolating yourself. When you come out the other side, you will look back on your time in the grip like an out of body experience. You wonder how it could've been possible to have been that obviously in need of help and unable to recognise and ask for it.

I am extremely conscious of not feeding the beast. Keeping this metaphor in mind keeps it within my control. Each decision has a consequence, and I have a conscious awareness of the impact of those consequences. Each time I feed the beast, I relinquish some of my control.

The most important lesson that I hold on to is always keeping anxiety and me separate in my mind. If I'm losing control, then it's possible to regain control.

This isn't simply a dysfunctional portion of my make-up that I have to live with. I might carry it on my shoulders on the worst days, and on the better days, it meanders a few steps behind me.

But I am the one, ultimately, who gets to choose.

anxiety
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About the Creator

Jessie Waddell

I have too many thoughts. I write to clear some headspace. | Instagram: @thelittlepoet_jw |

"To die, would be an awfully big adventure"—Peter Pan | Vale Tom Brad

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