Niharika Chandy, Content Team Contributor
To all those who have heard phrases such as “You seem fine to me”, “Everyone gets anxious sometimes” or “Don’t think about it!” from your loved ones, when you finally expressed your anxieties to them, all I can say is I am sorry your feelings have been trivialised. It can feel as though the world lives in this mirage of anxiety being a walking red flag that you see coming from miles away. You scream, cry and stay locked up in perpetual hunger and thirst and the world believes you are anxious, but a blind eye is turned to those who get out of their beds and get through their day with a smile on their face with their tasks on their to-do list checked off. Here’s my story with anxiety and I hope reading this you understand even when you live a “blessed life” with all the materialistic possessions, you canbe grateful and still feel anxious and ask the question, “Why me?”
What happened?
2018-20 were the hardest years of my life. Although I had heard about anxiety and its symptoms, like many I thought it would never happen to me. Why would it?! I had a good education, amazing trustworthy friends and parents who had supported me financially. I was the lucky one amongst my friends to get a university education abroad.I had all the materialistic things in the world like an iPhone, branded clothes, a well-built roof over my head and more but in the deeper layers of my being I felt something amiss. I felt lost. With time a feeling of joy, knowing I was studying abroad, was replaced with this feeling of dread each time I would step out of the house to go to my university. Walks of thirty minutes felt like two hours and I was left sweating profusely trying to catch my breath in the bathroom stall of my university campus. It was so bad that I started skipping university. The feeling of being choked became frequent and unbearable to the point that, in order to avoid these symptoms,I started missing out on university lectures and spending my time locked up in my room. I would not be able to move out of bed, I would skip meals and the thought of showers and facing my parents in the process of that seemed like a task. I was not screaming. I was not running away from home. I thought in order to have dilapidating anxiety, validated by others, I had to exhibit physical symptoms. I was physically fine but my mind was in the trenches. Maybe if I had fever or back aches my family would have believed me. Coming from a family where my parents did not believe in the existence of mental illnesses, the idea of happiness being associated withone having an education, financial stability and parents, I had been primed to believe that mental illnesses is just me being negative and ungrateful.
Feeling like a burden I started suppressing my emotions and stopped talking about it. Did my anxiety go away when I celebrated my birthday on the beach? No. Did it go away when I got good grades? No. I would find myself surrounded by happiness and yet with time I felt more distanced from everyone including my well-wishers. I realised I started walking around with a mask on just to appease others not realising the impact of toxic positivity. After three years spentin isolation with troubled sleep, sense of hopelessness, irritability and increased mental and physical exhaustion I had enough of this mask.
Through the process of therapy, I got diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Depression and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). By educating myself on these illnesses and reading self-help books I realised healing is not linear and emotions are complex. The first step to my journey towards managing my anxiety symptoms was acceptance of what I had gone through in my childhood which seemed to be the reason for my anxiety. I had to face these negative emotions first and although it was a difficult journey, it led me to certain epiphanies. Anxiety is a normal reaction based on evolution and it is a signal indicating something dangerous is close to us. When you feel anxious ask yourself “What am I doing that is going against my values of who I truly want to be?” What I wanted out of life was different than what others wanted for me. It is as normal to have bad days as it is to have good onesand during those bad days show yourself some compassion.Talk to yourself the way you would talk to a friend going through a tough day with a non-judgemental mindset.Relaxation techniques such as the breathing technique and muscle relaxation technique mentioned by No Panic helped me feel less tense and more calm both in my mind and in my body. Finally, when sad dance your problems away. Anxiety creates increased cortisol, a stress hormone, in the body. Exercise or movement allows for a realise of neuro-chemicalslike endorphins, a pain-relieving chemical, that helps counteract this cortisol by making you feel happy. Doing jumping jacks on the spot as well as swinging my arms around helped me reduce my anxiety and help put a smile on my face.
Overall, know you can be grateful and still have anxiety. Your anxiety is not less important if you have financial abundance. Talking about your anxiety and accepting you are not okay does not make you ungrateful, it only makes you human.
