My Anxious Mind

I’ve been generally ok with my anxiety lately and it hasn’t caused me any trouble. But I was driving my car yesterday morning and I had an episode. Anxiety is a very strange thing to have. It hits you out of the blue sometimes with no warning at all,  and you feel all of a sudden consumed by feelings of low self- worth and wretchedness accompanied by countless tears. I had to pull over in the car and have a good cry, I just couldn’t stop, and it went on for about 20 minutes. I was thinking at the time ‘When is this going to stop, for goodness sake?’

But now I’m thinking, Why did that happen to me in the first place?, I have been worried lately because my supply work has been very spasmodic and money has been short; I’ve had to move things around to pay certain bills and have tried to push the problems to the back of my mind because I knew it would stress me out.

I feel that as a loving and giving person I’m also not appreciated properly. I may send a text to a friend and if I don’t receive a reply within a few hours I begin to panic wondering if I’ve done or said something wrong. I sometimes wonder, ‘Why doesn’t so and so ring me once in a while for a meetup, don’t they like me? Am I boring to be with? Do I irritate people?

I do have thoughts like this and a counselor said that these feelings can feel normal with anxiety, but they are irrational. Sometimes I feel that my good nature and loving ways are taken for granted, which then make me feel like I keep trying my best but it gets thrown back at me. And then I question my job and I ask myself ‘Am I good enough or ‘Competent enough?’.

So I’m sitting in my car yesterday after my crying time and trying to work out if all these feelings set it off. Anxiety can be so complex sometimes. You can feel downbeat for days, worthless, unloved and sad. You can experience low-mood, crying episodes and loneliness. Sometimes I feel like a lovely warm hug and a tender touch, which I know will make me feel better.

On a positive note, today has been a little brighter. I had a good long walk in the sunshine with a coffee outside and a cake. And I know that I will always have to deal with these feelings and how they affect my life.

How do you lift your mood with an anxious mind? X