I’m Never Letting Anxiety Get the Better of Me Again
Throughout the years it has taken too many opportunities away from me
It’s been a tough few weeks. For most of the nights, I’ve been awake and staring at the ceiling with my heart racing. I’ve sat in the darkness in tears waiting for the feeling of sleep to come but instead, felt endless disappointment and frustration.
Anxiety can take so much away from us. And for many, sleep is usually one of the first things to go. In the days that follow the long nights, we feel fatigued and restless and this often feeds into depressive thoughts.
For those who have suffered from insomnia induced by anxiety, I can sympathise, as it’s been with me for nearly ten years.
Despite how tough the past few weeks have been, I’ve never felt more proud of not letting my anxiety get the better of me. And despite everything, I’ve realised just how much I can do.
Anxiety fools us into a false vision of ourselves
The most clever thing about anxiety is that it tricks our brains into painting a false picture of ourselves, and one we end up believing. Intrusive thoughts combined with self-doubt can lead us into thinking we are a version of ourselves which is far from the truth.
Although what exactly happens to the brain when someone is experiencing anxiety isn’t fully understood, we know that it is a physical and chemical response that triggers our fight or flight mode. Chemicals are one thing, but dealing with the ramifications in real life is another. But it contributes towards explaining why our brain is so well equipped to trick us into believing false assumptions about ourselves.
This has happened to me more times than I can count. I have let it ruin friendships and believed in them so much that it has taken good opportunities away from me. My anxiety manifests itself most strongly as self-doubt and then this bleeds itself into destroying friendships, relationships, and career opportunities.
It’s so much easier for me to believe it rather than fight against it, which is what I’ve done for so many years. But I’ve had enough, I don’t want to let it win anymore.
Recently, I’ve been trying to fight it more than ever. I’ve had three big interviews almost one after the other. Previous me would have bailed on job interviews as they trigger my flight mode. To me, there’s nothing more anxiety-inducing than trying to big yourself up in front of experts in their fields and total strangers.
But I’ve got through them all. Even though I haven’t (yet) been successful, I now know that I’m capable and it’s my stupid brain that’s holding me back, not anything else.
Anxiety, when we give it power, allows us to subscribe to an inaccurate vision of ourselves that can hold us back from achieving what we want in life. The skill lies in not pretending as if it doesn’t exist, but acknowledging it and fighting the fire that comes with it anyway.
Anxiety can draw us away from who we want to be and what we can become
It is always easy to say that we should fight what we are afraid of. Beating anxiety is a real battle and not one that’s easily fought for anyone. But do you know what’s even easier?
Accepting defeat and staying with what’s comfortable. This has been me for nearly four years.
When I had just finished university, I had no idea what I wanted to do career-wise. I thought I had wanted to be a journalist for my entire time at university, but that soon changed due to several factors. As a result, I became a bookseller in what I thought was going to be my in-between job whilst I worked out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
To tell you the short story, I’m still there four years later. A large amount of the reason why is due to the pandemic and the two years that held me back, but after a lot of soul-searching I realised this wasn’t the only reason. I was holding myself back and leaning into what I knew was comfortable and along the way, I have learnt I’m not somebody who copes well with change.
As it turns out, our brains are wired this way. Although the phrase ‘comfort zone’ is thrown around a lot in the self-help mode, it’s actually a type of physiological state encouraging us to crave the safety of what we know and what is familiar to us. The term was actually coined by Alasdair White, a Business Management Theorist in 2009. He defines it as the following:
“A comfort zone is a psychological state in which things feel familiar to a person, and they are at ease, and in control of their environment, experiencing low levels of anxiety and stress. In this zone, a steady level of performance is possible.”
Therefore, it’s no wonder that we crave comfort. In the comfort zone, we don’t just feel physically relieved, but our brains know what to expect and it frees us from that feeling of constant anxiety. But clinging onto this is not always good, in fact, it has had detrimental consequences for me in the past few years.
The idea of starting somewhere new, having to learn a lot of new skills, and forming relationships with new people is a scary prospect to me. Sometimes even enough to put me off wanting to change anything — ever — even with the knowledge I am deeply unhappy. The thought of having interviews and leaving the job I now know like the back of my hand is enough to keep me awake at night. Over and over. And it has.
It is these types of thoughts that have allowed me to go with comfort over challenge for so many years. As a result, I’m nearly twenty-six with no real career in place or any closer to achieving my goals.
But that’s changing. It may be slow and gradual, but knowing what holds me back and why has been a game changer for thinking about what I want to achieve. Anxiety can hold us back for so many reasons, but for me, it conditions me to crave what’s comfortable.
Luckily, I’ve been able to recognise this with a combination of daily journaling and soul searching. Sometimes you need to take a long hard look at yourself and dish yourself out some tough love to break through the boundaries that anxiety can put in place.
We may have to live with it, but we can’t let it win
All of this is not to say that anxiety can completely go away. Over the years through failed medications and various treatments, I’ve come to accept that it will always be there. Anxiety is part of my personality and how my brain works. There are coping mechanisms, of course, but it will never go away.
Acknowledging this is key to being able to challenge it. If it’s always going to be there, you have to let yourself feel the fear and do it anyway. Otherwise, you’ll never get to where you want to be.
Despite having the bubbling feeling in my belly, sweaty palms, and a voice that tells me, ‘you’re not good enough for this’, I have managed to get through plenty of tough interviews as of late. The rejections have knocked my confidence, but getting through them at all is a big achievement for me. It has allowed me to chip away at the part of my brain that tells me otherwise.
As with everything in life, there will be good anxiety days and bad ones. Fighting against anxiety one day and succeeding doesn’t mean there won’t be days where we fail, because we will always have these days. But attempting to fight it is the main thing, as staying comfortable forever when craving change is never the answer.
If any of this sounds familiar, please know that it is possible to fight even the darkest thoughts and come out better on the other side. Anxiety can ruin lives, relationships and everything else but it is also possible to beat it and learn how to live with it.
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