Talking About My Anxiety Makes Me Anxious
It’s a ridiculous title. It is 100% true.
One of the hardest challenges I face as mental health advocate is the anxiety I get from being vulnerable and actually talking about what is going on inside my head to other people. Why does it make me anxious talking about my anxiety? Well to me it is obvious now but it didn’t used to be, the reason I get anxious is because I cannot control what you think or do with that information once I have opened up to you.
In my previous blog post I talked about the things I might say, do and see if my anxiety was a person, I pressed publish on that post and it instantly felt like someone had pressed play on my anxiety. I spent the majority of last week anxious, and I had to spend a lot of time around a lot of different people last week. I had a choice to fake it and pretend that I was fine, or be honest. I chose honesty, I was already anxious so I decided to sit in that feeling of anxiety and use it as an opportunity to talk about it.
You might wonder why I bother talking about my anxiety if I know it is going to make me more anxious and the answer to that is because it’s important. Talking about my anxiety does make me anxious but if I can use my voice in a way that maybe other people can’t I might be able to educate and make a difference to someones world. If using my voice makes it easier for someone else to use theirs I am going to use it.
One thing that did come out of using my voice last week and sharing that post was some wonderful conversations around anxiety. I spoke to people about my condition, people that I might never have spoken to about it without sharing that part of me first, I created a space for people to start to understand anxiety and that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t pressed publish on that post. To those people, I want to say a huge thank you. It does make me anxious talking about my anxiety but I am not going to stop talking about it.
Collectively as humans I feel we need to get better at understanding each others lived experiences (and this isn’t just about mental health). We need to get curious about the experiences of the people around us because each of us are unique. No ones life is without challenges, and if we can create a safe space for people to be vulnerable we can start to create a world where people can live as themselves without shame or fear that what they are going through makes them lesser than in some way. I spent most of my 13 years as anxious person worrying that at some point it was going to stop me moving forward that for the longest time I hid it and bottled it away, it shouldn’t be like that. We have a chance to make the conversation easier so no one has to feel like that. We shouldn’t have to hide parts of ourselves for fear of judgement.
This is a list of ways I try, and will continue to try, to create an environment that encourages openness and vulnerability:
Listen more, speak less.
Ask genuine questions.
Have empathy even if I don’t fully understand.
Understand that everyones struggles are relative to them, we all have problems and there isn’t a rule book on how we should feel about things.
Make less assumptions.
Withhold judgement.
Only give advice when appropriate, sometimes you just need to listen.
Educate myself on the things I don’t understand.
Ensure that I always create a safe space where people feel supported.
Never disregard or invalidate how someone feels.
Give people my full self when they need it.
Some food for thought this Mental Health Awareness week.
