Could you tell me about a time you felt anxious?
Ah man, all the time.
There’s a familiar expression of mine that my friends and family recognise almost instantly – a furrowed brow and eyes growing wide in concern as my hands starts to softly poke at my face while I’m thinking. A sudden silence and drop of energy after a lot of conversation and animation, as it becomes apparent that I am clearly musing over something. It can be triggered by almost anything – I can be my happiest and relaxed self without a care in the world, and the smallest and most insignificant inconvenience can send me into a downwards spiral of anxiety.
‘Don’t worry’ is what people say to me the most in life. But as I’ve grown older I’ve come to realise that being worried is a part of my permanent state of being.
As a child I would frequently lie awake at night worried out of mind, my heart racing and a million thoughts circling around my head. Back then it was things I’d only long to worry about now – having said something embarrassing in class, getting in trouble when I had forgotten to do my homework, going into school after an argument with a friend, and wondering where I would sit at lunch. Acne, boys, fashion, exam results. How I looked, how I acted, who I was friends with. Every time I would start at a new school, I would cry to my mum the night before as I didn’t know where I would be able to hang my coat.
As I grew older, the things I would worry about as a child seemed almost insignificant compared to the things you have to worry about as an adult. Suddenly there’s bills to be paid and monthly budgets to be planned, job interviews to attend, bosses to please and life decisions to be made. And amongst all the normal adult worries - like money, health and relationships - comes another string of worries that are specific to you and your life.
I bit the bullet and went to the doctor about my racing heartbeat and tight chest that I would get when someone at work asked to talk to me, or the dizzying thoughts of having done something wrong if a friend replied to my text in a slightly different tone than usual. The diagnosis of anxiety was a relief, but it manifested itself into something far more dangerous as I tried to take control of it, to find a distraction. During the deepest darkest clutches of my eating disorder last year, my worried thoughts at night would not be on whether my health would deteriorate further or the people in my life I was hurting, but on whether or not the 600 calories that I had consumed that day were ‘too much.’ The irony was that when my body and mind was consumed with anorexia, the things I would have usually worried about once upon a time were the last things on my mind. So, in a sense, I had achieved what I wanted.
But I made the decision to remove myself from the place I became sick when I realised I couldn’t heal there, and now, six months later, my mind is occupied differently. For the first time in a long time, there’s relative peace in my head. I now spend most of my time thinking about the French language, dog walking, Zumba and the absolute joy of hot Belgian fries on a Sunday evening. I find myself in a loving relationship with a wonderful guy, and there’s now another person floating about in my thoughts, and not just me. My spare time is now filled with exhibitions and cinemas to go to, parks to visit and cobbled streets to cycle over. I have the mental, and physical, capacity to travel to new countries and dance at concerts again. I’m working somewhere where all the responsibility doesn’t fall on just me, and when I go home at 5 o’clock, I truly do go home. I’m able to sit down and read a book without my thoughts rushing off somewhere, finishing it from cover to cover and giving it my full, undistracted attention. I can watch new TV shows and films with my boyfriend without thinking about what I had for dinner. When I make a mistake or something goes wrong, I’m able to view it rationally and know that these things happen, and it won’t always be bad.
The worry is still there, of course. The familiar drop in my stomach when presented with something foreign and unusual. And it will always be there – I am an anxious person. I care too much about what people think, how my actions directly impact those around me and the decisions I make in life. But I have come to realise now that life doesn’t have to be perfect and free of anxiety for it to be a happy life. And that’s what it is – a happy life, with bits of anxiety in it, and not the other way around.
