The other day I had this nice long chat with an old friend of mine. He owns a media company that focuses on parenting. He then asked me how my life is going. “I bet with all the experiences you had with your three kids, you can pretty much do everything with one eye closed,” he jokingly said. “Why don’t you post more parenting tips on your social media and blog, as people might want to hear the experience from someone like you? All I see from you are just two things: Memes and mental health reposts.”
Well, the truth is:
I don’t think I’m an expert in parenting, by any means. I can barely survive the whole work-from-home + school-from-home combo. I can barely wing it. I need help; that’s why I hire a nanny and a maid. So, no. I don’t think the world needs one more social media account with really small followers like mine posting parenting tips. I will leave all that to my friends who are able to put better content on parenting tips and hacks on their social media, with higher impact and engagement. Mental health, on the other hand, is something that I feel still underrepresented. Whenever I post something about anxiety (mostly reposting posts from anxiety support groups or cartoonists or psychologists), there is always at least one friend check up on me and see if I’m fine. I’m grateful for this. Yes, I do have anxiety.
Anxiety is not something that I can get rid of. Just like balancing any other things, I should really fine-tune everything to find balance in dealing with anxiety as well. This is something that I should make amends with for the rest of my life. So, I can’t say that I’m fully recovered; it comes and goes — but when it comes, it’s kickin’ and alive. I’m not an expert on this (I have no professional degree to validate my arguments) — meaning, what I’m about to share here is purely my personal experience. Therapy, exercise, and anti-anxiety medication can all help. But each person needs something different. I really hope this can speak and resonate to at least one person, so at least (whoever you are) you know that you’re not alone.
1. It’s not always obvious.
When someone lives with anxiety, it isn’t always obvious. Success in life doesn’t mean a person isn’t dealing with something internally. Perhaps they hide it well — even from their loved ones or significant others. Some, perhaps, are not hiding it but people surrounding them simply don’t get it. People who struggle with the disorder often experience excessive worry, panic, and headaches (among other things) and these symptoms are sometimes can easily be dismissed as something else.
2. Meditation works
Of course, this will differ from one individual to another. For me, mindfulness meditation works. In mindfulness meditation, you pay attention to your thoughts as they pass through your mind. You don’t judge the thoughts or become involved with them. You simply observe. When overthinking strikes, I tend to think through it and considers the worst possible outcome. If the stress from work is the trigger, then I check with myself, “what’s the worst thing that could happen if I don’t get this job done?”
3. Journaling helps, for some.
For some people, journaling helps. I tried to keep an actual journal but it didn’t last long. But I compartmentalized my thoughts. I have mental catalogues, which include but are not limited to, “the worst possible outcome” and “my gratitude list”. To answer my “what’s the worst thing could happen if I don’t get this job done” question, I then use my gratitude list. If the answer is: “I might get fired”. Then the next thought process would be: “then what? will I be able to find a new job? Am I really sucks at this job which makes me un-hire-able?” Here where the gratitude list plays the part: “I’m grateful that I can create and edit video — so perhaps I can freelance doing video editing while I’m looking for something more permanent” and that’s when I try to stop think further. I found the worst possible outcome and I found the solution. I try to formulate a more realistic, helpful mindset to prevent myself from overthinking.
4. Find something that can enrich your soul.
Some would tell you to pray. It’s not necessarily THAT, in my opinion; but enriching myself spiritually helps a lot. I was lost for a bit while before I help myself back on the ground. I accidentally stumbled upon this book during one shopping trip and this book helped me to keep my sanity checked and to be grateful — to keep me back on track. I always read this book whenever the anxiety comes. It calms me down.
5. Silence the white noise.
I’ve posted my story a while back and the key message is still the same: you should pick your battles. You should not listen to everyone because chances are, no matter how great, kind, loving you are, there will be this one person that will not like you. If the trigger of the anxiety is concerning on what would people think about me remember that those who care won’t judge and those who judge don’t care — and they won’t pay your bills. I used to stress myself out, asking: What if I’m not good enough? Would people think that I’m not a good mother? It took a few years to realize two things: a) my sanity matters, so if I stress myself out to have less breastmilk for my son so I will become a hostile and grumpy mom, it won’t be great for me and my kids; and b) those who are saying you’re not a great mother if you’re not breastfeeding your kids WILL NOT help you change the diapers and babysit your kids. So there’s that.
6. Self-love and anxiety are somewhat related.
I used to lie to myself (and everybody out there) that I love myself, that I love my body, that I have a good positive body image. The truth is, I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy when I was 90 or even 109 kg. I used self-love as a shield so people would stop bothering me about my weight. But the thing is, even when people don’t say anything about me, I loathe myself. I wasn’t happy about myself. I had high blood pressure; my knees were hurt because I was too heavy, and I hate to see myself in the mirror, which could trigger another anxiety attack.
7. So, I changed my diet and habits.
I’m not saying you should be skinny to be anxiety-free and happy. I’m saying you should be healthy to be happy. If you have no issue at all with your current weight right now (whatever the scale tells you), then good for you. If you can say out loud and proud that you love yourself, nothing you should change. I wasn’t. Now I am. I’m far from the “ideal” definition. But screw ideal. I’m 79kg now and I’m happy. I love myself with every bit of flab, cellulite, and excess skin I have.
8. Remove toxic people and environments.
So it’s not just a food diet, but an environment diet. There are some people and circumstances that still freak me out and trigger the anxiety. Most (if not all) of those anxieties mainly come from a toxic environment. I try to steer clear from those situations, person and environments — even if there are some good people who belong to that environment — sometimes you just have to leave them. It’s not easy but it’s compulsory. Toxic environment changes people, even the nicest ones.
9. It’s not about positivity.
No. It’s not about befriending people who their IG profile says: Positive vibes only. It’s about comfort. It’s about creating the circle so you can still feel okay when things are not okay. It’s not about not allowing people to have emotions. It’s about keeping healthy boundaries with your feelings and your friends and family. It’s about having people you know you can count on, even when you’re being annoying and vice versa.
10. Practice living in the present.
When I say practice, I mean just that. Most of us spend the majority of our time thinking about the future so it can be very hard to be fully present here and now (am still practicing). Start by doing it for short periods of time to practice. Say you take 15 minutes of shower. Just sit on the tub or have the shower and not thinking about anything — just enjoy the good smell from the soap or the lathering shampoo in your head. Or just take 15 minutes and sit in the sun not thinking about anything — just enjoy the sun. Keep the mantra: life is now.
Happy World’s Mental Health Day 2020!
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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