Rants, Tags and Random Ramblings

Anxiety Made Me Who I Am

My name is Jacinta. I am a mental health advocate who struggles with mental health myself, in the form of  anxiety and depression. I've co founded  an online initiative to raise awareness and I'd like to share my personal experiences of my mental health.

Anxiety. You see it all the time in movies and television. It's a condition whereby you routinely have panic attacks. Where you try to avoid people at all costs, right?

Wrong. That's merely the tip of the iceberg for most of us suffering from it. Anxiety is so much more than that. It comes in so many different forms and affects different people to alternate extremities. It's not as straightforward as having a panic attack every now and then. It's layered, and sometimes, hard to understand, even by those who suffer from it.

For me, anxiety has been a constant struggle in my life. And yes, when I get overwhelmed, I do have panic attacks. But, that is not the full extent of it for me. In my every day life, anxiety probes me to try do better than my best, to involve myself in as much as I can, sometimes more for the benefit of others than for myself. I find it hard to say no to people when they ask for favors. I feel like it is my obligation to help everyone I come into contact with. The idea of going against people's expectations of me and the thought of them thinking less of me gets me worked up.

So, I always try to please people. Do as they ask. Help them out if they need it, even when I feel like I need help. And I hate burdening people with my problems. So, I shut up, get on with it and help others. Take on responsibility that, at times, becomes too much for me to handle. At least, that's what I've been doing up until a couple of months ago.

Perfectionism is another element to my character I have long battled with. I still battle with it. With me, it's all or nothing. If I can't do something one hundred percent "right", or if I have no real interest in it, I have a tendency to procrastinate. I push things away, hope they'll go away, even though I know they won't, and then, in a panic, I rush to get it done. I hate for people to think of me as lazy. I know most people don't, and they're really not trying to put pressure on me. I'm the one who applies the most pressure to myself. Because I make every one think I can handle all these responsibilities, when the reality is, they stress me as much as is humanely possible.

I'm also deeply insecure about myself, a trait that I have forever shrouded with a sense of confidence that I don't really have. I'm a very co-dependent individual, and I need to be in control of a situation to feel like I'm accomplished. I thrive on order, and sometimes, I have unrealistic expectations of other people living up to my standard, the standard of work I exude to satisfy my anxiety. Standards that nobody should feel the need to live up to.

I've tried as hard as I could for as long as I can remember to hide these feelings. When I'd feel a panic attack coming, I'd try my best to shut myself away and not let anyone see it. I felt like I'd be branded as oversensitive, or as a bit of an attention seeker. I felt like I'd be burdening other people and that my issues were trivial in comparison to other people's issues. I felt like people would view me differently if the extent of my anxiety came out. But, let me clarify, I was not born this way. Just like most other people who suffer from anxiety, I was conditioned to be this way. From birth, we are wired by society's standards to believe that our mental health is of lesser significance to our whole person than that of physical health. And as a young person growing up around this mentality, there was no way in the world we weren't going to try conceal these feelings. My feelings built up over time and have therefore had an indirect influence on my character. They've made me more proactive, they've given me the passion to try help other people.

But, to help other people with their problems, I need to first and foremost focus on mine. As well as anxiety, at the moment, I am suffering from depression. Again, until it came to a point where I couldn't see the wood for the trees anymore, I brushed my feelings under the carpet. I eventually had to ask myself why I was feeling so unhappy. And one of the main reasons, was that I felt I was stretching myself too thinly. I was taking too much responsibility on board. Linked back to my urge to be in control. But, I've recently come to reflect on my circumstance and I've reached the conclusion that I can be happy and let go, or I can be in control. But I can't be both. And I think I'd rather be happy. Which is why, when approached by a couple of people the other day to do them a favor, I turned around and said no. To their surprise, I said no. I'm currently trying to resist my urges to please other people because they expect it.

Instead, I'm going to please people, when I can, through activities that I myself am passionate about. Which is why I've recently co-launched an online initiative, Solidarity, to promote mental health in a positive manner where it's not stigmatized. I want young people, the people of the future, and the many generations to come to live in a world where we no longer feel we have to hide our vulnerabilities and where our mental struggles are not minimized. Where we're not told that our physical well being is more important than our emotional state. Because one feeds the other. We need to nourish our mental health for our physical health to be at its peak, and vice versa. That is a simple fact we all need to recognize.

I co-launched Solidarity because I wanted to show people that they are not alone. And guess what drove me to do it. My anxiety and my depression. I wanted to throw myself into something positive that could help others in my situation. My anxiety has made me who I am, indirectly maybe, but it has made me who I am. I wouldn't want it any other way.