It's the AnXieTy for me!🤦🏿‍♀️

Hey guys! It has been some time since you have heard from me. And I’m going to be real with you, the last five months has been some shitty ones. I started out the pandemic with so much energy and the most positive mindset I have ever had. I understood the importance of social distancing and staying home. Since I’m a home body that didn’t bother me much. But the fear around being exposed and diagnosed with COVID-19 increased which also increased my anxiety. I have been dealing with anxiety since my military days and working in the mental health field since 2012. So, I’m very familiar with it. What I did not realize is how bad my own anxiety had gotten since March until September.

In September I realized that I couldn’t complete my work. It would take me days just to finish typing one note. I could not focus, I could not concentrate, I could not even write for this blog. I was crazy irritable and short tempered. And my mind was racing 100 miles a minute. Even in my sleep my mind was racing and I couldn’t rest. I could not focus on myself and my self-care was in the toilet. My anxiety has also affected my memory. (I will definitely be doing a blog later on about how anxiety and stress affects your memory.) But any who in September my anxiety hit its breaking point and I needed help. So, I reached out to my primary care doctor.

My primary care doctor is amazing, and she listens. If you have a primary care physician who you do not feel listens or understands you or cares about you, please find a new doctor. It is so important to have the right physician as it directly affects your mental and physical care. We discussed my anxiety and the different things that has led to its increase. I was prescribed a medication to treat my anxiety and I also started seeing a therapist. A therapist with a therapist, lol, yes, it is needed and recommended.

I had reached a point where I was overwhelmed and burned out. I could not believe I was actually at a point to where I wanted some time away from my children. And everyone that knows me knows I love being with these darn kids. I love seeing their faces every day and hearing their voices, I love being a mother. I was experiencing burnout in every area of my life. I wanted to reach out and confide in my friends what I was feeling and going through but I would only allow myself to tell them so much or should I say so little. I could not quite get out everything I was feeling. The fact that I struggle with perfectionism and the fear of being judged plays a huge roll in this. I also have high expectations of myself. And having high expectations are okay, but they at least need to be rational.

My struggle with anxiety has made me feel incompetent in my career. Being a mental health therapist, I felt that people would say “how can she be a successful therapist, how can she help me with my issues if she can’t even handle her own anxiety and need help with that”. The thought of being judged and questioned about if I can actually do my job while dealing with anxiety has been a tremendous weight on my shoulders, heart and mind. It is also the main reason I had chosen to deal in silence and keep all those thoughts in my head. And when you do not let things out so you can process them appropriately, it makes those thoughts you keep bottled up in your head even worse and you then begin to believe them. I was truly questioning if I was a good therapist. Something that I’ve worked hard to achieve and something I take so seriously. I begin questioning if this was no longer the field for me, the path for me and should I think about doing something else for the rest of my life.

Allowing people to be there for me the way I am there for them is something very hard for me to do. I have allowed people into that intimate space before who I found meant me no good and I regret it. Trusting other people with my vulnerability, pain, and fears is anxiety provoking as well. A close friend who I love dearly, like a sister texted me to check on me as she normally does and asked if I was free in a few days to talk. I replied that I was free and that I had been going back and forth about reaching out to her, that I am struggling a little and would be free to talk on Sunday. There has been plenty of time where I wanted to reach out to her, but I would not let myself do it. I do not know why I just did not. but I was incredibly happy that I was honest with her in that moment because she called

me as soon as she read that text. I was open with her about what I had been feeling and thinking and I begin to cry. Oh, how my soul needed that cry. I needed that and I needed her. She poured into me, poured positive affirmations into me as only she could which made me cry harder. In our conversation she expressed to me that I am human and allowed to feel everything that I feel regardless of what my job is.

See one of those high expectations that I have for myself is that I am not allowed to be normal like everyone else. That because I am a therapist I must feel and be able to handle everything the world throws at me regardless of how heavy it is and I should know how to deal and deal well. I realized I must stop being so hard on myself. And it is NECESSARY that I give myself the same grace and compassion that I give others. And I’m not superhuman nor superwoman and need to stop trying to be.

2020 was a fucking shit show and by far ended up being one of the hardest times I have experienced in my life. I had two family members pass away due to Covid-19. People have experienced so much death, heartache and loss in the past year. It’s important for all of us to give ourselves the grace, the room and freedom to simply breath and take in, process and deal with all that has happened. And understand that it is okay. And you are not less than because you struggle or have anxiety or any other condition. You are normal and it’s okay.

GIVE YOURSELF GRACE AND COMPASSION!!!!