Feelings Come and Go

Sonia Evers of The Not Vanilla has written a great piece about a specific form of anxiety-targeted mindfulness meditation for Refinery29. The whole piece is really worth reading, but here are some of the key takeaways that make the piece stand out.

According to Harvard psychotherapist Ronald D. Siegel, PsyD, trying to get rid of anxiety is exactly where I, and many others suffering from it, go wrong. In his mindfulness meditation practice, Stepping into Fear, Dr. Siegel encourages his students to turn their attention toward, and even befriend, their anxiety, rather than resist it and try to make it go away...[It] begins like any other meditation, focusing on the breath and quieting the mind. But it quickly takes a turn when Dr. Siegel asks you, the listener, to think of something that makes them anxious. Once you have a clear idea of what that is, he asks you to increase your anxiety by thinking of a scenario that’s even worse. After that, a scenario even worse. This goes on for about 20 minutes, until he brings the focus back to the breath and the body. The theory behind it is that the more comfortable we get with the sensations that come with anxiety — panic, fear, and accelerated heartbeat — the more we will discover that the emotions associated with these sensations come and go, like everything else.  

This is definitely in keeping with Barry McDonagh's DARE approach, and it's something I ascribe to as well. Getting our bodies accustomed to the physical sensations of anxiety--the cortisol and adrenaline pumping through our systems--while allowing our minds to understand that the wave will pass is core to recovery.

Feel the surge. Use the surge.

I loved that Sonia said: 

Over the course of the 20-minute meditation, which brought forth everything from increased heart rate to full blown tears, I discovered that my mind actually started to wander away from the things that I’m constantly anxious or worried about. And unlike in other meditations, where a distracted mind is something to combat, this mental meandering was a breath of relief that not only informed me that anxiety passes, but that whatever I am afraid of or avoiding is only as big a deal as I make it. It’s here now, but it’s just as likely to be gone in a moment.

This is understanding the wave. Once you see that the wave will pass, the next time it hits, you are more likely to be able to move with it.

Sonia's final words are powerful, and so, so true:

Breathe into  it.  it'll make you feel better.

The Secret Handshake

This is not how it works.

What Is It, and How Does It Work?

Backstory: I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder seven months ago.  At the time, I didn't see it coming at all, but as soon as I heard the words, it made a lot of sense. I'd always felt out-of-step with the mainstream and cautious in a way others around me didn't. I was drawn to people who were open about their vulnerabilities and frailties. I loved the early work of Albert Brooks.

Does anything about this speak to you? hahahaha

Since learning that what I felt was called anxiety, the mountain of information I've had all of these years inside of me now has shape. It all makes a lot more sense.

Here's an example: For years, a friend of mine has asked how I manage to create fun group conversations at parties. 

Pre-diagnosis,  I buried this feeling so deeply I didn't even recognize It was there. I just invented coping techniques and got migraines.

I told her that I'd hunker down in a corner and look to see if anyone else is doing the same. I'd toss out random topics to that stranger. By doing this, it was easy to get into engaging, non-small-talk conversation that others, in turn, were drawn into. 

Pre-diagnosis, I had this information: "people want to talk, but they don't always want to talk in big groups. Sometimes it's more fun to do it off to the side, about random, small topics." I didn't know why it was the case, but I knew:  "The off-to-the-side people seem to be my people."

Now that I understand that I'm highly sensitive and experience anxiety, I've merged this new understanding into my approach to parties. I'll sometimes admit that I'm feeling stressed out to the person I'm talking to in some subtle way. If it makes sense, I'll even cop to some anxiety. This is me extending my hand for the secret handshake.

Here's the shocking part: 9 times out of 10, that person will admit that they, too, feel the same way. They respond with their own confessional acknowledgement, taking my hand for the other half of the secret handshake. We end up having even better conversations (and needing to drink less). I'm getting fewer migraines and making more and better connections with others using the secret handshake.

Does this happen because I have a special ability to nose out other beautiful voyagers? Not more than any of us do. I think all of us who are highly sensitive have access to the secret handshake. It's an incredibly powerful skill, and not just in the party setting. If you were to know that the person you were about to be interviewed by had experienced anxiety, as you do, don't you think it would help you perform more naturally in that interview? Being able to read people and understand where they're coming from is like having x-ray vision. But it comes at a cost. It starts with making yourself vulnerable.

Found a photo of Albert Brooks shaking hands...

The hardest part of the secret handshake is that you have to drop the first clue about yourself for the other person to pick up. But you will find that as you do it over time you're going to be shocked at the number of people in your life that experience similar things that you do. They just don't talk about it or may not even realize it, as I didn't. In the past seven months, I've had more people say to me, "Wow, I thought I was alone in this." Or "It was so great to meet you" in a more deeply genuine way than ever before. 

The secret handshake: another tool for the superhero arsenal. 

the lasso of truth

No Matter How Rigid, Everything Can Bend

I came across this post about Spanish sculptor José Manuel Castro López and was blown away by what I saw. López carves his sculptures from quartz and granite, incorporating wood and other natural textures as needed.

The feeling it created in me, of transformation in the face of the immoveable, of waves of movement within the rigid, seemed like an incredible metaphor for The Beautiful Voyager.

It brings a smile to my face that López describes himself as "more of a druid than a sculptor."

Why do I do this project?

Hint: The goal is not to stress out my friends

I was recently talking to a friend about my writing and she expressed some (very gentle, supportive) skepticism about it.

Why aren’t you just writing private journal entries?…I’m just not clear on what your goal is. Because writing has helped you, you seem to think it will help everyone, and I’m not sure that that’s true.

In response to the question, “Do you like to read what I write?” She said,

Sometimes, yes. Because I’m proud of you for doing it and happy that it helps you. But sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, because it is so public and confessional. And more and more it’s written in a self-help style that I have an almost visceral reaction to. I imagine it being read out loud in a calming voice, like the Headspace guy. I don’t like being told how I feel, and how I will feel if I do what you do. It also feels indulgent — I sometimes feel jealous about the time that you have (when you’re not working). Though I don’t feel jealous about you waking up in the middle of the night.

This is what me stressed looks like -- migraine.

I want to address all of this because I don’t think she’s the only one who thinks these things. It causes me stress that I haven’t made my expectations clear for friends and loved ones who have witnessed every step of this journey.

For the past six months, I’ve been writing regularly in the form of two public projects: The Hero Series and The Beautiful Voyager.

In both projects I’m exploring whether cognitive behavioral techniques applied to social media will work to help myself and others feel better (= fewer migraine days), more positive, and more deeply connected. CBT is the theme that ties the work together.

“Yes, but what’s the goal?”

The doing is the goal.

It’s about learning not to say to myself, “If I get to this [arbitrary destination], I’ll be happy.” It’s flow or process-based (as opposed to goal-oriented) thinking. For both projects, the flow is the goal.

Hero Series: Focusing on the Good.

I started this project because I was feeling beaten down by the news. The project’s evolved a lot over time, but its core mission has remained the same.

Its goal is to collaboratively create a positive snowball effect that can help counteract the negative snowball of the news.

The Beautiful Voyager: Exploring Anxiety in Our Culture.

The Hero Series helped me manage my anxiety about the news by focusing on the good, but it also ignited my curiosity about the anxiety itself. I realized that there was so little information online that looked at the role of anxiety in our world as it related to me and the people around me. I was fascinated by how huge the topic is and how much there is to say.

The voyager comes in many shapes and sizes.

Its goal is to provide a first stop for people realizing that they may be beautiful voyagers.

The Beautiful Voyager is a way bigger deal to me. When I think about many of the negative things happening in society these days can be traced to our collective fear around riding the wave of our anxiety. I understand this physiological, hormonal wave deeply because I live it every day.

Setting expectations

I wrote this post on Medium and shared it on Facebook and Twitter. It was really to help with clarity for people who have always known me, even before I was writing about these topics. The whole creation of public projects has been kinda cool, kinda awkward with some of these friends. I think people don’t always know how they are supposed to react. So this is for that purpose.

For those of you that know me, if this is your first time being introduced to these projects, here’s what I would hope:

Join the public FB group if it’s relevant to you: Hero Series. Beautiful Voyager.

Join the writer’s group if you want to take part in the Hero Series conversation. If like me, you have an interest in knowing more about the role that anxiety plays in our culture, check out what I and other writers are posting on The Beautiful Voyager.

Friends rock.

Starting these projects has helped me tremendously, despite moving through the strangeness of the public space. I’ve already found some amazing like-minded seekers and connected more deeply with others who were there all along.

I hope that helps clear up any lingering confusion about why I choose to spend my time focusing on the good and embarking on the Beautiful Voyager.

Postpartum Anxiety & Postpartum Depression: Five Differences I Experienced

Note: After Stephanie and I did our QA about her postpartum anxiety last week, I got a great followup text from a reader who said, "I still don't understand what postpartum anxiety is, exactly. I want to know how it's different from postpartum depression because it's a new term to people, I think. And maybe hard to distinguish." I was super thankful for this feedback and brought it to Stephanie, who generously agreed to dig back in to her experiences with both and try to outline how they differ from each other. She explains it here from 5 different angles. - Meredith

photo by Stephanie Lucianovic

1. The Feeling of it : How Postpartum Anxiety Felt Different from Postpartum Depression

Postpartum Anxiety snuck up on me because I’ve always been anxious, always concerned about the things yet to be. As a kid, I worried about how I would protect my baby sister if bears blundered into my family’s cabin. Or how close my dad seemed to be driving to the edge of a Canadian mountain which seemed to have non-existent guardrails. Or how to save myself from a shark attack in a freshwater lake. In the middle of Michigan.

So when I started freaking out about child abductions, and cars jumping the curb to crash into me and the baby, or what would happen if I accidentally let go of the stroller and it rolled into the street, it all seemed perfectly normal to me. I mean, every parent worries about SIDS or their child dying in some horrible way or getting some extremely rare cancer at any age. But I worried about it ALL THE TIME.

That was the difference. I couldn’t turn it off.

I’d read one headline about a child abduction and my mind would leap and leap and leap: my child, abducted at this age, and raped, and murdered, and never found, and I’ll never get over it, and my marriage will fall apart, and I will die. Those were the racing thoughts that my therapist conditioned me to stop in their tracks so I didn’t spin out.

The Postpartum Depression just made me sad. It was a heavy, weighty, soul-crushing sadness. As it is with depression, no one thing made me sad as much as nothing made me feel happiness. I remember asking my husband, “Do you ever feel like you have nothing to look forward to for the rest of your life?” And his response was, “No, I look forward to this and you and us.” The “this” was our boys and their growing up. But I didn’t look forward to that because I just saw difficulty and torture and disappointment and tragedy.

I didn’t fully form suicidal thoughts along the lines of: “I want to kill myself by doing x, y, or z.” What I did feel was that I was such a misery of a mother that I was ruining my boys’ childhood and they would be so much better without me around.

2. Timeline: Postpartum Anxiety Hit at a Different Time Than Postpartum Depression

In both cases, the Postpartum Anxiety hit me at six months. The Postpartum Depression snuck in when I weaned my second son at nine months. I also weaned my first son at nine months but at the time I didn’t think I had Postpartum Depression. However, looking at how it manifested with my second son, I probably did have with my first son. I was simply able to deal with it without even knowing I was dealing with it.

In both cases, I lost my appetite when I weaned. When you’re nursing and losing vats of calories through breastmilk, you have the hugest, most awesome appetite. Everything tastes amazing and you want to eat it all. When I weaned, that all stopped: I wasn’t hungry and nothing tasted amazing or even just okay.

When I felt a sort of ennui or heaviness during this period with my first baby, I was able to do something to make myself feel better. I was able to go on regular walks — either alone, with the baby, or with the baby and another friend and her baby — and I was able to go to a regular postpartum baby and mommy yoga class. This constant stimulus of exercise or social contact helped keep off that vague heaviness I was starting to feel but never truly recognized.

However, with the second son, I had far less flexibility to just go on a walk or go to a yoga class or see another mother because I had my first son’s schedule or needs to consider along with everything else. The depression then cascaded over me, completely unchecked.

The fog at stanford. photo by stephanie lucianovic.

3. Treatment: How I Treated Postpartum Anxiety Differently Than Postpartum Depression

With the first occurrence of Postpartum Anxiety, I eventually saw a therapist. I wanted medication, but I was still breastfeeding so my therapist was hesitant to jump into that right off the bat. She wanted to try a cognitive approach and see if it would work. If it didn’t, we would find meds that were safe for nursing. Her cognitive approach came in the form of sessions with her combined with snapping a rubber band on my wrist to stop the racing thoughts from spinning me out of control. Also, keeping my walks long and regular and remembering to breathe deeply.

It worked. Within three months, I felt more in control of those horrible thoughts. They still lurked (as they do even today), but I could move on and just leave them where they were without it melting me down where I stood. As I mentioned above, I probably (and inadvertently) handled the burgeoning depression.

With the second occurrence of Postpartum Anxiety, I used the tools my therapist had given me the first time around. It was harder to deal with the second bout, though, because once again, I didn’t recognize it when it hit. It’s possible that because so much about the second birth seemed much easier than the first time (the hospital stay, the breastfeeding, those initial days, the first pediatrician visit, my own vaginal recovery), I thought the anxiety would be non-existent. That it was emotion amplified by being a first-time mother.

But I was wrong. Some things might have been easier the second time around, but the anxiety wasn’t. It was still there and it was still huge. Once my husband recognized what was happening, then I realized it as well and could start to deal with it. This time, it took more than the rubber band, though.

Because going to the postpartum yoga was impossible to schedule, I actively sought out meditation and started using Headspace. 10 minutes of meditation a day was about all I felt I had time for, but it made a huge difference to me and for my anxiety.

Treating the Postpartum Depression was harder. I had come to the realization that even one glass of wine intensified my anxiety the following day, so I cut out alcohol. Alcohol is an appetite stimulant so losing that along with losing my regular appetite (post-weaning) meant that I started losing lots of weight. Too much.

I lost my baby weight and then I kept going. At one really dark point, I weighed less than I did in high school, and it scared the crap out of me because I felt that I wasn’t able to do anything about it. My clothes bagged and hung on me, and my friends told me I looked gaunt. Not only did I look gaunt but I felt gaunt everywhere on the inside. Just hollowed out.

Some idiots will say, “Oh, I’d take that weight loss!” to which I will say, “Will you take the crushing, closely suicidal misery that came with it? Because you can’t have my weight loss without that.”

There was nothing good about my weight loss.

There was nothing healthy about my weight loss.

At no point did I feel inclined to dash off to Anthropologie and buy a bunch of their ridiculous outfits that only look good on the tiny and the wee because you can only feel inclined to do that if you feel happy. And I did not.

My exterior weight loss was a physical manifestation of my interior horror.

Part of my self-therapy was to go on runs instead of walks. My walks are usually long to be effective, so a 30-minute run was better for everyone’s schedule. However, they were also “better” for weight loss. I was burning calories at both ends and I knew it. But the runs — the despised, painful, can’t-think-of-anything-during-this-run-other-than-how-much-I-fucking-hate-runs — were my only true relief. I needed those endorphins so desperately. I also needed to think about nothing other than the act of running.

One talisman I had on these runs was a special red iPod touch given to me by a dear friend. She had it inscribed “See Stephanie run. Run, Stephanie, run.”

It kept me going. It still keeps me going.

I am happy to say that I gained all that weight back. I gained all my happiness back.

They Need you. Photo by Sam Breach.

A major turning point was when my older son’s preschool teacher took me aside to tell me I looked really skinny. I sort of brushed her off by saying I was weaning and dealing with postpartum “issues.” She gave me my space. But on another day, she said to me, “Those boys do need you, Stephanie” and I broke down in tears. I cried in the car on the way home. I cry every time I tell that story. (I’m crying as I type this now.) Because it just hit me so hard right then. Not what was going on, because I KNEW by then what was going on, but what I needed to do to get myself better.

I needed to shower.

I needed to get dressed.

I needed to put on makeup.

I needed to run.

I needed to breathe.

I needed to breathe.

I needed to breathe.

It’s different for everyone, but every one of those tiny things was a huge success for me. Every single one of those things meant I was taking that time for myself. And that was incredibly important. NOT selfish. Important. Lifesaving.

It’s like that whole airplane thing where you put on your own oxygen mask before helping others: I had to take care of myself before I could take care of others.

But before I did anything else, I had to talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. Without talking, there was no acknowledgement and no help or treatment.

4. The Lifting: Postpartum Anxiety's Departure

For me, the Postpartum Anxiety seemed to dissipate around nine months when the Depression ate it up. I think I still had intense flashes of the anxiety while also dealing with the depression but the depression seemed to black hole everything else around it so it’s hard for me to know.

It’s much harder for me to pinpoint when the depression finally lifted. I know it was gone by the time my second son had his first birthday but it might have just vanished the month before. I think I got to the point when I finally could tell that every day was a little bit better than the last. One day I woke up and it was truly gone.

I was very close to going back to the therapist and getting medication when the relief started to peep in the cracks. I still have anxiety and I still deal with it, albeit as a now-larger presence in my life.

5. Awareness: Talking about Postpartum Anxiety versus Postpartum Depression 

Mostly, I find that people know what Postpartum Depression is but they don’t know that Postpartum Anxiety exists until they go through it or know someone who goes through it.

I don’t have an explanation why this is other than people seem to accept that Postpartum Depression — cuted up with a verbal hair bow and fat cheeks as “Baby Blues” — is something that “sometimes” happens to “some” people. But it’s shunted away from polite society as something “we just don’t talk about because it’s rather unseemly.”

That kind of head-in-sand, bullshit attitude is out-of-touch, ignorant, and deadly. It’s also that attitude that is making damn sure we don’t know a whole lot about Postpartum Anxiety. And that we fail to recognize out-of-control anxious thoughts as something far more serious than just the stress of being a new parent. As something that needs to be acknowledged, investigated, called to carpet, and treated.

In some ways, Postpartum Anxiety is more insidious than Postpartum Depression because it looks like, walks like, and talks like regular anxiety amplified by a life-changing event.

But both need to be dragged into the light to stop the suffering.

Last Word:

Stephanie, Henry, and Arthur

Going through the Postpartum Anxiety and Depression helped me recognize my anxiety for what it is and probably for what it has always been.

I am not afraid of medication and I do take Ativan when I need it.

I also run, do yoga, and am taking a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class at Stanford, which has been another game-changer for my life.

However, I will not be afraid or ashamed about going back to therapy or taking a daily medication if the need arises.

My family and I deserve my best self and if my best self needs more help: Bring. It. On.

Stephanie has been a writer and editor for fifteen years, during which time she wrote a non-fiction narrative on the secret lives of picky eaters (Perigee 2012) and been a contributor to The New York Times, Motherlode, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, CNN's Eatocracy, Previously.TV, The Hairpin, The Atlantic Wire, and Avidly/LA Review of Books. Stephanie has also developed cookbooks for William-Sonoma, worked on a TV show with Jacques Pepin, and been known to compose cheese-based Christmas carols on the fly while mongering in one of San Francisco's stinkiest cheese shops. 

She lives in Menlo Park with her two cats, two boys, and her math professor husband.

Postpartum Anxiety: Stephanie Lucianovic's Story

Stephanie and Sir Arthur (or Cricket for short)

Stephanie Lucianovic and I first met a long, long time ago. I was working on a food magazine called CHOW. She was a recipe tester and writer, new to San Francisco. I loved how she mixed sardonic humor with insight about food and pop culture (hers is a familiar voice to fans of Television Without Pity). 

Stephanie wrote about her experiences with postpartum anxiety back in 2013 when she was still in the midst of it (and before the depression set in).  I wanted to ask her some questions about the experience. It's more widespread than you might realize...

MA: Did you know anything about postpartum anxiety before you were diagnosed with it?

SL: No. I knew about postpartum depression, but being told by a therapist that my racing thoughts and constant catastrophizing about my new baby was because of anxiety amplified by the postpartum stew I was in was completely new to me. 

I was really (am still) annoyed that people talk so much about postpartum depression but not about postpartum anxiety. Because of this dearth of discussion, people going through it do not necessarily realize they are dealing with something real and treatable.

MA: What was the most confusing part of your experience? The most surprising? 

SL: The most confusing part was trying to see a therapist. I tried to go through my health insurance company but they — of course — are a complete mess with most things but mental health services in particular. I couldn’t even call the regular access line to learn about which professionals near me took my insurance. I had to be given some completely other phone number to call and start that entire call, jab numbers, wait, jab more numbers, get a real person, explain wait, etc. process all over again. It’s not like it’s news that the health insurance industry treats mental health like some backdoor enterprise but it was demoralizing to have it confirmed in such a ridiculous way.

The most surprising part was that postpartum anxiety existed. And also that breastfeeding doesn’t ward it off or prevent it from happening, which seems to be a thing breastfeeding advocates like to trumpet.

MA: All told, how long did your postpartum anxiety last?

SL: About nine months, which is when I weaned. With my first son, I assume that’s when my postpartum depression set in but I didn’t realize it because I was making sure to get out, go for walks, go to postpartum yoga, be around other new mothers, etc. With my second son, I was managing two kids’ very different schedules, so I couldn’t just do whatever I wanted and therefore felt my postpartum depression much more keenly and disastrously. So for that second time, my postpartum anxiety went nine months but then the postpartum depression was with me for longer. It was almost a year before I felt that it had lifted.

MA: This question comes from a discussion we had about the topic. One of the first things I had to learn about worrying is that it wasn't helping me get things done. In other words, I wasn't better at my job, etc, for worrying. In what ways do you agree or disagree? What (if anything) do you think anxiety has brought to your life? 

SL: I have always been a worrier. This has just been who I am. My parents called me the family “worrywart,” and I’ve grown up accepting that it’s part of me. I used to think that worrying was my way of preparing myself for how I would deal with the catastrophic. Like, that I had to think through the horrible events since I knew I was the only one who would then be prepared to deal with them while everyone else fell apart.

Stephanie's book on picky eating -- check it out

To some respect, worrying does/did help me get things done. I was never late with a paper in college because the impending deadline gave me so much anxiety and the same goes for every freelance writing or editing assignment I’ve ever had. Ditto when I worked in publishing and treated our various deadlines as, you know, REAL deadlines. I’ll never forget when I was twisting over whether Editorial was going to get the catalog copy finished on time and my managing editor said, “Bless her, she thinks deadlines actually matter around here!”

The best thing that happened to me was when my agent (for my book) once said to me, “Deadlines slip, print dates are moved” when I was stressing out whether or not I’d finish the manuscript on time. I did finish it on time — even a week early — but I put myself and my family through such hell during that writing time because I was so anxious that I wouldn’t make the deadline.

So, yes, anxiety has made me “productive” but all that worrying is a horrible way to live.

And yet: I know that being a picky eater is connect to being an anxious person and if I hadn’t been a picky eater for 27 years, I wouldn’t have turned into someone who adores food as much as I do now. I wouldn’t have written my first book about it.

Also, if I hadn’t been so anxious, I wouldn’t have consistently pursued the things that relieved my anxiety (running, hiking, yoga, and meditation) which now do more for me than just relieve my anxiety. For instance, if I’m blocked on a work-in-progress, I’ve gotten better (but not perfect) at backing away from it. Instead of banging my head on the keyboard, trying to beat it out of myself I go on a run or I meditate. Quite frequently, the block I was experiencing releases during one of those times. Other times meditation, hikes, or runs actually inspire new projects.

To some respects, I could say that having anxiety that needs to be managed has a direct line to being more creative and a better writer. It’s a bit like how my asthma makes me healthier because I run.

I have asthma—> Asthma is helped by lung strengthening —> Running (exercise) strengthens your lungs —> I run —> I am overall healthier because I run

MA: What do you wish people most knew about postpartum anxiety?

SL: That it’s real. That it happens. And it needs to be acknowledged, brought out into the open and talked about as much as we talk about retightening our freaking kegel muscles after giving birth. 

People do not need to suffer in silence or think that what they are going through is an inability to handle being a parent.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share this info, Stephanie! I definitely want to revisit some of these topics with you again in the future.

Transatlantic GADfest

Questions from an American Gaddie to a UK GADDer

Rachel Hawkins of Our.Rach from Bristol, England (in conversation with Meredith Arthur)

MA: Did you make up the term GADDer? I made up Gaddie. I don’t know what we’re actually called, either in the US or in the UK.

RH: To be honest, I’ve never really referred to it as a term, but I guess if I were to then it would be GADer.  I’m not too sure if there is a term that is referred to GAD sufferers, I’ve certainly never heard of anything before.

MA: Can you tell us a little about how you found out you had GAD? How did you decide to start writing about it? 

RH: I was diagnosed in January 2015.  I’ve always been something of a worrier, dating back to early childhood. I was diagnosed with OCD at the age of 8 and struggled with the overwhelming feeling of worrying on and off for years subsequently.  Everything came to a head for me during 2014 and into early 2015, I had my son in late 2013 and suffered from Post Natal Depression & Anxiety, I had a breakdown New Year 2015 which culminated in me being diagnosed.  I had it in my head that I was suffering from something like Bipolar or Schizophrenia, health anxiety has always been at the helm of my anxious state.  I was put on Citalopram which is an SSRI drug, slowly building up my dosage (I was terrified of the side effects – to be honest, they were nowhere near as bad as I thought they’d be) and referred to the Mental Health team near to where I live.  This was for me to be assessed for Bipolar and/or other mental health conditions.  After a couple of appointments where we discussed all sorts of topics surrounding my mental health, it was decided that I was in fact suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder.  I’d heard about the condition before, and wondered if I may have had it, once the diagnosis was confirmed everything started to make sense a little bit.

In June 2015 I decided I wanted to finally fulfil a long term goal of mine, to begin a blog.  I didn’t consider writing about GAD or my experience with PND/PNA initially but in August 2015 I decided the time was right for me to put finger to keypad and talk about my illness and what I’d been through.  The reason for this was twofold.  I find writing cathartic and I also wanted to potentially help others.  I recall reading a few blogs about Post Natal OCD when I was at my very worst, not long after I’d had my son.  It helped me more than you could ever imagine, to realise that what I was suffering, was something that others suffered from too.  Although I wouldn’t wish the condition on my worst enemy, it did help me to gain a tiny bit of perspective at a very challenging and turbulent time.

MA: Was it hard for you to talk about in the beginning? Did you feel like you were “coming out of the closet”? I ask because I’m trying to figure out how the UK is different or similar to the US.

RH: In all honestly, it really wasn’t.  I remember my first ever ‘mental health’ blog.  It was called  ‘My Experience With Post Natal Depression & Anxiety’, it was such a long post, but I really enjoyed writing it.  It put a lot of things to bed for me and meant my site took on a totally different dimension.  To have people contact me to say that reading my post had helped them was one of the best feelings in the world.  It meant so much to me that it had meant something to them.  Looking back, I can recall feeling a surge of anxiety and adrenaline when I hit publish on the post itself.  I knew deep down that I wouldn’t be judged, the people I have on my Facebook/Twitter etc. wouldn’t do such a thing.  Yeah there were people who I’d hoped might respond to it but didn’t, or contact me to ask how I was but never did, but hey I firmly believe when you go through something like I have, you realise who your true friends are.  You learn a lot about yourself and the people around you.

Here in the UK, I still find mental health seems to have a stigma that needs breaking down, even in the year 2016.  What worries me is how there seems to be many people out there who don’t feel like they are able to discuss their mental health condition as openly as they would if they had broken their leg for example or had a physical condition.  This makes me sad, by opening up about the conditions we suffer from, it allows us to accept support from others’ we might not have had and indeed treatment, if we hadn’t have discussed our mental health.  It also helps to break down these barriers that seem to surround so many people who suffer from mental health illnesses.  I hate the thought of anyone suffering in silence, feeling frighteningly alone and worrying they would be judged or vilified if they told someone how they were feeling.

MA: How does having anxiety differ in a mid-sized city like Bristol as opposed to London? Or a small town? Do you think it makes a difference? I think having anxiety in San Francisco, CA can be a different experience than in, say, Defiance, Ohio (where I lived as a little kid). 

Bristol looks pretty! I've never been.

RH: Difficult one to answer as I’ve only ever lived in Bristol. Bristol has, speaking from experience, a good mental health crisis team who I’ve dealt with on 2 separate occasions.  They don’t judge, they understand and they know exactly the right treatment to deliver in order to enable recovery.  I am a huge champion of the NHS, I feel incredibly lucky to live where I do and to have received the treatment I needed to get better.  Having spoke to a few people who suffer from mental health conditions in other parts of the UK, it’s my understanding that other cities around the country aren’t as lucky as us Bristolians.  Waiting lists can be a lot longer than Bristol’s and the right support can be hard to pinpoint.

MA: My impression is that there are more resources in England for anxiety than there are in the US, be it blogs or books (I’m reading DARE right now). Or, said differently, the awareness and discussion around anxiety seems more nuanced and mature than it does here in the US. Does that seem accurate to you?

RH: That’s an interesting point.  I work for an Education charity where mental health and wellbeing of staff is taken very seriously.  I definitely feel supported there, it’s a topic that I wouldn’t shy away from discussing there.  I definitely think that things are changing with mental health in the UK in that the Government seem to be taking it more seriously which is incredibly important.  I only hope they continue to inject as much money as possible into mental health services.

I’ve read some fantastic British blogs around the topic of anxiety and depression.  But then equally I’ve also read some great American ones too, a Post Partum Depression one will always stick out in my mind, I found great solace in that blog at the end of 2013.

Aside from support from health professionals,  I think there are some superb Anxiety support groups on Facebook, of which I’m a member.  There are also some GAD support groups too which are equally fantastic – it’s great to have those resources so easily assessable.  Mindfulness is something that has really taken off in the UK over the last couple of years, I’ve read a book by Ruby Wax around this topic. Mindfulness is a very effective tool in combating anxiety and I cannot speak highly enough about it, I’d certainly recommend fellow anxiety sufferers researching Mindfulness a little.

Charities like SANE, Time To Change and Anxiety UK do fantastic work to raise awareness of mental health and support sufferers.

From this side of the world, thank you so much for taking the time to share your wisdom, Rachel!

Sensitivity -> Superpower: Step One

Anxiety robs us of our intuition.

Whether a small decision like choosing what to wear, or a big one like a career pivot, anxiety drowns out our instincts. 

Why, thank you officer. Very soothing.

My theory: Anxiety is a hyper-sensitivity. If we can tune in to that sensitivity and use it as a strength, it becomes our super power. But in order to do it, we have to turn down the volume on our self-questioning, and turn it up on our self-understanding. 

Trying to figure out which is instinct and which is anxiety. Seems so "devil on a shoulder." Despite the paucity of two volume knob photos to illustrate the concept, I'm not assuming that you have an angelic instinct.

We each work on turning down the anxiety volume in our own individual ways (here are some places to start if you need them). But what about turning up the instinct dial?  

A place to start is with these two questions:

What motivates you? What comforts you?

Motivation, when tapped into, can be an incredible source of energy and power. It's your engine. Being disconnected from what motivates you is like being in a car with a dead battery.

A little over a year ago, a close friend told me that I am a creator. "You need to be creative," she said. "Without it, you get stuck." It was an incredible clue about my motivation. Recently my husband gave me another one: "You want to understand the world for the joy of discovery. You like to solve puzzles and understand things for their own intrinsic value, not for business. In this, you're more like an artist."  For years, I wouldn't create anything because I wasn't a designer (having worked with designers, I know that they are amazing). I wouldn't write because having worked with incredible writers, I didn't feel I could compare. I now realize, though, that I was unplugging my own battery. I'm motivated by surprise, discovery, and clarity.

When I feel confused, I try to come back to that realization and turn the self-awareness volume up.

What motivates you? 

Being comforted is a feeling that many of us with anxiety seek out. We want to stop bad feelings and replace them with good ones. For this reason, figuring out how what comforts you in a healthy way can be an important first step to getting back in touch with your own instincts.

I've always been comforted by the the feeling of being understood. It's the good friend I described knowing me better than I knew myself. It's my husband helping me get plugged back in. [It's little, dumb things: someone who gets that I prefer Bojack Horseman to Game of Thrones (sorry).]

But what comforts us can be also be problematic. If I feel misunderstood at the wrong moment (violent tv shows are pretty common, and most people like them) I can quickly slip back into generalizations, black-and-white thinking, and catastrophizing.

It seems as though what comforts us can help with our self-understanding, but it can accidentally hit the anxiety volume knob as well. 

Knowing what comforts you and giving it context can help you to stay healthy. "Though I desire to be understood, I know that it's not something I can experience all the time. I'll enjoy and appreciate it when it happens."

Superpower activate!