Why I Started Writing About My Anxiety Disorder

Photo of rocky beach in Queensland, Australia, where the author is from. Photo credit

I wanted to help others (and myself).

I struggled with anxiety my whole life and didn’t even know it. I thought that everyday life was meant to be this hard and that I needed to keep pushing through like everyone else. Last year, I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). It changed everything.

I now understand why I worried about every little thing all the time. Why I would have anxiety attacks over seemingly nothing. Why my body was exhibiting strange and difficult symptoms that slowly beat me down each and every single day.

Once I was able to understand GAD, I began to explain to friends and family why I was the way that I was. Almost everyone was shocked as I had hidden it well beneath an extroverted personality and confident manner.

When I tried to find a support forum or a site that I could relate to and help me with GAD, I came up with practically nothing (except for Beautiful Voyager). Anxiety awareness seemed to be buried beneath many other serious mental disorders and issues. I think this is due to the stigma that people with anxiety were merely irrationally dramatic worriers. What they don’t know is it’s actually a physical response to dangers that is seen everywhere by our mind and body. We cannot control it.

This is the reason why I decided to start my blog. Firstly, I wanted to challenge this stigma and educate everyone on what anxiety disorders really are. Secondly, I wanted to share my experiences in the hopes that it can help people. And thirdly, I wanted to create a community of informed individuals to share awareness and help those suffering in silence.

Whether you are struggling yourself, or perhaps you have a friend or family member with this disorder, I can share with you my experiences and knowledge to help you through this as best as I can.

You are not alone. 

Love always, Anxious Butterfly

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Nicole lives on the sunny Gold Coast in Queensland Australia. She is the creator of Anxious Butterfly, where she share her life story and embarrassing escapades to raise awareness about anxiety disorders.

My Health Anxiety

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It’s worse at night. It’s 11pm, I’m lay in bed reading a book, alarm set for eight, and suddenly my brain connects my recent fatigue, a sore throat, and choking on the quorn nuggets I ate for dinner (which FYI are delicious) into a fear that I may have some sort of incurable cancer. I open google, which is never a good thing yet I convince myself I’m being responsible checking on my health, and my mind spirals out of control when the symptoms I’ve been experiencing lead me onto the NHS page for oesophagus cancer. I’m overwhelmed, scared, panicked. I need someone to help me stop this disease but the doctors aren’t open, nobody is awake, nobody can help. What if the endoscopy I had 6 months ago missed something? What if I’ve been ignoring symptoms and it’s too late? What if the doctor won’t send me for tests due to coronavirus?

These are some of the thoughts that pass through my mind when I’m having a health induced panic attack. Let me put in boldly, health anxiety sucks. There’s no positive spin I can put on it, simply put, it sucks. It has affected nearly every aspect of my life at some point, friends, education, dating, work performance, life events, but in the last year I’ve managed to take some control over my thoughts and fears revolving around health, the first step, acknowledging what I experience is an anxiety.

Recognizing my thoughts and fears are an anxiety remains a big step to help manage my brain from spiraling out of control. I’ve learnt that health anxiety is different for every person. I hope that reading some of my experiences can aide in recognizing anxiety within health, and will aide you in knowing that you are not alone.

My anxiety comes in phases, these can last from a few hours, to more consuming phases that can last weeks, months, and more severely, years. I have never worried about getting a cold, or a throat infection, or breaking my arm, my anxiety is sparked by diseases that are fatal. They are sparked from various triggers, hearing about a disease for the first time, finding out the reason for somebody’s death was an incurable illness, watching medical TV dramas, finding symptoms.

When experiencing a phase my mind feels out of control. I find a lump under my armpit, or I realise that my bowel pattern has altered, I play out the events in my mind of what could happen if I have a disease Google has so kindly told me I have. This opens the floodgates of thoughts that race across my mind…. Did I catch it too late? How will I tell people I love? Why isn’t anybody taking this serious? I can’t fully control my health, that sparks panic in me. I can control what I eat, I can control curing tonsillitis with antibiotics, but I find it hard to comprehend there’s even the slightest possibility that my chest pain could be a heart attack and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Last year I decided to try CBT for my Health Anxiety. I reached out to a fantastic young person organization in Manchester called 42nd Street for support. I felt stupid at first, like this wasn’t a real issue, like I didn’t deserve to be taking up somebody’s time. Often my anxiety was dismissed by others when I started talking openly about my dark thoughts as silly or with someone claiming they’re also a ‘big hypochondriac’. It was hard to explain that I can’t concentrate on an assignment right now or the reason I’m a little quiet tonight is because I’m scared that the cough I have is the starting of lung cancer, without feeling like I was being ridiculous. I couldn’t convey how consuming and lonely the feeling is. I’d trick myself into thinking I’m overreacting for a brief moment, then stay up all night looking into the details of a disease that I can’t possibly even have because I’m not over sixty and female. CBT was the first time I was able to openly explore what I was feeling and rationalise my experiences out loud with someone guiding me through my thoughts.

We looked back at when I first remembered experiencing my fear of getting a serious illness. Two vivid phases stand out in my mind. One where I feared I had a heart murmur or something was wrong with my heart. I was probably fourteen at the time, I remember checking my pulse excessively throughout the day, leaving class in school to check that my heart beat felt normal, when I had a slight pain in my chest the only thing that would comfort me was going to A&E. I’d panic my parents and we’d drive to the hospital, sometimes even just sitting in the car park at the hospital would calm me down and I’d tell my concerned parents that I’m ok. Another time I was having headaches in Year 11, the headaches were bad, I googled and the only possible solution was I had a brain tumour. There were several triggers that sparked this phase, a phase that lasted over a year, including a scene on Waterloo Road where a girl who was having headaches developed an incurable tumour that resulted in her death, an in-depth story from a classmate on how her father recently passed away from a brain tumour, and a nurse who said she was ‘heavily concerned’ when I told her I’d been having headaches. It consumed me. I was convinced I was dying. I was frustrated that I wasn’t being taken seriously and nobody was sending me for tests. I took time off school loosing motivation for exams that I felt no longer mattered, I distanced myself from friends, I spent the majority of the day thinking about what could happen, all at the age of fifteen – that’s a lot of a fifteen-year-old to carry on their shoulders. It was only when after numerous doctors’ appointments one doctor asked me why my hair was so wet that he suggested seeing if the headaches went away with a simple blow dry – which they did.

I discovered my biggest fear in these sessions. Turns out my biggest fear is realising I have a disease that I didn’t catch in time. I cried a lot when I first said that out loud. I’d never said those words out loud before. My counsellor didn’t make me feel like that was stupid, didn’t tell me how to change what I was feeling, she empathised “that must be a hard burden to carry on your shoulders, I can’t imagine how hard that must be for you.” Someone realised how this was affecting me. This feeling is real.

Another thing I explored is when a phase went away. I made a diary of every serious illness I’d feared that I could have, and what happened that made that overwhelming feeling evaporate. Although it was different for each experience, I found that the most frequent occurrence was knowing I’m getting help. Feeling like I’m being tested would ease my panic often before even knowing the results. My irrational thoughts sometimes immediately evaporated as soon as I got the NHS letter through the door for a CT scan. I know that action is being taken, and somehow realise how irrational I’ve been almost overnight. It clicked, sometimes I’m not necessarily scared of the symptoms of a disease or even the disease itself, I’m panicked that I’m not being taken seriously enough. When you’ve convinced yourself that you have a potentially fatal disease and a doctor brushes it off as a virus you suddenly feel powerless. Nobody is helping me and my world is falling apart. Something as simple as an out of hours’ test couple be the difference between life and death, so why aren’t they sending me for tests? Save me. I sometimes wish that I could be tested for every disease possible on a regular basis, I get frustrated still that this is out of my control.

I told my councillor at 42nd street that I’m scared that I’m never going to be able to overcome my heath anxiety because there’s always something that could be something. As soon as one lump clears, a pain develops elsewhere. We did some exercises that helped with symptoms. One was focusing on different parts of my body, and recognising that when I’m excessively focused on a symptom, for example constantly touching and examining my throat for tonsil cancer is bound to cause some irritation to my throat, creating a symptom (FYI I have very big tonsils and it’s not a pretty sight – sorry to all the doctors who’ve had to endure extensive examinations). Focusing so intensely on symptoms of a disease can create them. Your mind is powerful.

A big problem I still struggle with is acceptance, I discussed this a lot in my CBT. Accepting that, no matter how minute, there is a possibility of getting seriously sick. I’m not completely able to settle with this, but I can do things to help. Now I realise that what I suffer with health anxiety, just knowing this sometimes settles my mind. I don’t try to push away the thought, I can sit with it a little better knowing that I’m experiencing anxiety, and hopefully it passes. Often, it doesn’t, and I can easily spiral into a phase. To avoid this I limit habits, or at least attempt to. Big habits for me I realise include Googling symptoms and/or diseases (never Google anything, ever), excessively trying to get reassurance from friends that I’m ok, worrying that I either a) haven’t been sent for a test, or b) the test somehow got mixed up and I didn’t get the right result. These habits are symptoms of a serious illness, and that illness is health anxiety.

Something I still don’t know the answer to is what is normal and what isn’t normal. It’s important to check things for your health, I know more than anyone. I sometimes feel like I could pass an exam to become a junior doctor with the amount of research time I’ve put in. But when is too much? When are you ignoring every probability that you are absolutely fine and obsessing over the fraction of possibility that you have something worse than a general cold? I don’t know the answer, that’s something I struggle with. That is hard. I can’t ignore my health completely, all I can do is try to manage my anxiety in a way that it doesn’t affect my quality of life, like I know Health Anxiety can.

I live a busy life. A doctor once told me something that often reassures me: “Cancer moves fast, so the fact that your symptoms aren’t getting worse is a good sign that this isn’t anything serious.’ Sometimes time is on your side, and eventually enough time has passed for you know you don’t have something serious, or for you to forget to focus on your symptoms completely. Sometimes my midnight fear that I have a pain in my groin clears when the following day I rush around a rehearsal all day, get home, and realise that I haven’t had a pain at all since I’ve not been prodding the area in a search for lumps.

A game changer happened to me in the past year. For the first time in my entire life, I discovered I had something. Through all of the years of phases and fears, appointments, and late night online forums, none of my fears ever resulted to be even remotely close to true. I came back from a trip to Korea (South of course), and upon return, I vomited some blood. I actually wasn’t worried, but my mum took me to A&E to be on the safe side. I was sent for a test called a gastroscopy, which is a tube that has to go down your oesophagus and examine your stomach. It’s pretty grim, and if you ever have to have one, I implore you to get sedated – which is also kind of fun when you’ve done it and aren’t googling the fatality rate in outpatient sedations. I found out that I had a hernia in my belly and had severe GERD. My oesophagus was scarred, and my stomach wasn’t in a good way. I was told if I wouldn’t have had the procedure when I did then I could have had an internal rupture in the next few years. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d had symptoms for a long time for GERD and a hiatus hernia. After going for meals I’d often vomit, I’d have to stay up at night often because of acid reflux, yet this was the one thing I’d never been concerned about. It was almost normal after experiencing it for so long. It was only when I starting treatment that I realised what it was like to have a meal and not feel like you need to be sick for the next six hours. In fact, I actually had to call the doctor because I thought there was something wrong which clearly was the opposite, clearly not heathy to be sick after every other meal. I spoke with a friend of mine about it, and something clicked, my friend suggested maybe the anxiety I’d been feeling towards searching for an illness that I didn’t have was my body’s way of telling me that something wasn’t quite right, and I was vesting that in the wrong places. This was a big turning point for me. Knowing that my worst fear was coming true, I had something that could be serious, didn’t feel as scary as I thought it would, it was being dealt with, I am ok.

Throughout my adulthood my health anxiety has affected many aspects of my life. In relationships I’ve obsessed over partners’ sexual health, I’ve quit jobs during phases where I don’t want to waste any time, I’ve cut off friends who brushed off dark periods as an overreaction. Health anxiety has always been with me, I’ve accepted this is something that can’t be wiped away, but I’m in control now, I can accept my thoughts, I can recognise my anxiety and cut out habits without being neglectful to my health. I’ve been lucky that my phases have become less frequent, there’s been months and months where I haven’t been worried about my health, but I’ve been changed by understanding how lucky I am to be healthy and well. I now realise the gift of being a so-called ‘hypochondriac’ (a phrase that seems to be joked by often), the gift is appreciating the time I have when I have overcome a phase, I realise the luxury I have that many don’t have to be able to feel everything is ok.

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John is an actor, singer, and writer from Manchester in the UK. He is passionate about telling stories for groups that are unrepresented within film, music, and media, particularly how masculinity and mental health is portrayed.

John studied Television & Radio at the University of Salford. He is currently undertaking his MA at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in Professional Acting.

This past year John has been working on a memoir that explores his discovery of his own masculinity being a young adult. Alongside writing and performing John performs as a singer/songwriter, his recent single ‘Worth’ with Chris Durkin was released to a positive reception, and he is the lead singer of the band China Moon.

Whilst at university John blogged his studies on a previous student blog, and now as a young adult desires to pursue blogging about mental health.

I'm a Stubborn Middle-Aged Guy With an Anxiety Disorder

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I am a stubborn, idiotic, typical guy, age 40. That’s the best way I can describe myself. Sounds a little harsh, I know, but ever since I can remember I have been so rigid in my ways, and so stubborn in my outlook on life, especially when it came to my anxiety disorder.

Imagine your typical guy, drinking 3–4 days per week with his buddies, working a regular 9–5 job (not particularly headed anywhere), avoiding the doctor at all costs, scoffing at any advice given, eating whenever and whatever I wanted, working out sporadically, just struggling through life strapped with a bad anxiety disorder. I think the one quality I inherited from my father was this incredibly stubborn personality, and the thought that a “real man” did not need doctors, or that mental health even needed to be addressed.

The underlying anxiety disorder that I have had since I was a child was always there, in the background, popping up in waves, and I was resistant to even acknowledge it, let alone do anything to make it better. The situation just kept getting worse and worse, panic attacks more frequent and longer lasting, and me just increasing my self-medication with more avoidance, more alcohol, more drugs. Then, the tipping point came. I had a full-on panic attack breakdown, while massively hungover at work facing a day full of meetings with new clients, boss right next to me, I just completely broke down. I was a sniffling, crying, shaking, heart-pounding, borderline heart attack complete mess. I think the hangover was what pushed it over the edge, or maybe the fact the day would be so long, or the fact that meeting new people always puts me into anxiety mode, but I was forced to bolt, escape, run away. I made up some bogus excuse about not feeling well, not sure exactly what I said to tell the truth, but I think my boss could tell something was up, especially since I still had some tears in my eyes from full on cry-barfing minutes earlier, who knows, maybe he smelled the booze from the night before. I raced home, took a few shots of Jameson and a couple Xanax I had from a friend and proceeded to hide under my covers for the rest of the day wondering if I should go to the ER. I called out the following day as well. It was a feeling of complete and utter hopelessness, filled with dread, heart racing, just wondering what the future would hold for me. I could not stop thinking about the future and the anxiety ruminations continued on and on for days. I was forced to conclude that I needed to find some help, I could not live like this anymore. It was either find help or find a way to off myself in a painless, cowardly way.

I am now able to say that I am obliterating my anxiety disorder, like a Ferrari racing against a Saab, destroying it. Here are the steps I took, and what I changed to make this happen.

Stubborn Idiot Seeks Help

This was perhaps the toughest part for me. I do not like doctors or their stupid, sterile, boring offices, with their old magazines on the rack, and bad attitude receptionists. Not to mention the smell, what is it about all doctor’s offices that make it smell like someone just cleaned with ammonia and formaldehyde? I had not been to the doctor in years, and the last time was at an urgent care clinic just to get some drugs for the flu. Where to even start? Headed to google, looked up: “competent psychiatrist in my area.” I think google can see through my sarcasm and cynicism and just presented a list of shrinks. I honestly looked for the one with the nicest website. If they could take the time to make sure their website looked sharp, was well put together, maybe they can actually help a stubborn Idiot like me. The one I finally landed on was perfect, even had pictures of their doctors so I could start my uneducated judging of them immediately, reading biographies, looking at their faces, their clothing, trying to hand pick who I could stomach. Found one, called, made appointment, done. For now.

Appointment day came and I managed to drag myself into their office with worst case thoughts in my head the entire time. I even knew what the office would look like already, image in my head right down to the type of couch. I can say, I was pleasantly surprised when I showed up, no sterile smell, the area was warm like someone’s living room, receptionist was friendly and they were playing Bob Ross on the big screen in the waiting room, no stupid magazines. I even asked the bubbly, smiling receptionist about the Bob Ross, and she replied, studies have shown he has an amazing affect on calming anxiety and improving depression. Maybe it is his cadence, or the art, or the afro. I was pleased. Appointment went well, I guess we covered the basics that everyone does at their first meeting with a psychiatrist, but we agreed to keep meeting and he was able to introduce me to a therapist in the same office that I could meet with immediately, just to talk. This was positive. I know not everyone will luck out like this but going into it with my piss poor attitude did not bode well for the outcome, and everything worked out anyways. I guess the moral to this story could be that it does not really matter where you start, or who you meet with, you just need to get help from someone and go from there. I have kept the same therapist and psychiatrist for 2 years now, and while they have their faults, I am still too stubborn and rigid to try anyone else, that part of me has not changed and probably will not. He could have punched me in the face in our first meeting and I would probably still be seeing him. They both help, they both give me good advice, and more importantly, have set me on a medication plan that is far better than Jameson and hand me down drugs from friends.

Stubborn Idiot Tells Everyone about his Anxiety

Tell everyone. Suck up your stupid pride, put away your guy’s-guy attitude about being tough and untouchable and tell people about your anxiety disorder and what you are dealing with. Despite what I thought, I was amazed at the compassion and understanding I was met with when I opened up and told people what I was dealing with. When I told my boss, he was completely understanding and even told me he knew something was going on. He went over what we can do to move forward and told me about what our company offers for mental health. When I told my buddies, they gave me a hard time at first, some slight ribbing about being a psycho, but ultimately let me know that they were there for me and would help with anything I needed. When I told my favorite bartender, she told me she would help me cut back on alcohol and even started automatically serving me sporadic “water shots” and ginger ales. When I told my girlfriend, she broke down in tears and felt I should have told her sooner because she loves me and wants to make my life better. When I told my parents, they opened up and told me they both dealt with the same issues, and it was probably hereditary, we went over all the things they do that helps them. I felt completely relieved that I was not “in the closet” about my anxiety anymore. Now, if I am having a bad day, I don’t need to say much more, or make up an outlandish excuse about why I can’t make it to the (insert event here) they all understand and let me know they care. It is an amazing feeling not to hide anymore and need to self-medicate.

Stubborn Idiot Cuts the Bad From Life

On the advice of the aforementioned therapist and psychiatrist that I now meet with monthly, I have begun to cut the bad things out of my life. What I thought was good for me and provided a release was in fact exacerbating and making my anxiety worse. This primarily meant: Stop drinking so much! As a self-proclaimed guy’s-guy, this was difficult, but was not impossible. I did not stop cold turkey, in fact did not even stop drinking really, did not stop going to the bar to meet with my buddies. Due to my stubborn, borderline OCD tendencies, I could not just stop completely, I did things my way and changed it up. You can do the same, in your own way. First instead of going to the bar 3–4 times a week, I cut down to 2 and divided my week up the way I wanted, also predetermined by sports obligations and UFC fights. While at the bar, I promised myself to start mixing my beer and shots with water and ginger ale. I paced myself at first, slowing it all down, drinking slower, not taking up every offer for shots, and most importantly not stumbling out of the bar each time. I have now gotten to the point where I only visit the bar 1–2 times per month, and I only drink about 3 beers each time, with no shots. This way, I can still keep up with my buddies, still see my favorite bartender, and still feel like I have a life outside of work. I found that the alcohol was numbing me from feeling anything and have learned that in order to obliterate anxiety, you need to face it head on, not avoid it. Acknowledge that it is there, and it is just a feeling, that you can control and push down, or push away. Not too mention, Hangovers are incredibly anxiety inducing, avoiding those at all costs has helped immensely.

Stubborn Idiot Adds Good into Life

Now, what I thought was the good in my life, eating, drinking to excess, binging TV for hours, needed to be replaced with things that were actually good for me. I have always deemed myself quite artistic, just never took the time to explore where this took me. I have started to draw and paint a few times a week. I have found this as a cathartic activity that allows me to shut off my mind for a few hours and tap into my creativity, halting ruminations, clearing the mind. This hobby, (or any hobby that you can take up), has allowed me to self-medicate in a positive way instead of my other nefarious ways of shutting off my brain. My Therapist has also suggested finding some “brain candy” that I can also use to occupy my ever-cycling anxiety-stricken brain. My brain candy consists mostly of comedy videos. Anytime I need a small break from reality, I can search for a quick video online and hopefully squeeze out a few previously suppressed laughs. You would be surprised how helpful a little laughter, even in the bathroom stall at work, can be. The therapist droned on about how it creates dopamine in the brain and acts as an uplifting drug for your brain, hence “brain candy”. You can come up with your own method, be it comic books, reading positive articles, searching social media, whatever, just come up with some “brain candy”.

Stubborn Idiot Submits to Exercise

Let me preface this by saying the stubborn idiot in me hated to work out, previously only working out to tell people that I did it, or post on social media about a work out to see what kind of likes I got. I was forced to admit that I did actually feel better after a workout. I started small, walking around the neighborhood after work with the girlfriend. These little walks gave us time to talk, get closer to each other and I was able to get things off my chest, she didn’t even need to respond, I could just put my thoughts out into the universe, and it helped. Our walks slowly turned into going to the gym, lifting weights and doing cardio. I even get into a little Yoga now and then, which focuses on breathing, this is a huge help and taught me how to control my breathing in times of anxiety. Now, the Stubborn Idiot takes over and this has become part of my routine, I even get upset when I am unable to work out. The benefit has been, I dropped 60 pounds and feel like I have a secret weapon against my anxiety that I can jump into after work. Start small, even stay small if you want, but do something to expel the negative energy, it really helps.

Stubborn Idiot Starts Eating Better

All those articles I read about eating better, used to just piss me off. Yeah yeah yeah, I know I should eat better, I know I will feel better, but eating what I want also makes me feel good. I again started small on this one, replacing the pizza night with salad night at first. It was tough, I love pizza, I love wings, I love beer. I still give myself all of these things, just not all the time like I used to. From there, I started replacing items I indulged in with healthier options and smaller portions. Instead of a steak and mac and cheese meal, it turned into lean meat like chicken and a vegetable side. I am not saying this needs to be every night of the week, but making some small gradual changes believe it or not, helped my mental health. I do not feel like taking a nap after dinner, I feel like I am giving my body fuel, and nutrients that it needs to work positively. Even writing this out sounds corny as hell and I am aggravating myself, this stubborn idiot feels like a fraud and hypocrite, but trust me, this helps, even in small steps.

Stubborn Idiot Does All the Crap You Read About

Hypocritical, it still feels horrible to admit, but all that crap you read about, meditation, breathing exercises, mindfulness. It all works. You just need to find your niche and your way to do it, no matter how big or small. I reluctantly started to meditate, at the insistence of my girlfriend, each night for 5–10 minutes before bed. My favorite are the short clips online that have someone without a dumb voice, or ridiculous premise. I have found a few favorites that I can repeat over and over. I do this in bed, laying down and ready to go to sleep. The quick 5–10 minutes helps calm down my mind, stop my ruminations and most importantly helps me fall asleep easier. Breathing exercises follows the same idea, but this technique I can use anytime throughout the day. If I am feeling the anxiety creep in during a workday, I can take 2 minutes and start breathing deeply, bringing me back to normal. I do this either in the bathroom stall, at my desk, or in my car. Look up your own exercises online, but they are all pretty much the same, in through your nose for a count of 4, hold, then out through your mouth with pursed lips for a count of 6–8. The stubborn idiot still feels dumb about mindfulness, and I do not practice as much as I should, but when I do, it centers me. I can stop ruminating about the future, cycling crazy scenarios over and over in my head and bring my self back to the moment at hand. I find that if I don’t look to the future, or what could come with it and just focus on the exact moment I am sitting in, I can push the anxiety aside, even just for a little while.

Stubborn Idiot Handles Anxiety in the Moment

This might be the most important section, and I am saving the best for last. At this point, I have fully submitted to my anxiety disorder, it is part of my life and is not going anywhere. It will still arise at times I least expect, or times I fully expect and bring on myself. In the moment, I can obliterate it with any of the weapons I have developed. I can watch a quick video to bring a soothing laugh, I can breathe a little, I can try to be mindful but mostly, I use the S.T.O.P. method for eliminating any anxiety in the moment. This all came from my therapist and is an extensively used CBT method, super-duper corny, and textbook, the Stubborn Idiot wants to reject this BS, but it works. “S” Stop what you are doing and take a moment to pause everything. Step away if you need to, go to the bathroom, go outside, whatever, just Stop. “T” Take a few deep breaths and bring yourself back to center. Acknowledge the anxiety and realize that it is just a feeling and you can push it away. “O” Observe what is going on, within your body, your mind and bring yourself back to reality. Is this thought or feeling a reality? Most likely I am imagining a worst case scenario and not the real situation. Thoughts are not reality. Assess and Observe how you are feeling. “P” Proceed with what was going on, or do not proceed. Take what you learned when you Observed and correct your actions accordingly in a manner that makes you feel better.

Take it or leave it, I have used all these methods to take my anxiety disorder from something that controlled every moment of my life and was leading me down a path of self-destruction, to an element of my life that I can obliterate at any time, taking back control. The stubborn idiot in me will never leave, but the anxiety is not going to leave either. I needed to find a balance between the two, otherwise the stubborn idiot method would likely end in disaster. So, I guess at this point, you could call me a strong willed, mindful, typical Guy with anxiety that he is destroying in his own way. I hope you can find something useful out of my story and it helps you.

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Michael Joslin is a 40-year-old guy, originally from NY who has been living in Hawaii for the past 15 years.  He struggles with depression, anxiety and ADHD and enjoys writing about life, mental health, love, and daily musings. He says, “I am a new freelance writer getting my feet wet in this business.”

Try Creating a Liminal Space

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Described as the “waiting areas” between one point in time and space and the next, liminal spaces are transitional or transformative spaces, real or imagined. Because liminal spaces are conceptual, their creation starts in your own mind. It starts with imagining either a physical space like an empty parking lot, a school during summer break or a place in the woods, or a non-physical spaces, such as: a foggy sunrise, moving to a new place, the time between jobs. Ideally, as you think of your own liminal space, you imbue it with safety.

Framing is a powerful technique in dealing with anxiety, and liminal space can be thought of as conceptual framing,  The interesting thing is that we’ve all encountered them in the past. But adding the knowledge that creating liminal spaces can help cope with different problems like anxiety, PTSD, is why this idea really elevates to “experiment” level.

Physical liminal spaces are sometimes created by the structural design of a room, but it’s not the only way it can work. To create a liminal space for yourself without messing with the architectural design of your home you can:

• Brighten certain common areas with natural light giving the feeling of a threshold when going from one room to another or through a hallway.

• Designating a specific quiet room only to take breaks from daily activities, work, etc. simulating what a cafeteria would do at work or school.

• Creating a meditation area where you can relax and focus.

To create a non-physical liminal space, think of positive transitions you’ve experienced in the past. Listening to liminal music or specific songs/genres that you identify with a transition in your life can invoke positive feelings around life changes. Embrace liminal states as a powerful state of becoming.

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Hermann Samano Vignau works at Porch, where he has written about the impact of home design on PTSD and Depression. He lives in Mexico.

Criticism Stopped My Writing For a Decade

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Criticism made me quit writing. Never let that happen to you.

“I read some of your book. It sucked, man,” was the first feedback I got—from a family member—on my self-published book. If someone from the one group that typically propped struggling writers up with emotional support was giving me that feedback already, it really must suck.

“What the hell does he know about parenting? This is stupid.” This was my second review from a coworker’s wife.

This all happened back in 2008 when I decided to take all I had learned about leadership as a Marine and apply it to my new role as a Dad. Not the “scream-in-your-face” stuff that Boot Camp is made of, but the real and deep leadership principles that apply to any position of loving authority. I spent about a year and a half writing stories and collecting quotes to back them up. I designed a cover. I hired an editor to proof-read and make suggestions for improvements.

I was proud of my accomplishment.

Was.

Then I started getting feedback like described above. I got some supportive feedback from family, but that’s what most family does, right? I appreciated the positive response, but it was biased in my favor so it didn’t hold as much weight on my scale of self-judgement. I got nothing positive back from people who didn’t know me.

After a while, as I sold a book or two a month, I imagined that everyone probably thought of me as my first two reviewers had. What did I know about parenting anyway? I wasn’t a family psychiatrist or anything. My only kid at the time I published was 2 years old. Maybe I did know some things about leadership, but what gave me the right to apply that to parenting?

I felt like a fake. Like an imposter. And I felt like on my very first foray into writing, I was immediately identified as a fake. A fake writer who self-published and a fake parent who had no real experience.

I started to become embarrassed that I had even written a book.

When people brought it up I quickly changed the subject.

So I stopped writing. For 10 years.

Then I read something that my friend wrote about relationships. It was beautiful. It moved me. We were similar in how we saw many things in life back then, but especially now that we were “grown-ups” and family men. He could write about the simple beauty that surrounds us with such flowing words that it seemed semantics were no obstacle for his ideas to flow directly to my brain. I was inspired.

Inspired enough to start writing again. So I did, and I’m so glad I did. I have been having an absolute blast. I look forward to writing every day. Some people have said I have even genuinely helped them with my writing. This is priceless to me. It feels like writing was meant to be part of who I am.

I recently wrote about how persistence is so important to writing. And it is. I wish I had persisted through the criticism and Imposter Syndrome 10 years ago. Who knows where I could be now. But regret is a waste of time. Hope is time better spent.

I kind of feel embarrassed as a “tough” Marine that I let a few words from a few people steer my actions for a decade. I was able to defend myself against armed enemy combatants, but words of criticism pierced right through my armor with ease. Criticism of my creation crippled me.

But now I can move forward for many reasons. I realize that in a way, all humans are impostors. We are all new to life relatively speaking. When we just begin to figure it out, we die of old age. Why should we let someone else’s opinion be more valued than our own?

We must impose ourselves upon new areas of life if we want to grow. Stepping into formerly unknown roles generates those impostor feelings. It is natural. It doesn’t mean we don’t belong there. Someone who never feels this way is usually stagnating, like I did for a decade. Anyone who has the courage to create or to do important things at all will run into criticism and feel like an impostor sometimes. These are social growing pains.

So I decided to write this article to encourage you. You who may feel like you have nothing worth hearing. You who feel your words aren’t worth sharing or you have no right to say them. You are wrong. What you have to say is worth hearing. Please keep saying it. I want you to push through.

Don’t make the mistake I did and quit. JUST. PUSH. THROUGH.

Looking back, my book did kind of suck as far as format and writing. And even though that was 10 years ago, I’m only 3 months further into my writing journey, so I’m not that much better yet. But my ideas in the book were good. I was right about leadership and parenting. I shouldn’t have let criticism devalue my belief in those ideas. If I had kept writing, that suck factor in my writing would have decreased. But I didn’t stick around long enough to make that possible.

Persistence seems to be the key when I read advice from the best writers. If you can stick around, ignore negative criticism, welcome constructive criticism and always improve your skills, then you may have a chance. Then, and only then, might you have a shot at being a successful writer.

And even if you do reach success, the feeling of being an imposter is always there and criticism will be there with it. I think maybe all of us who create may always feel these things from time to time.

Maya Angelou said “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now! I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.”

John Steinbeck said before publishing The Grapes of Wrath “I am not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people.” If Maya and John have had this feeling, we all will.

Imposter Syndrome and criticism should be signs of growth to us rather than stop signs.

They stopped me for 10 years.

I’ll never allow that to happen again. I hope you don’t either.

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Max Klein has an MBA, makes wine, and is a veteran. He’s also a writer. This piece originally appeared on Invisible Illness.

Try Zentangling

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Have you ever done art as a form of therapy?

Anyone who has lost track of time while drawing, painting, sculpting, carving, or doing any other artistic medium will know that hours can go by in a second. (Somewhat like what happens when you write!) You enter the ‘zone’. It’s almost like a meditative state.

“The goal of meditation is not to get rid of thoughts or emotions. The goal is to become more aware of your thoughts and emotions and learn how to move through them without getting stuck.” — Dr. P. Goldin

Photo of art created by the author

With the stress of life right now due to COVID-19 this is the ‘zone’ that we need to put ourselves in right now, as much as possible. Art can be used as a form of meditation. The benefits of meditation are too numerous to mention here. Meditating daily for several weeks provides long term improvement in all facets of daily life.

The benefits that we need to focus on right now are for all areas of living that are related to the current pandemic. Even 5 minutes of meditating can help with:

• Decreasing emotional reactivity — helping people disengage from the emotionally upsetting images in all types of media that we are being bombarded with right now. Reduces reactive aggression by redirecting your thoughts.

• Reducing loneliness — the feeling of being disconnected.

• Improving depression and reducing anxiety in the face of stress and distress. Meditation improves your mood and outlook on life and aids with insomnia and runaway thoughts. It works here by decreasing stress inducing inflammatory chemicals called cytokines.

• Reducing the symptoms of stress-triggered medical conditions such as irritable-bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, post-traumatic stress disorder, increased blood pressure. Meditation helps to relax nerve signals that coordinate heart function, blood vessel tension and ‘fight-or-flight’ responses.

• Increasing attention span — task details are better remembered by workers who meditate compared to those who don’t. Right now we need focused leaders, scientists and health care workers who are going to make critical decisions for us. Meditation helps to reverse brain patterns that cause poor attention, worrying and mind-wandering.

Photo of art created by the author

I loved coloring with my kids. It was quality time spent together, it was fun, and it was relaxing. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I wasn’t doing it anymore!

Who doesn’t remember the smell of new crayons? Or opening up a brand new coloring book when they were young? I can remember the feeling like it was yesterday. Art was always something that drove me in my younger years — I loved to draw and craft. It wasn’t until after I had my first few bouts of depression that my doctor suggested that I make some time for myself and find something to do out of the house. I had just been to an art demo at our local art gallery and I thought that would be the perfect thing for me to do — take an art class.

So I did.

The benefits were great — doing art regularly definitely helped to ease my depression symptoms, and taking art classes got me out of the house, and meeting new people. Some of these people are my very dear friends. They are more priceless than any famous masterpiece to me.

Fast forward several years, and one of the life-long friends who I met through the art club/gallery stumbled upon a form of art called ‘Zentangle’.

Photo property of Val Enders — used with permission

Now this friend, Val Enders, never does anything halfway — it’s go big or go home with her. Every year she finds a new form of art to do — anything from beading to oil painting to encaustic work to carving. And everything in between. She has accumulated so many art supplies that she could stock an art store. She believes in life long learning — and art is her go to. About five years ago was her ‘Zentangle’ year. She took a few of us to a class and I was hooked!

It is a great form of art therapy. Doing Zentangle art took me way back to my coloring years — I lost track of time while doing it. There are numerous sites for Zentangle instruction. It might look complicated, but the patterns are so easy to learn and range from simple to difficult in how challenging they are to do.

A monkey could do it.

“Art is a guarantee to sanity.” — French-American artist Louise Bourgeois

What is mindfulness-based art therapy? (MBAT)

The concept of combining mindfulness and art therapy was formally introduced by Laury Rappaport, a psychologist and writer. In 2009 she wrote a book called “Mindfulness and the Arts Therapies”. Basically MBAT is self explanatory — a combination of mindfulness training such as meditation within an art therapy framework. Mindfulness enhances your ability to be self aware and increases your capacity to reflect on life experiences.

Art therapy became popular in the 1940’s, when therapists began using ‘art therapy’- in order to help clients create art as a way to identify and release hidden emotions. Art psychotherapy was used for a different purpose. Therapists would analyze art created by clients in order to develop insights into various psychological issues and emotions. Art can:

• be a way to meditate and self-connect

• provide a feeling of flow and freedom

• allow for true self-expression

• help us to become centered and steady.

Let’s focus on ‘art therapy’.

MBAT works by helping you shift focus, and creates a connection between your imagination and your body — it allows you to express your feelings through art — feelings that you can’t express with words. Scientifically proven benefits of the healing effects of mindfulness based art therapy include:

• decreased anxiety

• aiding in the treatment of eating disorders, substance abuse, depressive disorders, stress-related issues and anger-related issues

• improving the physical illnesses that result from stress

Benefits for children include:

• increased self-awareness

• self-compassion

• resilience

Life right now must certainly be considered a traumatic experience for children, and teens. Help them get through this with some easy art therapy.

It is fun, you can do it in your home, and by doing mindfulness-based art therapy for as little as one hour a day, or even a few minutes, there will benefits to your psychological health.

Try the Zentangle form of art — but prepare to get addicted to it. All you need is some printer paper, cardstock, notebooks — really any paper you have laying around and for a writing medium anything with a sharp tip will do. Your whole family can get involved in this really fun activity.

Kids can do this with crayons — or you can do a piece of Zentangle art and let them color it! A masterpiece created by the whole family would be fun to frame — a reminder of how you stayed grounded through this pandemic and how you bonded with your family.

“There are two distinct languages. There is the verbal, which separates people… and the visual that is understood by everybody.” — Thomas Kinkade

Happy Zentangling!

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Corrine Roberts is a wife, mother, avid reader, artist, and aspiring writer. She originally published an earlier version of this piece on Invisible Illness. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

Sources: Huffpost, Healthline,  Verywellmind,  Washington Post

Try Tai Chi or Shibashi Qigong

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A couple weeks ago, I heard from an online Tai Chi instruction company named White Crane offering me a free subscription to on their video platform. I’ve been curious about Tai Chi and Qigong as a stress management tool. When I lived in New York, I would walk through Central Park and see groups of people of all ages practicing a slow type martial arts together that I assumed was tai chi.

Anyone can do it, which is something I really like.

I now know that Tai Chi is made up of 5 different styles. White Crane teaches what it describes as: “A rare Tai Chi form known as Shuang Yang Bai He Rou Ruan Quan (or Frost and Sun White Crane Gentle Art ). It originates from the Fujian province in south east China.” There are series of fundamental lessons on the site starting with footwork, though all exercises are also shown both standing and sitting to make sure as many people can take part as possible. Interspersed throughout the course are meditation and breathing exercises and guidance as well as an introduction to Qigong. These mindful movements are great for releasing stress and refocusing your energy without a ton of space or effort needed. Most of the effort is within. Cheesy but true.

This is what the videos themselves look like.

I’ve now been a member for two weeks, and found that I haven’t made a habit of using the site yet, but I would like that to change. I wonder if having an app might make it easier? As of now, the desktop version takes a little more effort than ideal—then again, I’m lazy! I trust that the instructor, Mark, knows his stuff. I do plan to get more in-depth with the exercises over time.

White Crane also sends out a regular newsletter feating information like this about why Tai Chi is great for older people and those of us who experience stress in a physical way.

The cost of an annual subscription to White Crane is $12.99/month or $129/year. This includes an in-depth series of video lessons that build upon each other.

What about you? Have you tried Tai Chi or Quigong? How did it work for you? Please share in the comments below.

Experimenting with Behind the Scenes

The new Beautiful Voyager book, Get Out of My Head, is coming out in May! This is a little visual tour of moments from the making of the book.