Dealing with Panic Attacks & Anxiety RE: Zoella
I identify with the anxiety, self-loathing, and depression. But the “cures”/”fixes” seem soo…circular? It seems like you suddenly get this epiphany and change the way how you think about stuff, but at the same time she says she knows it’s not like that?
How do you go from staying in your room all the time, self-loathing, and feeling depressed to getting stuff done and being successful? What is supposed to motivate you out of that pit?
This may just be empty rambling but I don’t see a fix for my problems, I don’t see how to end them or get over my shit.
/incoherent mutterings
I understand this, and for the record my transition into having more days without anxiety than with has been a year coming. My point here is it was just the diference between trying and not trying. That is to say, I spent 100% of 100% of my days depressed and anxious, until the day i decided to work on not being this way, then it was maybe 98% of 100% of my days. then it was 6/7 days, then it was 4/7 days. Then it was 7 days a week for two weeks straight. Falling back into it, then deciding to try again. It was just this decision to slowly work on it on being happier at my own pace, instead of wallowing in it forever.
I’m just saying, it isn’t easy, and i sympathize with how difficult it is, but if you decide to never work on it, you will not improve. if you start to slowly chip away at it it can become manageable.
This wasn’t a choice i made to be sad all the time, to be anxious and depressed and unhappy. It just was. It is however my choice on whether or not I will work to be happier or just lay there and succumb to it.
I hope that better explains it.
I had that moment, where I decided it wasn’t going to be an issue, where it wasn’t going to be in control. That I could do what I wanted, to make friends, and move forward with my life, instead of letting this paralyze me. And thinking all of the “what if I wasn’t afraid of anything that might make me happy? Like making friends, and taking scary opportunities I was otherwise excited about” and it was like a dawning of possibility and almost electric. And I thought, it ends here. My life starts now. I’m will go to that thing I’ve been avoiding where there are people! I’m going to get a job because I’m not going to be mortified at the idea of submitting an application. All the things, I will do them!
And then actually going to those places became the present instead of the future. It wasn’t instantly easy, just because I decided not to be anxious anymore. I still feel nervous and terrified. I still want to avoid it. But for the first time in a long while, I still want to go. Even though it could be scary, I want to go. To get better, to practice, to try. To be that person I want to be. It wasn’t a new thought. Throughout the years of my anxiety, I knew going places to meet people was good. That avoiding every social situation was bad. That avoiding dealing with it wouldn’t help. But I didn’t want to do it. Even though I was miserable, I was still recoiling from the idea of changing for the better. That day I decided to change, didn’t cure me of anxiety or depression. It just marked the day I was finished absolving its ruling presence in my life. I had to go through years of it before I felt ready to commit to dealing with it.
