World meet my anxiety. Anxiety, well you already know the world. It must have been quite early in my life when anxiety took root. Every so often, I would wake up in the wee hours of the morning to rearrange my bedroom. I must have been around 11 or 12 years old and weighed in at around 95 pounds. Most of the wooden furniture in our home including my bedroom set was custom built, and they were hella heavy. But that did not matter to me. The only thing that registered was that I was feeling restless when I woke up, then peaceful when I was done cleaning and moving things around.
It was only recently that I was able to consciously link rearranging my room to my anxiety. I don’t even think the word “anxiety” was a regular player in my vocabulary back then. Have you ever felt restless? I really don’t like it. When it hits me, I get the vague and nagging feeling that something is amiss. Restlessness is like my aura to a full on anxiety session! Similar to a migraine, if I don’t address this restlessness in time, then I am screwed. Bring on the worry and ruminating!
Sometimes I know what troubles me. If I can, I address it; if I can’t then I worry, or rack my brain for a solution. I’m a huge ruminator and I believe that there is a solution for everything! I churn ideas, worries, hopes and dreams. The frustration is what eventually makes me feel like I’m losing my mind.
I haven’t stopped cleaning, and it’s been twenty odd years later. Most times I wake up during the witching hour to accomplish said task. It’s quiet because normal folks are sleeping. There’re no extra external stimuli to distract me. I feel better when it’s just me up, well me and my troubles. We have secret trysts! At least the end results are peace and order in my physical environment even though my brain is at that very moment hunting for the source of, and solution for my discontent.
I think cleaning was one of the first methods I remember using to control the maelstrom within me. I know I would worry about the things that were out of control in my young life. As an aside, when you’re young, your life isn’t fully yours. So when things happen that really bother you, the ability to control the outcome is limited. In retrospect, constant worrying would probably have been the first symptom of my over-active anxiety, but what did I know? Ironically, it came a point when I began using worry to keep me in check. Let me explain the flawed logic.
My thought was that worrying now, in the present, eliminated the need to worry later, in the future, because worrying later was so much worse as it would be too late to handle whatever the problem was. Plus I would get the added bonus of rounding up any errant worries I might have missed in the past! You see, worrying kept me on my toes! Yeah…uh-huh…I know.
So…that way of thinking has been with me for a very long time. It’s been challenging to say the least. I do other things apart from just cleaning. When I write about them, maybe you might be like, “Whoa, I do that too!” To manage my anxiety, I rely heavily on three sources of strength–physical activity, Spiritual support and licensed professional therapy. There are more but these are the mainstays.
This post is one of a three part series on my anxiety. There was just too much to discuss in one sitting. Look out for the next post where I discuss the other ways my anxiety manifests itself. The last post of the series will focus on the ways I manage my anxiety, well at least the main ways.
Please feel free to share your thoughts about anxiety. Are a functional worrier? How do you manage anxiety when it seems to have taken on a life of its own?
As always, thank you for reading!
Sincerely,
Olanta
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