Eva Marie: anxiety

End of May, the official lockdown was over in France. We could go out without a signed paper, and not just for grocery shopping. At that point, I was scared to go outside and have a normal Saturday. I was afraid to do just that. Once I went out, I obviously understood that it would be very normal, yet strange. The atmosphere was not the same, but it did not mean that the world was going to kill me instantly if I lay one foot out of my apartment.

It made me realized how much I constructed something in my head, something I was scared of even though I just imagined it. I was basically anxious to go outside and live. That’s when it made me wonder if my anxiety had worsened during lockdown. If staying inside in this very safe space with just my boyfriend (+ cat) had made me feared anything that was not inside this safe bubble. The first time someone asked us to go out, I said no. I was just too anxious to do that. The next times, I said yes because it sounded stupid to stay inside being scared while it was perfectly okay to have fun and enjoy the world out there (but still being safe!).

I don’t want to live this experience as a step back in my work with anxiety. Because yes, I worked so hard to be where I am now (or where I was before everything happened) that I would be such a shame to go back to where I was before. I don’t want to be scared of little things like taking the tube alone or going out. I can be scared, that’s normal, but I’m not sure I want to feel anxious. I know that we all experience this in our own different way and that there is no good and bad in all of those, but I don’t want to take this step back. The fact that I was so much in my safe bubble might makes me afraid of what’s outside of it.

I’m not sure how to deal with that, and it might be a while before everything goes back to ‘normal’. However, I need to give myself some peace. Yes, as an introvert, I love spending more time at home, but no, I don’t want that my home feels like the only safe place I can be. I guess I need more time to figure this out. However, I’m curious to know what are your thoughts on this. How have you been feeling lately?

“Advice for maintaining a positive attitude when dealing with anxiety?”

“Constantly reminding yourself to make the separation between what is true and what is a result of anxiety (…). And remembering that you are not your anxiety – you control it, not the other way around!”

This is what @kathbrose respond to a question on instagram. I had to keep it somewhere because I never read something so helping and accurate. It simple and probably obvious, but it is truly the best thing I could have read. Reminding yourself what is real, and what is in your head.

I tend to do very bad anxiety, especially when I’m on my own wondering about so many things (sometimes for no reason). I find it hard to control my emotions, to control how I feel. It’s almost impossible sometimes to make the anxiety goes away. I create this whole scenario in my head that is way worse than what happens in the reality, and I do know that, but I still do it. I can’t control it even if I know it’s stupid. I don’t create problems or anything, but I do need to be reassured because I interpreted one thing in the wrong way, or my anxiety made it way bigger and hard to process. I know that I’m strong since a very young age, I know what I can endure. But somehow, anxiety looks far worse than everything else. How can you live through loss or sickness and having so much trouble dealing with your own mind? How is it that at some point you finish on the bathroom floor crying and having trouble breathing because you just feel like crap? It’s funny how the mind works, and I find it frustrating to not understand it, to not control it.

I did beat it, I made big moves and pushed my anxiety further away. I made big steps, in plural. And then suddenly, when you have confidence in your own mind and body, you find yourself crying and shaking again. It feels like a huge step backward in my opinion, even if it isn’t in reality. I interpret it as if your body tells you to stop because it’s too much. Sometimes anxious situation will be easier to get through, and for others you are just not there yet. I know now where my limits are even if I still push them again and again. I’m proud of that, really I am. But, it’s hard to feel this pride when someone asks you to go out with many people that you don’t know and the only reason why you say no it’s because you just can’t. You want to go out, you want to be able to feel good in a big group of unknown people and talk to them. However, you just can’t, not for now anyway. So how do you explain that to someone who don’t know what anxiety is? How do you explain this stress mixed with fear and disgust of yourself, all in the same time? How do you explain this “no” to someone who can’t understand? Yes, I find it even harder when it touches someone else than me. It’s scary, everybody feels powerless until it’s gone. And I guess being powerless can makes you feel like you have no control.

I guess what I tried to say was to be more in the present, in the moment. Yoga help me a lot with that, even if it's still very new, but now I do get it. Get your mind on something real, something that isn’t created in your head because nothing that happen in your head will be real. Nothing. We should try to focus a bit more on the things we can do, on the people that have our back, on the positives things, on our capabilities and strengths. And as Kath said, we control it, and not the other way around.

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Eva Marie

Blogger and cat lover In love with books, pizzas and DiCaprio Writing is my passion

Eva Marie

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I'mEva Marie

French student and blogger

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Has my anxiety got worse since lockdown?

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