My struggle with anxiety stems back a few years if I am being honest and I know for a fact, I can pinpoint the exact moment it all began. I have always been a person who tries to focus on the good in most situations and how it can be better, and I have lived the better part of my life optimistic. Something I feel I took for granted.

Yes, tough times were there but they never really lasted.

Cue 2020. The year of true reckoning.

A year were nothing seemed to go right and I was fighting from the moment ‘go!’. It was a terribly awful year filled with trials and tribulations that I won’t fill pages about here (a story for one of my books lol).

I guess most of us have been there. The nights that never end and seem to drag forever, a cloud that hovers above you from your waking moment to the very second your head hits the pillow and the never ending tunnel of darkness.

The first storm comes and you think it will pass as it always has, then another and another. The storms last longer, are more fierce, more destructive, and shake and drain you more.

Days turn into weeks, and weeks into months and the storms stay pouring, resting in your life like they were always meant to be there and they begin to feel…normal.

Rather than disappear like they always have (did), these storms are not passing through and it becomes harder to be brave.

Life started to seem scary. I had lost once when it meant the world to win and fear replaced optimism. Feelings of impending doom became my daily bread: fear of being wrong, fear of being rejected, fear of imposing, fear of not being enough, and the constant unsettling fear of losing again.

I am not ashamed to say that it took me a long time to acknowledge that I had a problem and an even longer time accepting that anxiety was running my life. I had resigned to being the backseat passenger of fear, finding it hard to get up in the morning and even harder convincing myself to just leave my room.

If you are waiting for a guide on how to cure anxiety or a secret something, I (unfortunately) do not have one but I can, however, share how I navigate around my fear:

1. Acknowledge your anxiety and try to find the root cause

2. Practice gratitude!

3. Daily affirmations. (Remind yourself that you are valuable, rare and extraordinary).

4. Journaling

5. Talk to someone or find what helps you calm down your thoughts.

6. Do things scared!

Our toughest battles are usually fought alone, when no one is watching. 

Our weakest moments happen inside and away from prying eyes, locked in moments and memories that hold us hostage, praying for an escape, hoping against hope that one day you wake up grateful and actually…happy. That yes, life can be hard and deals everyone there own cards but you can’t help but wonder why your cards seem to want to drown you, and life at every turn threatens to submerge you in your woes.

People wake up everyday sad that they woke up and dread yet the beginning of another day. Their life looks like it is at a standstill, each day exactly like the same. 

Rinse and repeat. 

No progress for them yet the world seems to go on regardless. Never a moment of pause to let them breathe and get themselves together, to let them feel their emotions or a moment to map their lives: not knowing where they are and uncertain of where they are going and where they are going to end up.

We have friends and family silently fighting and trying to master battles that have no rules, no course, and sometimes, no visible ending.
We have people around us struggling with battles we don’t see. Things they won’t talk about. Things they would rather not deal with. Things they would rather forget but replay in their heads like a broken record.
You don’t have to know someone is in pain or struggling to be kind.

Check on your friends. Tell them how much of a good person they are and how you appreciate them. 

“Hey, how are you doing? Really.”

“Mental health check. How are you?”

Then sit there and listen. They are sometimes carrying so much and a listening ear is all they need. I don’t have a cure or anything that would relatively help but let them know that you are there for them and they are not alone. Life is messy for everyone and it has no favorites. 

That person you see smiling everyday? Probably cries themselves to sleep.

That friend with the happy pictures and seemingly amazing life? They could have had a traumatic childhood that haunts them to this day.

People lose jobs, friendships, family and the world around them crumbles and shakes yet they get up and brave each day. Be kind. 

People suffered trauma as children. Shown too early the ugly snare of the world and the cruelty of it all. Be very kind.

People have been thrown out of their lives, stripped to humiliation and thrown onto the cold hard ground by those they thought would hold their hearts. Be exceptionally kind.

Kindness is humanity. 

A smile from a stranger in the most trying times, an ear that listens, a heart that doesn’t judge, people that empathise, people that support and cheer for you, people that love you regardlesss of the mess you are, people that see greatness in you, a hand that holds you and holds your hand, a shoulder that lets you cry your sorrows away.
That is Humanity.

But before you are kind to anyone else, be kind to yourself first.

To those that struggled and made it out, I am glad you did and I hope you choose yourself everyday.

To those amidst the troubling waters, Keep Rowing.
Your lighthouse is not too far.

I will leave the light on.

Love,

A girl whose dreams sometimes dim but continue to be in colours yet to be discovered.