#anxiety

ineptshieldmaid:

If my partner is in the next room over and hasn’t spoken to me in 15 minutes, I can easily convince myself that it’s not just because he’s reading but because the last thing I said to him was wrong somehow, and he’s stewing and ready to scream at me any second now about how awful I am. This belief, though, is wrong. He doesn’t get upset about infinitesimal things, and when he is upset, that isn’t how he handles it. He’s not my father.

It absolutely makes sense for me to process information this way — in many situations I’ve been in, that instinct would have been correct, and helped me stay safe. But it isn’t correct anymore, and it would be unhealthy — and unfair — to act as if it were. I’m not wrong for feeling the way I do, but if I forced my partner to treat my feelings as reality — if I called him five times a day while he was at work to have him reassure me he wasn’t mad at me, if I forbade him from ever taking time to himself without reminding me it wasn’t about me, or ever being outwardly upset about things like having a bad day at work because it makes me anxious — that would be a terrible relationship for him to be in. I’m not wrong for feeling how I do, but it’s on me to make a plan for how to cope with it: to remind myself to look at the evidence and ask whether there’s any suggestion that I’m actually about to be harmed, to develop my own coping strategies, to be self-aware of my own history and the way I map it onto my present. I can certainly ask my partner for support in this, or to make some concessions to my history that he agrees are both fair and healthy for him, but I can’t ask him to bend over backwards for me because I’m not willing to do the work at all. We can’t justify harmful things we do to others by pointing to the ways they’re related to how we ourselves were harmed — a reason isn’t a justification.

Rachel at Autostraddle (in an agony aunt column that’s actually about biphobia, but took this excellent turn into Why You Don’t Have To Grovel To People’s Neuroses)

when you try out a new writing style and post it on AO3 only to get super nervous so you have to pop a benzo to calm down

adhdpie:

aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)

lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)

1) do I honestly intendto start the task despite my lack of success?

• yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question
  
• no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.
  

2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?

• yes:next question
  
• no:guess what? this is the real next task

3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?

• yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.
• no:next question

4) do I know how to start the task?

• yes:next question
  
• no:ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.

5) do I have everything I need to start the task?

• yes:next question
  
• no:ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.

6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?

• i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.
• i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?
• the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?
• I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)
• i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?
• no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead

7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?

• yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.
  

reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.

• no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t. 

reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.

8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!

• probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.
• if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.
  

hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU

If anyone has any tricks to trigger an anxiety attack, please let me know. I’ve been sitting on the edge of one for about 4 hours now and I’d like this torture to end, the anticipation to be alleviated.

Seriously, depressive procrastination is one thing but an anxious mental block is simply not helpful

It’s really easy to get annoyed at the infinite imagination machine that is my brain for forcing me to be late for a flight, or forget all my lines in a school play, or get lost in a foreign country, or any other stressful thing when I’d rather be peacefully asleep.

I feel a bit better when I remind myself that my brain is just trying to protect me. Then, instead of starting the morning by ruminating on yet another pointless dream, I can have more peace of mind as I get on with the day.

Do you have any go-to techniques for dealing with (or even preventing!) stress dreams?

For#SelfCareSunday, here are some things that have been working really well for me lately. I live by the philosophy that a little every day is better than a lot in fits and bursts, at least when it comes to mental health!