I’ll just say it,
anxiety is a dick.
If you’re unlucky enough to be one of the billions of people suffering with anxiety (which, statistically it’s likely that you are so, welcome) then I don’t need to tell you how big of a dick anxiety is. It takes everything from you and then demands more. If you suffer from anxiety, you know that even if you carefully avoid all of your triggers, (an exhausting feat that commands your full attention) anxiety can still strike for seemingly no reason at all.
This morning I woke up with that sickly doom feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Here we go again.
Everything is hard. I can’t sit still because that makes me fidgety— panic, I can’t walk around because that makes my heart race— panic, I can’t go for a drive to clear my head because Penelope isn’t ready for a car nap yet and she’ll scream her head off the second we hit the road— panic. I am completely and utterly trapped inside my head.
Even though we intellectually know that anxiety is a dirty, rotten liar, we are still victim to its suffocating grasp. It’s kind of like how even though our adult brains know it’s perfectly safe to sleep with one foot outside the blanket, none of us are brave enough to actually do it because we’re convinced there’s still a chance the imaginary monsters under our bed will grab it. So we suffer in silence, sweating under our sheets in the middle of summer because our fears still rule us, no matter how silly there are.
I wish I had an answer for you. I wish there was a magical phrase we just had to chant 3 times while rubbing our stomachs and patting our heads and our anxiety would be gone for good. I wish I could give this post a super clickable title like, “7 Things To Do To Get Rid of Anxiety For Good” and then deliver that miraculous info, but I can’t. I think the only real treatment for anxiety is medication, therapy, and time. This is one of those long suffering things we’re just going to have to get through.
This post wasn’t written to give you answers, (sorry, I know you’re probably looking for them) it was written to let you know that you’re not alone. I know solidarity doesn’t offer much in the way of help, but I pray it gives you hope. You are not the only person living with anxiety, not by a long shot.
There is a lot of life for us left to live; there is a lot of life we’ve already missed out on because of anxiety. I don’t know what the future will hold, but I hope as time passes we learn to beat this thing. Maybe every day our baby steps add up to big, grown-up steps until one day we’re finally free from our anxiety once and for all. Maybe the baby steps are just something we do to build endurance, giving us the strength we need to fight the daily battle for stillness in our souls. Or maybe overcoming it isn’t the point at all.
I’m not sure what God’s plan for my anxiety is. And I’ll bet it’s not the same as His plan for yours. I guess all we can do is lean hard into Him on the bad days and the good days, knowing without a doubt that we need Him. Maybe that’s the point. Or maybe I’m just overthinking everything again, who knows. Whatever the answer is, I believe God will reveal it to us in time. I can’t say a lot of things with certainty, but I think at least in this, the lesson is the journey.
That’s all I have for you guys today.
Here’s hoping tomorrow is better for all of us.
xx Katelyn
milkteamama.com 