Inside My Anxiety

Abandoning ourselves can take many forms. For me, I was seeing it most in my anxiety.

When I lived in anxious fear all the time, I was making choices out of fear instead of reason. Those choices often put me in less safe situations when I was trying to learn how to be an adult.

However, looking back, I see how comfortable I felt in instability and unsafe environments. It reminded me of home. Even though I was scared of home and never wanted to go back, there was unfinished business that I was playing out in my actions.

I would continue convincing myself of the wrong choice, depending on the worst people, and ignoring my own needs by stuffing down my sense of reason and my need for safety. It was shameful to admit I wanted a secure life because it would mean having to admit how long I’d gone without that love and safety being honored- Both by myself and others.

Then, like clockwork, the pressure of those patterns would build up and pour over in wild panic attacks. The physically painful, dizzy kind that, while perfectly appropriate for what I was putting myself through, embarrassed the hell out of me.

Storying the Self

When I started doing inner-child work, it was useful to imagine my actual child-self. I would use meditations to try and pinpoint what age this feeling was coming from.

In the midst of a panic attack, it was incredibly difficult. I would often give up and lash out, creating a storm out of a small inconvenience and riding my anxiety until my body just gave out. Sometimes it would take days.

Slowly, I started to stick the meditations out longer. I would breathe, ask myself direction questions, and talk to whoever was hurting. Sometimes is was apologizing and caring for 10 or 5 year old me. Other times I was forgiving an adult or raging at them (in my imagination or journal) for not being there.

I have way better control over my anxiety now and my panic attacks are far less severe. While I have the inner-child work to thank for that, it’s not the final boss. Now I’m integrating a new practice: Reparenting Myself.

There are many facets to this practice, all of which I have struggled with. In my reading, I came across the concept of “Abandoning Myself” and probably skimmed over it a hundred times. Usually, the things that I don’t want to study or haven’t “gotten around to” are a big tell.

When I look to the future with fear, I am leaving my present self. When I look to the past with regret, I am leaving my present self. The only way to honor my present self is to stay inside my body for the duration of my feelings.

Building Self Trust

Does that mean ignoring fears, anxiety, and hopelessness? No!

It means understanding that these feelings are a part of me but they do not control me. That’s a hard lesson for those of us who were raised by an adult that used fear, anxiety, and hopelessness to control us.

For me, dissecting my past and patterns was a painful process. I had to admit I was my own problem. Not only had the adults left me hanging as a kid, I was now doing the exact same thing.

Of course I abandon myself when things are hard! My parents abandoned my present needs for safety, trust, and care as a child so I could have a “better life” in the “future” and now I think that’s what love is.

It took some trying. Even after I was aware of the pattern, I didn’t have all the skills to do better yet and I was processing so much guilt and shame that it became hard to love myself at all.

I could not do this alone and had the help of a counselor who encouraged me to be brave and make hard choices. Leave the toxic environment, have complicated conversations, and admit when something hurts instead of running away.

Booo! I hated it!

Then, a few hard life lessons in, I started to trust myself and it got easier every time. I started to love myself as I came to understand that being present for myself is, in fact, love. I began to unlearn patterns of neglect and abuse that I was internalizing and projecting.

My big fears were stuff like physical beating, homelessness, and hospitalization. Pretty deep wounds that came up in every problem I had. I got really empowered when I realized I was more likely to survive those circumstances with a clear head instead of a head in the throes of a panic attack.

Presence in Self

The story is cathartic, but stories are vessels for lessons and the lesson of staying present for myself was a powerful one.

First, I identified which behaviors I could catch before the anxiety started. A common one was worrying. Worry was a ramp that leads to two places: Panic or planning.

So, I taught myself (trial and error, y’all) to write a plan for my worries. The longer I’ve had this practice, the less I need it. Because what it taught me was that most of the shit I wrote down to prepare for stuff was totally useless. The assumptions and fears were very seldomly the reality. And, when it was, I had the communication and adaptivity to figure it out as it happened.

Planning is a way to stay present for me, but rumination was not. Playing out scenarios and conversations was pretty much like negatively meditating. It still catches me often.

Another way to stay present for me instead of running into the future is to ask myself what I feel and where I feel it. If I start creating a catastrophe, I can try to find out where in my body that feeling lives. In my work, I’ve learned to pretty quickly identify what the body parts represent for me. Now it’s a habit.

“How do I feel? Hot in my head? Cold in my hands and arms? Physical threat. I can physically leave this place, even though it might be awkward. Let’s go.”

Before it would be something like “Ahhhhhh, scary fear! Oh, no, I’m trapped! Cry about it!!! Nobody will ever love me or protect me AHHHHHH!”

Affirmations

My present self is responsible for my current choices and I do not have the quantum computing power to know outcomes exactly.

There is more than one “right” choice in almost every situation.

I have made many mistakes and I’m still alive with a roof over my head at this moment.

I am a mortal and my life here is finite. My impact on the world does not have to be.

I am in control of my mind and body even when I am not in control of the circumstances around me.

I am safe inside my body.

Journal Prompts

As a creative person, I am equipped to imagine any number of incredible futures. Where did I learn to catastrophize my imagination? What can I heal or forgive that would help me break that habit?

What do I lose when I imagine worst-case scenarios? What do I gain?

Which parts of these anxious feelings are true and which of them are predictions or assumptions that I haven’t yet confirmed with people?

Patience

Even with a huge tool kit and a lot of practice, I am in no way perfect. The daily work of knowing and forgiving myself and striving to know and forgive others is at the top of the list.