My Struggle With Anxiety

Recently I’ve been in a rather weird situation, I don’t know if it’s exactly a slump. Let me explain first what’s going on with me, it started last month maybe I started procrastinating on everything I had to do. I was planning each day but never following the plan. It went for almost a month. It’s a classic case of Anxiety.

How did Anxiety affect me?

Here is what this Anxiety did to me, The only work I could get done were the ones with a deadline. But all my personal projects were on hold. And the worst part is I fell out of all my good habits. Like, reading, workout, journaling, etc.

I just couldn’t get up to work and when I finally negotiate myself to start working on something, I never completed what I started. It was the same one after another. I was so anxious about my Anxiety that I could think straight.

You can say I was totally useless….maybe depressed(trust me it’s not depression)

It also affected my social life. I wanted to talk about a lot but when I was in a conversation my brain shut off and I just couldn't utter anything. I literally called my friend planning a lengthy conversation about my Anxiety and new business ideas. In that call, all we did was chitchat and awkward silences. And after a while, I realized I was just repeating the same things…🤦‍♂️. While I tried to talk about my anxiety but I wasn’t even making sense to myself.

Someday I just didn’t care, someday I tried out things to distract myself from this Anxiety, I also did multiple attempts to get started with my old habits. I even tried to learn Spanish. Which I miserably failed to keep up with even 5 minutes of daily practice. I was overwhelmed with the guilt of being invested in so many things but not getting anything done.

My days started to look all the same and I just couldn’t generate any new ideas. And since I wasn’t making any memories my perception time shrank and weeks started to look like days. It felt like I was time traveling through time(which by the way is not a good feeling). And the worst part was I couldn’t figure out what I was feeling I didn’t realize it was Anxiety.

So what exactly happened?

Why did my brain just decide that it’s going on a vacation without letting me know anything? What is the reason for this Anxiety?

The answer is actually much simpler than you might be wondering, it’s a classic case of Analysis Paralysis. Now if you don’t know what that is, it’s an inability to make a decision due to over-thinking a problem.

Now I did know about Analysis Paralysis & Anxiety yet It took me so much time to just figure out what I was feeling.

As I mentioned before I was invested in a lot of things and I tried to do everything. That’s why I couldn’t focus on anything specific. I was paralyzed with too many things at once. Which then led to the guilt of not getting anything done.

How do you deal with Anxiety?

Anxiety is not new for me but I always keep myself busy which works every time. But this time the feeling is too overwhelming, I just couldn't focus on anything. So here is what I did,

First I decided to hold all my projects, no work until I get back my focus. At first, I started playing chess, which worked until I started to lose. Then I thought let’s watch a TV series(best distraction plan), so I started to watch CSI: Vegas and CSI: NY and it worked a bit. I could think much clearer. But I still couldn’t focus on one single thing. At this point, I didn’t have the constant guilt anymore. Now All I have to do is set my priorities, As I said before Todo list or calendars aren’t working so I turned to my trusty old friend — A Journal

Nothing fancy, no Bullet journal design crap, just to write down what’s going on in my mind. I’ve used journaling before to fight my emotional issues and having a brain dump really helps. So I dumped all my thoughts into a journal.

And no surprise journaling worked like magic. The moment I wrote down about my day and what I was thinking, I had this feeling of an empty mind after a really long time. And a while after my journaling session, I wrote the initial draft of this post. Which is a huge success after what I went through.

So to conclude I wanna say if you’ve serious Anxiety which is affecting your day-to-day life seek professional help. Because we really underestimate the damage mental health issues can cause. Journaling worked for me it doesn’t mean it’ll work for you.

I guess that’s it for today, see you in the next. Till then stay safe. Peace✌