{"id":1517,"date":"2012-11-26T00:01:41","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T05:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fxckfeelings.com\/?p=1517"},"modified":"2012-11-26T11:37:24","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T16:37:24","slug":"sigh-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/2012\/11\/26\/sigh-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Sigh, Anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you suffer from anxiety and depression, you know they\u2019re like your own mental Statler and Waldorf, the two Muppet balcony hecklers, except less cute and more evil, spewing criticism that impairs your ability to feel confident and make decisions. Even when they don\u2019t prevent you from achieving significant accomplishments, anxiety and\/or depression make you believe you didn\u2019t do as well as you should have. So, if you suffer from anxiety, learn how to tune out its constant negative chatter, or, even better, be proud of your ability to go on with the show.
\n–Dr. Lastname<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m 37 years old, nearly 38. I’m undecided on whether or not to have a child. My mother died 12 years ago and I’ve been in and out of depression ever since. I definitely have a lot to be grateful for, but a lot of times I feel like I just can’t go on\u2014the sadness and loss are still unbearable. The other thing is that I have been dealing with very bad insomnia since my mom’s death, which also makes life very difficult. I haven’t had a lot of long-term relationships but I’m in one now and it’s been 2 years. The relationship is good and he is a good man, but I’ve never had that feeling of “knowing” if he’s the right person\/life long partner. There’s always something missing for me and I suppose it’s from the loss of my mom, and the reason I usually end up breaking up with boyfriends. I don’t want to keep that pattern going as I’ll end up alone. Because of my age I feel like time is of the essence and I need to make a decision\u2014on my relationship and having a baby. I have always thought that I would have a child and I am a loving\/giving person and love kids, but it’s so hard to take care of myself sometimes, I wonder if it’s right for me to me to have one. My partner wants kids (he would be a wonderful father) and I told him I’m not ready yet, but will I ever be? My goal is to come to a decision and be at peace with it. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You\u2019ve had more than your share of pain in life, so it\u2019s understandable that the things that should make you feel happiness, like a good relationship, are buried by exhaustion and a lingering sense of pain and loss.<\/p>\n

Your pain hasn\u2019t distracted you, however, from the fact that certain things make life meaningful, even when the joy they inspire doesn\u2019t register. Apparently, two of those things for you are raising kids and having a relationship, which matter to you despite knowing that you\u2019ll sometimes be unable to function or feel anything other than misery.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s what\u2019s meaningful to you, don\u2019t ask yourself whether motherhood or marriage will make you happy, whether your feelings will ever be normal, or whether you\u2019ll always be able to function as a parent. Unfortunately, it\u2019s not your lot in life to have normal expectations about feelings or function. That doesn\u2019t mean, however, that you can\u2019t achieve normal goals if you\u2019re prepared to make realistic adjustments.<\/p>\n

Instead of focusing on possible happiness, ask whether you\u2019ve found a partnership that is good enough to stand up to your emotional downs (after two years, I assume it has already demonstrated strength) as well as the demands of child-rearing. If you think you\u2019ve formed a team that can do the job, and you believe the job is worth doing, then don\u2019t let pain or doubt make your decisions for you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the nature of depression to tell you that you\u2019ve failed to get over your mother, take proper care of your health, or find a relationship that feels like Mr. Right, and it doesn\u2019t help that popular culture supports similar bullshit ideas. In truth, however, if you\u2019ve done what you can to move on after losing your mother and done nothing grossly stupid to hurt your health (like smoking), those thoughts are wrong and you should never let them go unchallenged. Depression can have the loudest opinion in your head, but that doesn\u2019t mean it has the right one. <\/p>\n

So far, loss, pain, and fatigue haven\u2019t prevented you from finding a good partner and daring to think about parenting. If you think you\u2019ve got a good chance to do what matters and the right person to do it with, don\u2019t doubt the value of your choice; if you know what you\u2019re doing is right, then how you feel about what you\u2019re doing, or how you feel in general, doesn\u2019t have to matter. <\/p>\n

STATEMENT<\/strong>:
\n\u201cI feel I\u2019m often weak and sad when others are strong and happy, but I haven\u2019t stopped pursuing what I value and I may well have found what I need. I won\u2019t stop building the best life I can, as long as I think the risks are reasonable and the goals are worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m resigned to the fact that anxiety has played a dominant role in my life, but I wish I could manage it a little better. I was so anxious I\u2019d never get married that I married the first woman who was interested even though she was crazy, put me through a terrible divorce, and has since become the ex from hell. I’m lucky that the kids we had together are terrific, but my anxiety about how they’d feel about me after the divorce kept me from trying a relationship again until recently. I made enough to put the kids through college, but I\u2019m sure I would have done more if I wasn\u2019t so nervous about trying anything new. I have enough life left that I want to figure out how to keep anxiety from pushing me into more decisions I’ll regret.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just because anxiety has been a constant presence in your life doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ve failed to get over it; in spite of anxiety, you extricated yourself from a bad marriage, managed a tough divorce, and raised good kids. Instead of imagining what you could have or should have done if you weren\u2019t anxious, give yourself credit for all you did in spite of it.<\/p>\n

Like the person above, you\u2019re affected by the negative thoughts that anxiety puts in your brain; it tells you that you\u2019re always undermining your own health, confidence, and relationships by stressing yourself and preventing yourself from performing well. It blames you for choking, underperforming, and disappointing, and is generally your worst fan, so you have to think carefully to realize it\u2019s telling you lies.<\/p>\n

The time to worry about your ability to live with anxiety is when you don\u2019t leave the house or tolerate long term relationships, and that\u2019s not you. Yes, you might have performed better if you were less anxious, but maybe not. After all, for every time anxiety caused you to choke, it also identified legitimate things to worry about and avoid. Anxiety is a genetic trait that gets passed on frequently from generation to generation because it helps creatures survive more often than not, which is why you don\u2019t see too many chill gazelles. <\/p>\n

Unlike the person above, who has hesitated to get started in life because of her doubts as well as incapacity, you never hesitated and you\u2019ve got good things to show for it. Above all, you know that fear has never stopped you, nor has regret.<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t buy into the anxiety-driven should-haves and might-have-beens. Perhaps treatment can reduce your anxiety, and you could talk to a therapist or life coach about new strategies for approaching decisions and stress. What you\u2019d be managing, however, isn\u2019t the anxiety itself, which is probably in your very DNA, but the way you react to it and let it affect the way you feel about yourself. <\/p>\n

Whether or not you ever find a way to reduce the impact anxiety has on your life, never let it reduce your pride in what you\u2019ve accomplished in spite of it. <\/p>\n

STATEMENT<\/strong>:
\n\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve never been fully me because I\u2019ve never been fully at ease, but I don\u2019t believe that being at ease is a reasonable or achievable goal that is available to everyone\u2014and certainly not to me. Despite anxiety, I\u2019ve taken meaningful risks and forged good relationships. Just because I don\u2019t feel like a success doesn\u2019t mean that I\u2019m not one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you suffer from anxiety and depression, you know they\u2019re like your own mental Statler and Waldorf, the two Muppet balcony hecklers, except less cute and more evil, spewing criticism that impairs your ability to feel confident and make decisions. Even when they don\u2019t prevent you from achieving significant accomplishments, anxiety and\/or depression make you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,67,41,103,78,89,90,64,91,33,20,51,46,66,80,25,27],"tags":[13,127,100,44,30,3,15,11,104,108,105,42,95],"class_list":["post-1517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acceptance","category-aging","category-anxiety","category-divorce","category-failure","category-ffamily","category-fear","category-grief","category-guilt","category-just-fcked","category-kidsparenting","category-loss","category-marriage","category-pain","category-regret","category-relationships","category-sadness","tag-acceptance","tag-aging","tag-anxiety","tag-depression","tag-divorce","tag-ffamily","tag-fear","tag-guilt","tag-just-fcked","tag-loss","tag-marriage","tag-parenting","tag-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1517"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1521,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517\/revisions\/1521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}