Anxious Struggles

     I've always sort of kept to myself about things that I worry about.  I would feel like if I talked about it someone might think I'm crazy and they'd get scared away.  Another reason I'm not very open about it is because it is so hard for me to find the words that I am trying to say.  Anxiety is such a hard thing to explain to others.  As I wrote in my last post, the best way to describe it is the devil on your shoulder.  Personally. my little companion likes to be around a lot.  When I say a lot, I really mean all the time.  I personally get anxiety over just about anything.  For example, I absolutely hate being alone.  I feel like if I am alone I have no control over anything.  My mind jumps to the worst conclusions about anything I see, hear, or even imagine.  My companion likes to replay anything I've read or seen on TV, (that most of the time isn't even true), and convinces me it will all happen and I will not be able to do anything to prevent it.  I start to stress and look for any way out of it.  You can tell me as much as you want that someone will not break into the house and kidnap me, but it won't do any good. 
     Since I have struggled with anxiety for so long I have learned ways to try and make things just a little better.  However, this does not mean within a minute I am better again.  Everyone has their bad days.  There have been days and many sleepless nights that I am in constant worry, and that is normal.  Sadly, anxiety can not be fully healed; but we can try our best to work through it. Something that I commonly do is distract myself.  This can mean turning on a TV show or movie, calling a friend or family member, or just doing anything not related to what you're anxious about.  I find that most of the time it takes a while for me to get fully engaged into what I'm trying to distract myself with, but once I do my anxiety lessens.
     Another thing that I hate is not having control.  For example, I hate storms.  I know that I will not get struck by lightening. I know that if I was not safe then I would be told and helped to leave somewhere else.  It comes back to my shoulder friend, he doesn't tell me what I should be worried about.  He just lets me know, "Hey! Let's freak out right now for no reason and ruin a couple hours of your day since you have absolutely no control over anything right now".  I feel like the worst thing someone can say to me when I get anxious about this is, "There's nothing to worry about, you'll be fine, get over it".  This makes me feel like I have no support from them and they think that I'm crazy.  No matter how much someone tries to convince me that everything will be okay, I will always have my devil to tell me that they're wrong.
     I also have no control of my surroundings when I am in an airplane.  I get so incredibly stressed out when I'm flying, especially recently when I fly to go see my family on my own.  I feel like there is no possible way that I will make it out of the flight alive.  Once we land I almost start crying of happiness and want to kiss the ground.  There are two things that I find help me calm down a bit. 1. I talk to the person next to me.  I start out by saying "I really am not a huge fan of flying, this isn't very fun for me", or something of the sorts.  I have always been lucky to get a person next to me who is very friendly and who flies often for work.  This Man once explained to me that turbulence is not always wind, it's hitting heat pockets in the air that flow over the plane.  He asked me about my life and just continued to talk to me until we finally landed.  It helped me so much to have something else on my mind rather than crashing and dying.  2. I have recorded myself on the plane during bad turbulence.  I do this so that before I go fly I can remind myself that even though there were a lot of bumps on a flight, I landed and made it out alive.
     These are just a few of my anxieties and how I try and get a handle on them.  I still struggle with so much more than even I am able to realize.  It is so hard for me to try and stay positive when I feel anxious.  In the beginning, it is almost impossible.  You really need to take time to yourself to realize who you are and how you deal with things.  You need to realize what helps and what doesn't help.  Throughout the rest of my blog posts I am going to share a hard time I had with something that week or something I was really anxious about.  My goal is to try and bring out the positive and share how I dealt with something.  I hope to be able to help at least one person with these posts to work on overcoming their own worries, even when it feels impossible.  Stay positive, and you will benefit in the end.