Be an Arrow

In life we will experience difficulties and hardships. It will not be easy, by any stretch of the imagination. As many of you know, I have wrestled with an anxiety disorder my entire life and have had my fair share of ups and downs as a result. I use to pray everyday, multiple times a day, for God to take it from me. To give me any other affliction except anxiety. However, He saw a bigger plan. I now see that my anxiety allows me to help others who are experiencing the same pains as I do. I can relate and help them feel less alone. Less afraid.

I came across a beautiful quote that compared life to an arrow. It talked about how an arrow can only shoot if it is pulled back. And in the process of being pulled back it prepares to be launched forward. This is a perfect example of our lives. We have to remember that “being pulled back” or the downs in our life, doesn’t mean that our life it is over. It only means that we are about to be launched into an amazing future!

You are not Alone

If you are someone who has a mental disorder, like myself, I am here to tell you that you are not alone. Over this past year, I have been learning that more people  have been experiencing the same thing I have than I ever imagined! It is sad to think we have all kept silent because we are afraid that we will be ridiculed. Many of us have suffered years in silence and have been too timid to tell those around us what is really going on.

You are not alone! Reach out. Tell a friend. Write a blog. Whatever medium you feel most comfortable express your feelings and struggles because people will reach out and be there for you. You do not have to struggle alone.

It seeks to take it all

It gains strength.

However, I am stronger.

It wants me to feel powerless.

Yet, boldness rises up from within me.

It wants me to be crippled with fear.

But, courage a urges me onward.

It is Anxiety.

The beast that seeks to rule my world,

My choices,

My actions,

My thoughts. 

However, I am Me! 

I am the ruler of my world,

My choices,

My actions,

My thoughts.

It will never win.

I am Strong! 



Just hang on!

Just hang on.

It cannot last forever.

This is only temporary.

The pain you feel now wi making you strong.

Yes, now you feel defeated.

Victory is just around the corner.

So just hand on, my friend.

Just hang on.

I broke through my Roadblock!

When my anxiety is running high, I find it very difficult to drive. For whatever reason, I become terrified of the various obstacles that operating a vehicle requires. Traffic seems overwhelming. Stoplights daunting. So I just avoid it all together by having an unspoken agreement during those times that my husband will take the lead.

Last year, when my anxiety was the worst it had been in years, I went months without getting behind the wheel. I remember one time, the mere thought of getting in the drivers seat actually set off a panic attack. That was the start of my realization that something was wrong and I needed to get help. My eyes were beginning to see that I was in over my head.

Fast forward eight months later… For those of you have not read any of my previous postings, I finally went to see my doctor and was given a very low dosage of medication to help curb the side effects of my anxiety. I also began to practice yoga, blog daily, and create a support system of close friends and family. All of these strategies have helped me exponentially over the last several months!

NOW! To the Roadblock!

A group of teachers and I had a training down in Phoenix, Arizona and I decided that I WANTED to drive everyone! I just had it in my head that I wanted to take the leap and take the wheel! I am so glad I went with my gut, because it felt so empowering! The car I drove wasn’t even my own car, yet I still felt compelled to drive. I am not sure if you have ever been to Arizona, but the roads are not flat, or straight, by any means. We had to descend through the mountains by a few thousand feet, so I had to maneuver around curves, up hills and down slopes. The incredible part about this experience is that I never ONCE had an ounce of anxiety. Never Once. I can honestly tell you that I never imagined that I would be able to say that. It was a huge stepping stone in my healing process to be able to confident enough to drive.

I wanted to share this with you guys because I am so excited, and I know you will all appreciate how monumental this was!! 🙂

Coming to Terms

I believe that coming to terms with ourselves takes time. It may take an entire lifetime, but it something we must strive for or else we cannot grow in love. It has taken me years to come to terms with my anxiety disorder. Years to love myself, just as I am. If we cannot love ourselves, how can we expect to love others? We cannot.

Each day is a learning experience and I strive to make the most of each precious moment. In the past, I have prayed over, and over, for God to take my anxiety. To lift the burden from my shoulders and let me just be “normal”. For years I was angry with Him because anxiety continued to haunt me. I felt as if my faith was not strong enough. That I wasn’t praying correctly. Or, perhaps, I was doing something wrong. I constantly stayed in prayer in hopes that he would take away the thorn in my side. However, He had something different in mind for me. Something bigger than myself. He showed me that my anxiety is not a burden.

I am now seeing that my anxiety is part of who I am. There is nothing wrong with my faith, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t love God. My prayers have shifted in focus over the years and I now ask to see how I can use anxiety to help others instead of asking for it to be take away. I never imagined that my disorder would be helping those around me. I never thought it could be a positive thing! Now that my perspective has shifted, I can now see it as a blessing. It is part of who I am and I can finally accept that.

Whatever your burden is, see if there is a lighter perspective. Is there a way it can be used to the benefit of others?

Hard times can be used for good!

I have touched on this topic in the past, but it has been brought to my attention again, and I believe that it is something that should stay in the forefront of our minds. We all go through hardships in our lives, some more than others. There is nothing we can do to change what has happened in our past, but we can change what happens in the future. After we have finally made it to the other side of our struggles, we are able to reflect upon them and discover that we are stronger. We are also able to support others who are going through the same struggles. No one understands more than someone with first-hand experience.

Since my anxiety manifested itself in my adolescence, I have always prayed for it to be taken away. I always thought there was something wrong with me, and that I was doing something wrong in my life because I continued to struggle with it even though I felt as if I continually prayed for God to take my burden. Over the years I became disheartened and fell further into anxiety. There were times when I had no anxiety and I was so thankful! However, it kept returning and I kept wondering what was wrong with me.

After years of thinking I was doing something wrong, God has finally made it clear to me that it is NOTHING I have done. I am not a bad person. I do not lack faith. It is purely a biological imbalance. I do not want to say that it is a flaw, because I do not believe that God makes mistakes. Do I wish that I didn’t have anxiety? More than anything. However, I am at the point where I am able to see that my anxiety has a purpose. There is a reason why my struggle is anxiety. I think that it is so I can help others who suffer from the same affliction. I have always had the gift of gab, combined with the inability to be embarrassed. These qualities combined allow me to open up to others and share my story. Provide hope for those around me who feel as if they have nothing left.

I am here to tell you now that there is something left. You have so much to give, even if you are flawed. Even if you are afraid. We are all afraid at one time or another. What matters is what we decide to do with that fear. Will we allow it to tear us down and defeat us? Or will we use it to propel us forward and overcome the hardships? What will you choose?

Thank You for Your Understanding

I just wanted to take this time to thank all of you for all the support and kindness you have given me on this blog as I have revealed some of my darkest moments to you. In the beginning, I wanted to be sure to be completely honest in hopes that I could help at least one person no longer feel like they were traveling this anxious road alone. Had I been able to find that one person, maybe I could have come to terms with my anxiety sooner. Regardless of how I discovered my own disorder, I do not regret anything that I have gone through in the past because it has made me who I am today, and I have been able to use these experiences to share with all of you!

Thank you again for being so kind and loving! You continually give me strength to share my journey with all those who need to hear it.

Learning about yourself doesn’t have to be scary!

The other day I wrote a post about the power knowledge has on our healing process, and today I discovered I had to take my own advice. As many of you know, I  started this journey of healing at the end of June, and I have made immense strides in gaining back the power anxiety stole from me.

All those months ago, the doctor confirmed what I always suspected. I have an anxiety disorder. It came as no surprise to me because it is prevalent in my genealogy, and mental disorders tend to be hereditary. I have always known I had this type of disorder, because I have gone to counseling to help with anxiety when I graduated from college, but it was never diagnosed by a doctor.

Since the doctor I have now never 100% confirmed which type of anxiety I have (since he was a gynecologist), I have always speculated it was either GAD or panic disorder. I tend to be anxious a lot and have had panic attacks. However, the more I thought about it, and researched the disorders I felt that I did not wholly identify with GAD. I felt that there was something more that I was missing and I couldn’t quite figure out what.

Completely out of issues relating to my own struggles, I began to read about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Like many others, I had always assumed that OCD was a disorder characterized by excessive cleanliness and rituals. However, while I was reading about it today I happened to stumble upon the intrusive thought obsessions. Pow! It hit me like a ton of bricks (if you pardon my overused idiom). That was it. The missing piece of my anxiety. OCD-UK is an incredible site that lists the various forms of OCD that are not stereotypical of the disorder.

As I read through the signs and symptoms of the intrusive thoughts I felt as if I was reading a page out of my own diary. I felt as if someone was searching the deepest parts of my mind and writing them down without asking me for permission. I have to admit, I started to feel my chest tighten and the familiar feeling of anxiety creep over me. I think it was a knee-jerk reaction to confronting my obsessions in plain, black and white text. Never before had anything struck so close to my core as reading through some of these symptoms.

Since I have started this blog, I have never kept my struggles from you all, because I believe that transparency of these disorders is what will help eliminate the stereotypes we live with everyday. So, I will reveal some of the obessive thoughts I have had in the past.

The  biggest obsession has always about being pregnant. The strange thing about this obsession is that I did not have sex until I was 27 (I wanted to wait for marriage) and these thoughts started LONG before I began my sex life. I knew it was insane, but It kept cycling through my brain in repeat. Everyday. All day.

Another obsessive thought I have experienced is randomly punching someone while they were talking to me. It sounds slightly comical, and I have to admit, if I ever saw it happen in real life, it would be hilarious! However, it was awful because while people were talking to me I would just have the thought to hit them or flip the table over or some other weird aggressive action towards them. The strangest part about these thoughts is that I have NEVER been a violent person. I have never been in a fight, and I have a difficult time recovering from a stubbed toe, let alone a blown out hand from punching someone.

Also, I have had what they call “magical thinking”. I thought that if I talked about getting in a car crash, it would increase the likelihood of me getting into one. Or if I talked about an accident happening, it would be more likely to happen. I avoided talking about these topics because I thought that the mere mention of them would seal my fate. I always thought it was because I hated irony, but I see now that they are obsessive in nature. I remember during my first year of teaching we had a member of the police department come in and talk about what to do if a school shooting was to occur, and for the rest of the day I thought we were going to have one. There are many other obsessive thoughts that were listed, but these were my big three.

After reading and researching more, I do feel a little rattled by this learning, but I am happy to learn a little more about myself. In a few months I will be going to a more specialized dr. and I am going to bring up this area and see what I can learn from them. I want to continue to grow in my knowledge so that I can better myself in the future and finally take the reins on anxiety and be 100% in control! It will not win! I am strong and I can defeat it! 🙂

Do you ever talk to yourself?

For me, the answer to this question is a resounding YES! I actually talk to myself constantly. As a woman with an anxiety disorder it is imperative that I keep in constant communication with myself, as odd as it may sound. Self talk has helped me overcome hundreds to anxious situations and has kept me a little bit more sane during the day.

There is one particular “self talk situation” that comes to mind. This summer during our monsoon season, I was heading downtown, and I knew there was a chance for rain, but it was relatively clear by my house. As soon as I took off down the road, the heavens opened up and it was, literally, as if I was going through a car wash! I couldn’t see anything out of my windows and the spray from my wheels was streaming UP over my car! I drove about 15 miles an hour and refused to go any faster. There was no way I was going to turn around because I had told my friends I would meet them and I didn’t want to be a flake. So I kept pushing onward.

My heart settled in my throat so it was nearly impossible to swallow. My knuckles were pale as I gripped the wheel. Cold sweat had even formed on my brow. Then I started getting hot. A panic attack was coming! I didn’t want to have one while I was behind the wheel so I started talking out loud to myself.

I remember sitting at a red light and congratulating myself for doing such a great job driving. I pretty much channeled my father and went into driving instructor mode. I kept telling myself how great I was doing and how proud  I was of myself. Also, I kept reassuring myself that we were almost there. I think if anyone else was in the car, they would have been laughing hysterically!

My point with this musing was that I was able to avoid the panic attack by speaking positively to myself, even though I felt the opposite. Hearing my own voice was like I had a little cheerleader next to be cheering me onward! I think we need to be our own cheerleaders. We spend a lot of time tearing ourselves down when we are in the middle of an anxious situation, but what would happen if we flipped those thoughts and decided to be kind to ourselves. Talk to ourselves gently and with encouragement. How would that make our anxiety feel? Could we get through it easier? You don’t have to always say it out loud but even just hearing your inner self cheering for you can make a huge difference.

I challenge you to try Self Talking to yourself when you are stressed, anxious, depressed, or overwhelmed. See where it will lead you. I bet you will find yourself in a place you didn’t expect.

**This post was started because of a fabulous conversation with CrumpledPaperCranes! So I wanted to share it with all of you!