Rants, ramblings, reflections and rhapsodies about what it’s like to be a young, married, millennial professional living with an anxiety disorder in Vancouver
Author: Becca
A Vancouverite that grew up in the Maritimes, I'm a married, millennial, rugby-playing, PNW-exploring high school teacher who loves reading, art, and nature. And I have generalized anxiety disorder.
There are many “how not to be anxious” and “self-care” lists out there. Those titles alone are just plain ridiculous, because anyone with anxiety knows that you can’t just make it go away. Unfortunately, you can’t just “not.” Usually the absolute worst things you can say to me when I’m anxious or having a panic attack are “Calm down” or “Just breathe.” Let me tell you, I nixed those really early in the game. Dealing with anxiety is about using prevention methods, avoiding triggers, and managing symptoms to make sure that the effects of having the disorder have as little impact on your life as possible. There is no cure for mental illness, but there are my three types of management strategies.
I was recently talking to a co-worker, and she said that she has a friend who is a counsellor and they won’t treat anyone for mental health issues until they are sleeping 8 hours a night, doing 30 minutes of physical activity outside 5 times a week, eating well, and taking both vitamin D and omega 3. It’s a bit severe of a stance to take that could alienate people with severe mental health issues and could also be a barrier for people with any severity of mental health issues to getting help, but it makes an interesting point. Take care of your biological health, and there is a high chance that it will positively affect your mental health.
I went a different route — at the time that my anxiety was at its worst, I was not exercising regularly, sleeping well, or taking vitamins, but I went to see a counsellor and worked from there. I’m pro whatever method you use to try to help yourself. You do you!
Once my overwhelming anxiety began to be managed by therapy (and later meds, but that’s a story for another post), I slowly started working on the physical health aspects with exercise, yoga, and meditation. The physical/biological management strategies have definitely improved my mental health, but I still have anxiety. Many physical self-care items are included in my list because they are helpful. But I want to emphasize that I’m not trying to perpetuate the myth that you can “fix” anxiety by just “going for a walk outside” or “exercising regularly,” as I hear so often. The soundtrack of my life can sometimes seem to sound like a repeating cassette tape that says “I have anxiety,” which is responded to with, “Oh, have you tried exercise?”
Insert eye roll here.
Thankfully, there are many lists out there that are of the “here are my anxiety management strategies, maybe some of them might help you” variety. I want to add a list to that growing library of lists that I turned to when I was first crafting my own coping mechanisms.
I’m not purporting to be the be-all and end-all of “do this and your anxiety is managed,” because I know that these things are absolutely very personal. But I also know that reading other people’s lists helped me to create my own through trial and error. So I hope that at least one thing on my list is something you might not have thought of. Perhaps reading mine will inspire you to create your own! I find that it’s often helpful to read my list to remind myself of things I can easily do to make myself feel even a bit better.
Finally, after working on this post for months, I realized that it was becoming a behemoth, so I decided to simply post my list today, and then in future posts I’ll elaborate on each strategy with personal anecdotes, links, and recommendations.
So without further ado, here’s my (by no means exhaustive) list, categorized into the three types of management strategies I outlined above:
Self-Care 1: Prevention Methods
First, here are the prevention methods that I’m trying to make sure I hit regularly each week.
Regular sleep schedule
Exercise
Medication
Meditation (yes, I had to look twice when I typed this as well)
Yoga
Hydration
Writing
Talking about it
Anxiety-reducing foods
Eating regularly
Hygge
Vitamins
Fighting procrastination
Self-Care 2: Avoiding Triggers
Second, in terms of avoiding triggers, it’s important for me to note that everyone has different triggers. Hopefully you’ll feel less alone reading a (by no means exhaustive) list of some of mine.
Messy workspace
Messy home
Email backlog
Traffic
Crowds
Coffee
Hunger
Deadlines
Evaluations at work
Long days
Being cold
Texting
Sending emails
Running out of food at work
Forgetfulness
Not having a plan
Social gatherings
Medical appointments
Phone calls
Being late
Self-Care 3: Managing Symptoms
Finally, a lot of the things I do to manage my symptoms (such as, if I’ve just had a panic attack or if I’m feeling particularly anxious at any given time) are the same as things I use as prevention methods. I’ll list them again.
Tea
Anxiety-reducing foods
Hygge
Meditation (the t-one this time!)
Yoga
Writing
Reading
Talking about it
Getting shit done
Taking a bath
Lighting candles
Going for a walk or run
Exercise in general
Playing video games
Listening to music
Listening to a podcast
Dance parties
That’s it for now! Can’t wait to share my first in-depth post on self-care, talking all about regular sleep schedules!
A month ago, I wrote a reflection paper for my adult development course. I recently re-potted my plants. Finally, I had an epiphany about self-care while I was out for a walk. All of this is connected; trust me, it will make sense in a minute.
The History of the Colour of my Thumb
First, it is important to know that until recently, I’ve had a pretty black thumb. I come by it honestly. My mom has an art piece in her garden that says “I tried, but it died” on it. It was gifted to her by a close friend who knows her well. I had a small bamboo plant during my undergrad years that literally only needed to have water in its jar that died. With water in the jar.
A couple of years ago, my husband and I used our generous wedding gifts to re-vamp our apartment. I decided to risk it and get a new plant. Two years later, it’s three times its size. I had to re-pot it last summer into a larger pot. So this year, I bought four new plants – aloe, a succulent, a bonsai, and a bigger bamboo. All was going well, until a couple of weeks ago.
My aloe plant’s soil had started growing algae. I think it might have been because of the way I had it potted (glass vase, cute rocks at the bottom, and then soil). I thought that if I left off watering it for a while it might dry out the algae (Sciencey people – if this makes me sounds like an idiot, suspend judgement. Science is not my forté. Also, refer to above about my black thumb). Alas, it didn’t work. And my aloe started to go brown at the edges. I couldn’t be sure if this was a side-effect of the algae-y soil, or the lack of water, or some combination of the two. Either way, the roots were also starting to reach into the rock part of the vase, so I knew I would need to re-pot it. My black thumb and I at least know that much.
Operation Re-Pot
So, off I went to Home Depot to get more potting soil. Home I returned to begin operation re-pot in the bathtub (another problem with apartment living – nowhere good to garden!). Once I had carefully extracted the aloe from the dreaded algae death vase, I aggressively cleaned and dried the vase, took out, cleaned, and put away the rocks, and put soil only in the vase and then re-potted the aloe. I put a bit of new topsoil in all my plant pots, and watered everything as usual. The next day, my aloe had almost entirely magically transformed from brown to green, and all my other plants were thriving happily. It was then that I had the epiphany. To put it all together, let’s go back to the paper.
Life Metaphor: The Car
For the first section, I was tasked with coming up with a metaphor for my life, based on an exercise in Norman Amundson’s The Physics of Living. At the time, I was dealing with the beginnings of a new (probably stress-related) chronic illness, was working full-time, and was concurrently enrolled in 11 university credits in 6 weeks. The metaphor I came up with was ‘a car that is running out of gas speeding down a deserted road with no signs of civilization.’
My life then amounted to waking up in the morning, heading to work, coming home, doing readings and homework, going to sleep, and repeating. Weekends were all homework and no play. I did manage to get some readings done at the beach, sand in my binders and all. However, self-care was at a minimum. I was burning the candle at both ends, running out of gas with no way and no place to fill up. Unsurprising that this blog was left neglected.
Life Metaphor: Self-Care
The next task of the reflection paper (and Amundson’s above-mentioned text) was to rework that metaphor into something more positive. It was then that the flower metaphor sprouted (sorry not sorry). Here I transformed my sputtering car into a flower, sitting in a sunless room, with drooping petals and dry soil. What’s the difference?
A car is perpetually using gas. When my tank has less than 60km left in it, the warning light comes on, and I fill it up. But that’s easy and reliable; humans aren’t like that. There isn’t a day when a warning light will come on in my brain to tell me that I need to fill up. And ‘filling up’ is not as easy as stopping at a gas station. Rather than filling up with gas every now and again, flowers, like people, need much more nuanced care. They can’t get too much sun, or too little; too much water, or too little. They need careful, constant observation and care that is catered to their needs. They need a thoughtful, intelligent, and caring helper.
Like tending to flowers, self-care is a constant process for humans, and it involves lots of different, smaller processes, like enough sleep, a healthy diet, exercise, spirituality, connections with others, and activities to relax you and bring you joy.
Through this exercise, I learned that I need to take the time each day to tune into what it is that I need to nourish myself (plenty of soil and regular watering). I need to place myself in the best possible environment for my happiness and health (in a room with sunlight away from toxins). Nourishment – with good food, regular sleep, joyful and relaxing activities, connections with others, spirituality, and exercise – is essential. I can also place myself in environments that make me feel more nourished and supported.
I can take myself out of the library and the office, and head out for a hike in the forest or watch the sunset on the beach. Placing myself in a lower-intensity environment with less obligations will be helpful. I need to practice self-care not only by adding free-time to my schedule, but by removing obligations. If I am going to continue to my Masters and stay working full-time, three and four classes at once is too much. I cannot stop exercising because I feel like I don’t have the time. It is important to focus on feeding myself quality nutrients and not what is easy and fast. I need to take the time to relax and enjoy life, and not let it go speeding by me as I focus on the next achievement I want to conquer and unwittingly run out of gas.
The Epiphany
Although that was an epiphany in itself (which I’m sure my husband and parents are cheering about, because they’ve been trying to shove it into my brain for years), I had another one, right after re-potting my aloe.
Seemingly at the same time, I have learned to be an effective apartment gardener, shedding my black thumb for one of the slightly greener variety, and I’ve learned to take care of myself. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? What flipped a switch in my mind that helped me realize I wasn’t practicing self-care? What prompted the more intuitive response to my plants in addition to my body? The introspective work I was doing during my illness and through my courses? Learning to care for my plants? I’m not sure I’ll come to a positive conclusion on that question; I think it might be a bit of both. But at the moment I don’t care; I’m just enjoying spending the last two weeks of my summer using all of my energy to care for myself.
Before I even begin, I need to preface this with my concept of what is a Millennial. For me, the word is not derogatory. It means to be the offspring of a baby boomer. To have inherited their forebears’ work ethic. To add to it heavy doses of creativity and a willingness to collaborate. To be planted in a hostile job market and pitted against heavy competition. We are enthusiastic and resilient, but we also deal with increased occurrences of mental illness. We also have antiquated perspectives placed upon us (especially women). For example, the need to “get a good job, get married, buy a home, settle down, and have a family” in an economy where this is increasingly difficult. Besides, many of us do not feel the urge to do so until later in our lives anyway.
A post-baby boomer job environment
The basic understanding of the world of work for the parents who raised us Millennials is “work hard, and you’ll succeed.” Unfortunately, that perspective did not prepare us for the 21st century. So, when I hear yet another baby boomer from my parents’ generation tell me that success rewards hard work and that I shouldn’t worry too much, I can’t help but roll my eyes, justifiably. How can it not be the problem of millennials to be worried about their futures? What even is success anymore anyway?
I realize that my anxiety is different from regular worry; that it’s an uncontrollable physiological fear response to fear that has little basis. However, the life circumstances that Millennials face should make any normal human being quake in their boots. We are naturally worried about truly worrying circumstances.
It’s just even more fun to handle it when you have an anxiety disorder.
So you want to be a teacher? Good luck.
Which brings my to my particular situation. As a beginning teacher in a province with a terrible job market for teachers (see Christy Clark’s 2002 decimation of our bargaining rights, only recently (February 2017) won back in the Supreme Court of Canada), job security is, needless to say, poor; that is, if you can even get a job to begin with.
In September 2013, when I began my Bachelor of Education program, the Secondary Education practicum coordinator had all ~300 of us in a lecture hall and began with, “You will not get a job.”
I graduated with my BEd in August of 2014, and I applied to be a TTOC (Teacher Teaching on Call – for all my New Brunswicker friends, this is a glorified term for ‘sub’) in every district, even those that weren’t recruiting at the time. It was a summer of many applications and zero calls. It didn’t help that BC teachers were on strike — what perfect timing.
A common theme: Sacrifice to get your start
I got lucky, as I made a follow-up call to a district where I had applied to be a TTOC. It turned out that they were looking for a French, English, and Social Studies teacher, which matched my qualifications almost exactly, and they asked me to apply. Sounds perfect, right? The only problem? This district was 6 hours north of Vancouver and I would have to leave home and fiancé behind and live alone for at least a year. I applied, and the interview was essentially an advertisement for how much I would enjoy life up in their neck of the woods.
I accepted the offer (how could I not, it was the only one I got!) and sat on my hands for most of September. As soon as the job action ended, I hauled ass up to the BC interior desert land. I worked there for the year, and peaced the heck out when I was finished. I loved the job, but the place was not for me for an extended period. Frequent trips on a tiny-ass plane that made me feel like I was in the middle of the Donnie Darko crash scene were my mental saving grace.
Another new start
I returned to Vancouver and once again entered the TTOC application race. Fortunately, this year, the district where I completed my practicum was accepting applications for French Immersion TTOCs. I applied, and eventually got the job. Thus began my career in the Lower Mainland.
Great, right? Pretty great, except that some months as a TTOC (namely September and June), you only work an average of 6 days. So I also had to stay at my other part-time job shift managing at McDonald’s. I spent my days religiously poring over our finances. Every morning, I counted the number of days I had worked so far that month. I created a formula to figure out how much I earned per day after taxes and deductions. I would figure out exactly how much I needed to work to “get by.” And of course, I’m one of the lucky ones, with a husband who has a steady job with benefits, which cover most of my prescription and extended health needs. However, as a TTOC, I don’t get access to teacher benefits so I’m still out-of-pocket for a number of things.
I spent the year last year as a TTOC, but I also picked up 2 months of a 1-block contract. 1 block. Out of 8. That’s what they had on offer! I loved it, but it also reduced my ability to TTOC, as I was unavailable in the afternoons every other day, and ended up reducing the amount of money I made overall. But contracts are currency in my district. TTOCs don’t get seniority, and seniority is what gets you a continuing contract (permanent – for my NB friends, a B contract).
Pair this with anxiety…
This transitional period in my life has me thinking. Particularly about what it’s like, for a person with anxiety specifically, to deal with a lack of job security. This is something so many millennials like me face for years once we graduate. The common perspective of older generations about millennials seems to be that we’re lazy, when in fact there are just not enough jobs to go around. Workers are taking later retirements. Companies and governments are squeezing wherever they can to save money in a tough economy. Cost of living is now exponentially higher compared to average salaries versus 30 years ago.
I’m a new teacher. I have anxiety. It’s hard to convince myself that I am worthy of the districts I’m applying to. It’s hard to convince myself that the reason my 100s of applications are returning no calls is that everyone else that applied had more seniority than me (highly likely, at this point). The amount of dead air I’ve encountered in response to my job searches, I’m sure, is enough to cripple a normal person, but a person who doubts every single word they say? Crushing.
I often tell myself I got lucky again when I pick up another small contract. I need to remind myself that I’m likely getting them now because I am becoming more skilled and more recognized and valued by the schools I am working for. My anxiety leads me to constantly think the worst about myself – to constantly assume that I am not worthy.
Lack of structure…
One of the things I find toughest to deal with as a person with anxiety is a lack of structure. This comes with unemployment. It’s also provided by the long breaks that I have in my profession as a teacher.
Now, I’m definitely not complaining about the (remember, unpaid) time we get off at holidays and in the summer. However, I often find that during those periods of my life, my anxiety is at its peak. I grow listless and depressed, and become increasingly anxious about not accomplishing anything, which then paralyzes me even more. I definitely feel the need to take on big artistic projects in the summer especially. These could be redesigning the layout and decor of my apartment, creating a scrapbook, or undertaking a photography project. I then create a day schedule in which I work toward project completion for at least a certain number of hours each day. I also dedicate day parts to relaxation, reflection, cleaning, and exercise.
Unclear schedules…
Sometimes more difficult are the days I don’t get a callout in the evening or early morning. This doesn’t mean that I am off for the day – callout is open until 1:30 pm. I could spend my morning assuming I’ve got the day off, only to have the phone ring at 1pm for the afternoon. Sometimes, I’m settling into the couch with a book at 8:30, and I get a call demanding I brave the worst of the morning’s traffic to be at a school for 9. On these days, it’s impossible to have a schedule. First, they are unexpected days off. I generally don’t have an anxiety-calming schedule created for a day when I expect to be working. However, they are also not necessarily days off, so I have to structure my time such that I can grab food and run out the door at a moment’s notice.
The dog’s breakfast…
There is also a lack of structure in the career development process for young teachers. We often get what is known as the “dog’s breakfast,” if we can even snatch that. Anything is better than being on call! In that first contract I took, I had 5 preps – French 7, French 8, French 9, English 8, and Social Studies 8. The normal maximum for any sane person is 4, preferably 3. This past year, I covered a paternity leave and had 5 again – French 8, French 9, French 10, French 11, and FRAL 8.
And negative amounts of security.
All of this with no clear “end” in sight. The “end” for me means having a full-time continuing contract. This equals working every day for the same district, receiving health benefits, and having the right to take leave (maternity or otherwise). My current school district requires 2 consecutive years of full-time contract work plus an extra contract before they award you continuing. To make matters worse, if a teacher goes 6 months plus 1 day between any contracts, all previously accumulated seniority disappears. For example, my current contract extends until June 30. That means that I have until December 30 to get another contract, or I lose the 1.5 years of seniority I now have. That’ would have been 75% of the way to a continuing contract. It’s a terrifying, paralyzing space to live in every day of my existence.
We’re losing such great people
I speak what I know. This is what I know about an increasingly difficult teaching market: it continually loses bright stars due to the difficulty of finding a secure job. A very small percentage of the wonderful people I met throughout the Education program are working in schools. Many did end up in educational positions that are unrelated to the private or public K-12 systems. However, many others work retail or administrative jobs or went back to school to do something else.
This is not just my problem, not just teachers’ problem
I am confident that my situation is not unique. Nor is it to unique to the teaching profession. My peers across the country, and the world, face very similar struggles. Small wonder that even more people do not deal with anxiety or other mental health disorders than already do.
But what can I do?!
I wish I could propose a solution, but I don’t really see one. The only thing that really helps to settle my anxiety is to work toward the fulfillment of my values, regardless of how I earn money. I think that to feel fulfilled in our lives, we need to do a few simple things:
do something for work that we enjoy
live life according to our values, in the greatest capacity of which we are capable
work hard
be creative
collaborate
ask for help
reflect
love ourselves
breathe
The rest is positivity and hoping for the best! This list is gets me through the worst of times and the best of times. Add a bit of luck, which often comes from that positive perspective, and hopefully, you’ll find your days are more fulfilling than not.
To start this post, we’ve got Hilarious Highly Sensitive Child Story Time!
My mom told me once that when her and my dad were searching for a new house when I was 2 years old, they knew exactly which one was perfect based on my reaction to it. I marched into every new room, got down on my hands and knees, and touched my face to the floor. I had a big, comforted smile on my face, almost as though I was affectionately rubbing it like a dog, or listening to some sort of hidden vibe only I could hear. Don’t worry, most of the rooms had carpet and they were certainly clean, as the sellers were showing it.
My point is that from earlier than I can remember, the environment around me, and the spaces I live and work in, affect me deeply. On an internal, subconscious level that displays itself in my mood and anxiety levels. Spaces all have a hidden vibe for me that resonates with me much deeper than it does for other people.
Like when my clarinet vibrated at a slightly higher or lower wavelength than the sounds ushering from the collective band and I knew I needed to tune it, I need to adjust the spaces I work and exist in so that our wavelengths match and my anxiety can turn to stillness. Otherwise it vibrates around, crashing into walls and itself, a never-ending tumble-dryer that can’t seem to run its course. It becomes a problem when I’m forced to function in a space that doesn’t work for me, but that’s another story.
Here’s a list of things a space needs in order for it to be a grade-A happy Bee anxiety-free place:
Live plants and flowers.
Fake ones are okay substitutes, and often have to substitute in my case because I have a thumb as black as night (I killed bamboo. It is almost impossible to kill bamboo.). Fake flowers can be super gorgeous. I’ve found some awesome ones at dollar stores, believe it or not. I have one live plant in my living room that somehow thrives despite me, perhaps to spite me. It needs to be re-potted, like, yesterday, which has my anxiety through the roof. I constantly worry I’m going to kill it.
(I started this post a long time ago. Since then, I successfully re-potted the plant, and although it was admittedly too large a pot, it was the only one I had. Consequently, some of the lower shoots of the plant have shriveled and died, but the positive outcomes are much greater: it has grown four new, much larger shoots that are reaching toward the sky like octopus’ tendrils and whose green is so much brighter than all those that came before it. It brings me joy.).
The bedroom and bathroom have fake plants, for now. Baby steps. Maybe I’ll get a second real plant if plant #1 survives the transplant. (That is now the plan! My friend just told me she is building a terrarium in her apartment. I decided to try a very small, easy version – low maintenance, creative art project plants? Sign me up! My terrarium had three plants in it to start with and one almost immediately died off, but the remaining two seem happy!)
Plenty of natural light, two live (still alive!) plants, a cozy chair with several pillows and blankets, and lots of art.
Lots of natural light.
It is much nicer to read in natural light than anything else, and I read a LOT. As an added plus, it helps my plants grow! Also, I grew up in places with huge windows, and it was always my favourite place to be. In the big, aforementioned face-to-carpet house that I chose when I was two, the living room had a giant bay window. It was where I played with my toys, read on the couch, drew, made forts, and designed friendship bracelets. I wrote stories, watched lightning crash into the forest, and lay on the floor after hosting a Spice World birthday party sleepover.
When we downsized after my dad moved to Calgary, our living room still had a giant, if no longer bay, window. I almost always relinquished (rejected, really) the spacious dining room table for the floor, on my hands and knees, to do my homework. Something about that carpet + window combination, I don’t know. It’s a soul space. We don’t have carpet in our apartment. Thank goodness we don’t, because it’s much easier to clean wood floors. However, I still have two cozy spots by our huge windows. They are wall-to-wall on the North side of our apartment, which means one entire wall of the bedroom, where our headboard is, and one entire wall of the living room, where the couch is. Natural light is just so calming for me.
Too bad I live in Vancouver and have to take vitamin D six months of the year in order not to get SAD.
Blankets and pillows.
I love being cozy. It is impossible for my anxiety to stay at panic level if I have a blanket wrapped around me. If it’s warm in my apartment, I would prefer to open a window and wrap myself in a blanket than to not wrap myself in a blanket and leave the window closed. We own upwards of 20 pillows between the two of us and Andrew literally only uses 4 of them. I love having them in all different colours – my favourite way to decorate a space is to have white/beige walls and neutral furniture, and decorate with bright blankets, pillows, artwork, books, vases, trinkets, and plants. And again, alllll the natural light.
How can one not feel comforted?!
Photographs.
I have always loved taking and displaying photos, and all my photos and those taken of myself and my loved ones have special places in my heart. I COVERED my apartment in all kinds of different photo frames of all shapes, sizes, and styles, filled with pictures of all the people who have ever been (and usually stay) important to me. If I’m feeling not so good, I have the faces of everyone I care about me smiling down on me. And sigh of relief.
Shelves and books.
I love to read. It’s one of the best anxiety busters that I’ve discovered for myself. I also love to have books displayed everywhere. Shelves are great for displaying trinkets and things too, which I love as well. Willow Tree figurines, vases, and other such items. A life goal of both mine and my husband’s is to have home library. We essentially already do, now that I have three IKEA Billy shelves worth of books. However, it would be nice to have them all in an office-like space or in the living room, and not have to keep them in the bedroom. Although I will always want a bookshelf in my sleeping space; I often drink in the sight of my bookshelves to instead of counting sheep or singing myself to sleep (bedtime brain on the hamster wheel, anyone?).
After switching to a rainbow layout, I don’t think I’m ever going back.
Art.
My own, and that of others. Blank walls open up a space, but I find I need colour and creativity to surround me or I start to feel cooped up and stifled. I am always anxious to decorate a new space if its walls are empty. In my new classroom this year, the first thing I did was put up posters and colourful paper. It was so… empty and devoid of life with just white walls.
Tree painting by Casile Hayward, pink heart by me, peacock cross-stitch by my mom.
Artful clutter.
This is difficult for me. I LOVE to collect things and find it hard to let go of memorabilia and other such items. I also live in a very small apartment (450 ft^2) with another human being in it. Plus, we don’t have a storage compartment. So our entire lives are in here, and I’m CONSTANTLY trying to come up with more creative ways to store our things. This helps my anxiety stay relatively calm when I’m at home. I find the more space I have around me, the calmer I am, and we live in a very small space, so it’s a constant work-in-progress.
Recently I’ve really been strongly considering renting a storage unit. I can almost feel the weight lifting off my shoulders. But I’m concerned that because we live so organized and with such minimal extra stuff, that it would get annoying having to go back and forth between the storage unit and the apartment due to needing things we’d put there. Might be more anxiety than it’s worth. Still thinking about it.
(Update: Came up with a better idea. Most of the non-useful clutter in our apartment is all my funko-pop boxes (which I keep to make it easier to move when we eventually do), and all our extra (disassembled) IKEA furniture. These things are both eye-sores and not needed at least until we move to a bigger place. The furniture is mostly things we upgraded, but would still be great pieces of furniture if we lived in a bigger place and had more space for them. We have a desk, a few side-tables, and a couple of shelving units (and probably more that I’m currently forgetting about. It’s all just flat pieces of wood now.).
My better idea: Dad and Sharon are already storing some furniture for Andrew and I in their house’s basement in Calgary. We plan to bring it over here when we buy a bigger place. So, this summer, I am going to take all our extra IKEA furniture and all my funko-pop boxes to Calgary. I’ll add them to the stuff that Dad and Sharon are storing for us. We don’t need them until we move, so we’re just adding a little to the stuff we were already going to have to get when we move, anyway. Yes, the parental units approved this. They’re the best.)
Surfaces with nothing on them? Never.
CLEAN.
This is a hurdle for me that I am constantly tripping over. My workspace must be neat, organized, and clean if I want to be productive and anxiety-free. However, I’m pretty sure I spend more of my life making messes than cleaning them up. I need to clean my desk, and pretty much the entire living room, before I can work on anything. My desk needs to be clear before I can work at it.
I think living in a very tiny dorm room at UBC during first year was the beginning of this neurosis (I definitely didn’t have it when I lived at home with my mom, ask her!) – I never could get any homework done until EVERYTHING was in its place – and everything had its place, to be sure. There was no other way to live. My single-room was about the size of two XL twin beds side by side. It had a dresser, a shelving unit, a desk, a mini-fridge, a laundry hamper, and my bed. Thank goodness I could put my bed on the highest frame setting. It provided great fun when I (literally) vaulted myself into bed every night, and my fridge, skis, dresser, hamper, and other stored items all fit underneath it.
Regardless of origin, my anxiety doesn’t settle into focused work until the space around me is neat. And because I spend my day making messes, I almost always do a quick tidy as soon as I get home. This gets me ready to settle into whatever work I need to get done. It’s a tiny ritual that helps keep my head clear.
That fresh desk, though. (Plus, ART, ART, AND MORE ART!)
And that’s my list! What do your spaces need to have to give you the right vibe?
Coming at you from a very neat workspace with a fake plant and my new nanoleaf aurora,
The single greatest apartment decor addition I have made in years, the nanoleaf aurora.
I came up with the idea for a post on busyness on Wednesday last week. It was time for me to write a blog post, and I realized I was so busy there was no way I was going to be able to do it. I wallowed in guilt and anxiety over not keeping up with my self-imposed once-a-week schedule, even though it was the first week of my new full-time teaching job, and that day I was so tired that I napped for 4.5 hours when I got home from work, got up, took a shower, and then went straight back to bed until morning.
I decided I wanted to write a post talking about how society tends to glorify busyness and it always seems like a competition to be the busiest person you know. It’s always been that way for me, at least. It’s also always been a trigger for my anxiety – I get anxious when I feel like I’m not doing enough or being productive enough, which is pretty much all the time. My standard for “enough” is usually “always doing something,” so if I ever take a break, boom anxiety.
Eventually, I decided to let it go a bit, and pushed my deadline for my next post to today. Now, I say “let it go a bit” because while I did push my deadline, I didn’t entirely let go of all the guilt that surrounded that.
“High anxiety can be a natural consequence of a busy lifestyle, but its existence is akin to the chicken and the egg. Which came first, the anxiety or the busyness? Am I always moving because I’m anxious or am I anxious because I’m always moving?”
This really struck a chord with me, and got me thinking about my own busyness. For a long time, have always been crazy busy. And it started around the time my anxiety started, which I pinpoint as around grade 7 or 8.
In grade 8, I:
Tried out for soccer and basketball (and didn’t make either team – this is an important point for later)
Played on a club basketball team
Was a volunteer peer tutor (I tutored a grade 6 student)
Played clarinet in the school production of Shrek
Acted in the school play, Roomers
Raced on the alpine ski team
Made the badminton team (which was cancelled due to work action)
Made the track and field team (which was also cancelled due to work action)
Wrote and illustrated a children’s book in an extra-curricular course
Took dance classes
Took piano lessons
Played clarinet in concert band
Played alto-saxophone in jazz band
Ran for student council (didn’t get elected, also important)
Did French and English speech competitions up to the District level
Ran 6-7 km ~3 times a week
Probably a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember
In high school, I:
Raced on the alpine ski team
Ran on the cross-country team
Ran and did field events on the track and field team
Acted in plays and musicals
Played clarinet in the concert band
Played alto saxophone in the jazz band
Sang in the concert choir
Sang in the by-audition Bluetones jazz choir
Co-head editor and photographer for the yearbook in grade 12 (and worked on it as a junior editor grades 10 & 11)
Reach for the Top team
Renaissance group
Making Waves group, and acted in a play for it
Social Justice club
Photography club
Volunteered for House Committee
Yoga classes
AP courses
Piano lessons
Dance classes
Wrote a novel
Ran 6-7 km ~3 times a week
Got accepted into an advanced Studio Art portfolio program in grade 12
In university, I:
Took full-time classes every semester for 5 years
Was a varsity athlete, with practices 3 days a week, games once or twice a week, and conditioning/weight-lifting sessions 3 days a week
Worked part-time (usually 18 hours a week)
Volunteered as a rugby coach for a high school girls’ team
Was a leader for a Girl Guide unit
Was an orientations leader
Did a tri-mentoring program and received the Mentee of the Year award
Did Reading Week volunteer projects at elementary schools
Trained and ran a half-marathon
Made the Dean’s List twice
This brings me back to what I quoted from Sarah’s article.
What came first, the anxiety or the busyness? After taking a long, hard look at my past and my experiences, I deduced that for me, the anxiety came first. Accordingly, busyness has always been a coping mechanism for me. Not only that, but it became a crutch which I blamed my anxiety on. I didn’t have anxiety, I was just stressed because I had a lot on my plate. I overreacted about something stupid or yelled at my husband or broke down crying because I was stressed out, not because I had a clinical psychological condition.
A lot of the time I didn’t know why I did the things I did. It was important to me to be able to say I was involved in a lot of things, like it somehow proved my self-worth.
It was also a competition for me. I have always been incredibly competitive. I wanted to be the best. Highest grades. Involved in the most things. Most liked. Most creative and artistic. Especially busiest.
This is where I come back to soccer and basketball try-outs, and student council elections… I tried to do those things because I thought they would give me status, make me the winner of the busyness game, make me more popular… not because I particularly enjoyed them. To be honest, I hate soccer. Likewise, I love basketball, but I’m not that great at it, and I’m not passionate about it. The idea of being on student council or some sort of governing body makes me sick. It’s a good thing I didn’t get those things, and I didn’t get them partly because my heart wasn’t in it. But I did get into a lot of things I probably wouldn’t have done if I’d sat myself down and asked myself, Bee, do you really love these things?
I’ve only recently realized that for years I’ve had anxiety. This article helped me realize that I have high-functioning anxiety.
High-functioning anxiety, to paraphrase Sarah, is high-achievement, busyness, and perfection. It’s nervous habits like picking your nails and running your hands through your hair all the time. Muscle tightness, for me especially in the neck and back, stomach aches, and tension. Avoidance. It is being social enough to go to things, but feeling like you can’t connect with anyone. You never feel good enough. Most importantly, you’re always looking for the next outlet for your anxiety.
In this case, like being on student council, or playing on the school basketball team. Like furiously cleaning the kitchen counters or the bathroom sink.
Outlets as Coping Mechanisms
I use busyness and knocking things off my to-do list as a coping mechanism. Sometimes, it’s simply to cope with having too many things on my to-do list. Sometimes, I create work for myself, like reorganizing my hall closet, because it’s a task that won’t take me too long but has a huge payoff – I LOVE organizing things and feel so accomplished when I’m finished.
When I’m angry or really anxious or dwelling about something, I clean. Normally the kitchen or the bathroom. The task takes my mind off the anger or worry (and the anxiousness about not being able to stop being angry or worried), is physical enough (scrubbing is hard) to release some endorphins and channel my energy so I calm down, and also takes me away from the situation that caused me anxiety. Spaces affect me a lot (probably my next blog post), so if my desk is messy and stressing me out, cleaning the kitchen means I don’t have to feel the bad desk vibes. If my husband and I had a fight in the bedroom, cleaning the bathroom takes me away from that both physically and mentally.
It’s gotten to be so much of a habit that when I’m cleaning, my husband gets scared that I’m mad at him, because he knows that I often clean when I’m mad.
On Sunday, I had what I would call a FANTASTIC day. And I mostly qualified it as such because it was incredibly productive.
On Sunday, I…
Did some prep work for my teaching job
Went for a 1-hour walk
Finished a book
Skyped a friend I haven’t talked to in a while for 1.5 hours
Talked on the phone for 15 minutes with another friend
Cleaned the kitchen
Organized my desk and the living room bookshelf
Played video games with my husband
Finished all the paperwork I needed to do for my new job
Watched a couple of episodes of Master of None on Netflix
…. but I still struggled all day with feelings of low self-worth and guilt over not getting enough done.
High-functioning anxiety is a daily, hourly battle with the negative thoughts in my head. It’s incredibly hard because on the surface, I look like a very successful person who is happy, busy, and has her shit together.
In the 9-month period since I came to terms with the statement I have anxiety, I’ve gotten better at putting less commitments on my plate. Now I have less things to worry about. I also make sure that everything I take on is something I ABSOLUTELY LOVE. If I’m not sure about something, I don’t do it.
However, I still really struggle with feeling like I’m not doing enough.
I had a summer where I pretty much did nothing but read, travel, catch Pokémon, and go to weddings. At times, this felt amazing. Other times, it felt awful.
I’ve taken on a fair amount of things for the school year, but I LOVE them all, and enjoy committing my time and energy to them:
Teaching. I now teach French full-time. I LOVE IT.
Tutoring. English, for 2 hours every Saturday. I LOVE IT.
Studying. I’m taking two courses at UBC toward my Guidance Studies diploma (hoping to eventually do the Masters in School Counselling and become a high school Guidance Counsellor). I LOVE IT.
‘Gramming. I maintain two Instagram accounts. I LOVE IT.
Blogging. I LOVE IT.
It’s important to me that although I do lots of things to cope with my anxiety, I’m not doing so much that it begins to create my anxiety as well. I’ll leave the cleaning and organizing as my coping mechanisms. The things that I commit to need to be things that I thrive at doing and take great fulfillment from.
I just need to keep reminding myself what I do, whatever it is, however much it is, it’s enough. I’m enough.
