Category: Anxiety

Air Travel: 13 Reasons it’s Anxiety-Inducing

I recently (two days ago) traveled across the country. I’m still recovering. Air travel is awful for my anxiety. I’m sure this isn’t universal for people with anxiety. However, I bet a lot of these ring true for people. It bothers me so much that I’m getting majorly panicky just writing this post.

Chronologically, here are 13 reasons why air travel sucks for people with anxiety:

  1. Preparing.

    1. The place you’re going has a million different possible kinds of weather, and you need to pack clothing for everything. And footwear. And protective gear (sunscreen, hat, sunglasses, ski jacket, toque, etc.). And there’s inevitably a special event you’re going to while you’re there that requires a particular outfit. And you have to account for the gifts you’ll get while you’re there. Because if you get to the airport and your weight is over, you have to get rid of stuff, and that would cause a full-blown panic attack. You pack as many pieces of versatile clothing as possible, stuff your two carry-on bags as full as possible (and yes, each of them are as full and large as the dimensions and weight allotments allow), and weigh everything 3 times just to be sure. Oh, and you wear your heaviest clothing for the plane ride – two birds with one stone, am I right? No worrying about being cold, and you can take more stuff with you, because they aren’t going to weigh you.
    2. Then there are the lists. You make three or four different packing lists and lose them all. Then you call two, maybe three different people and ask them to run through a list of all the things they think you might need to pack, to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. And you double- and triple-check your bags to make sure you have everything, and inevitably, STILL forget something (this time for me it was my Fitbit charger).

  2. Getting to the airport.

    1. For me, this involves pulling my very heavy suitcase and carry-on bags for about 15 minutes at top speed (if you know me, you’ll know this is a huff-and-puff-level speed walk) through downtown Vancouver to the Skytrain station, somehow managing to get my compass card out of my wallet without anyone stealing anything from me, tap it on the fare gate, get it back into my wallet, and huff down the stairs to the platform carrying all my bags (because there is no down escalator, and the elevator is so slow it would cause me to miss the next train and delay me by 7 minutes – those minutes are precious!!). I then proceed to sweat from the exertion of the walk and stairs pretty much all the way to the airport (24 minutes), at which point I start to shiver. Then I have to load up all my things again, somehow get my compass card out of my wallet again and tap out, somehow get it back into my wallet, and begin the trek down the tramway, escalator, and to the check-in area.
    2. Because of all the possible things that could go wrong in this process, I spend a long time fretting over when I should leave my apartment. The train ride is 24 minutes, but I could just miss one when I get to the station, which could mean anywhere from a 6 to 13 minute wait, depending on the time of day. Foot traffic could also be bad downtown, depending on the season (in the summer there are sooooooo many pedestrians downtown) which adds to my travel time AND my anxiety (ever tried to dodge a group of tourists gawking at everything they see and walking SLOWLY five abreast on the sidewalk while carrying a 50 lb suitcase, 22 lb backpack, 22 lb secondary carry-on, purse and DSLR camera? PANIC!). There’s also the possibility of something going wrong with the Skytrain, and add to that the possibility of suitcase roller malfunction (it’s happened) and the fact that my elevator could suck (it sucks all the time) and easily add 5 minutes to my travel time, and I’m losing my mind with worry.

  3. Airport arrival times.

    This is technically an add-on to #2. Air Canada now suggests arriving anywhere from 60-90 minutes early for domestic flights. THIS IS NOT HELPFUL. If I get there with 60 minutes to go, is that enough?! SOMETIMES. But not always. Especially at YVR, the flightiest airport ever as far as busy-ness goes. It’s either busy as heck or you can hear crickets chirping in there. 90 minutes it is, sigh. In all likelihood, I’ll get there and hear crickets, but AT LEAST I WON’T BE LATE. All of these time considerations together have me leaving my apartment at least 2:30 before my domestic flight is scheduled to leave.

  4. Check-in.

    There are now five steps to check-in, each of which require talking to a person who assumes you know nothing. Talking to people I don’t know is hard enough, but when they’re trying to help me? UGH. I know they mean well and are just trying to do their jobs, but I would honestly just prefer to be left alone, you feel me? I know what I’m doing. This is also where the boarding pass saga begins. I try to always keep mine in the same place so this doesn’t happen, but I’m always losing it and CONSTANTLY worrying about remembering where it is and trying to get it out and into said spot quickly so as not to hold anyone up.

    1. The kiosk.
      If you’re like me, you did this online exactly 24 hours before flight time, so as to have the best chance to get a seat that doesn’t suck. If you’re like me this time, you were getting a bride ready for her wedding 24 hours before flight time and couldn’t check in until the morning of and accordingly got the worst seat ever, which just added to the anxiety. More on that later. If you didn’t do it online, it’s an extra step at one of the self-check-in kiosky thingies. Here you frantically try to get your e-mail to return your booking reference number, because your printer died when you checked in at home (of course) and you couldn’t print your boarding passes to scan them, all the while hoping no one comes over to see if you need any help (No I’m fine thank you very much). When you finally find it by scrolling through your thousands of e-mails (when searches of “Air Canada,” “August 8,” and “Saint John” didn’t work – damn you Mail app..), you punch it in, …and get an error. Hello, check-in line, hello, longer check-in time, and hello, panic.
    2. The bag tags.
      If you’re fortunate enough not to get an error at the kiosk, you proceed to attaching your own bag tags. Beware, the edges are sharp. One time I got a serious paper cut and had to spend time running around the touristy shops trying to find a person that could give me a Band-Aid. Cue more panic. By now you’re probably thinking, gosh, this girl has seen it all. Well, I’ve seen a lot in my 20+ years of traveling back and forth across the country and the Atlantic, but it gets better!
    3. The fork.
      Then you get to go to the split in the line up, where you have to talk to someone else. I usually try to walk straight through looking like I know exactly what I’m doing (which I do), and go straight to bag drop, so that I don’t have to interact with the person who checks to make sure you have your bag tag on properly before allowing you to go to bag drop, or forcing you to go back to the kiosk, or sending you on to the special check-in desk.
    4. The wrench.
      Vancouver (perhaps other places, also, now) has added another spot, I think to add to the speed of things, where they can take you from the middle of the line-up to drop your bag instead of waiting in line for bag drop. Generally, unexpected things popping up tend to make people with anxiety uncomfortable. So this time yet another Air Canada employee accosted me to get me to drop my bag. Why are you talking to me?! I was unprepared! He asked me if I was alone, and when I said yes, I got to skip the line. Yay. But I was unprepared for this added step, panic.
    5. Bag drop desk.
      If you’re not taken aside early, you talk to the person at the booth and they take your boarding pass, scan your bag, and send you on to bag drop. Normally I remember to keep my boarding pass out so I don’t have to search for it when I get to the front of the line, but if not, panic.
    6. The weigh-in.
      At bag drop, you have to weigh your bag. This is the part where I put it on the moving scale and watch the number carefully. I take note if it matches my scale at home for future reference, so I can compensate either way in the future if it doesn’t. And if it’s overweight, I prepare to full-on panic, because all the previous steps are null and void and I need to figure out what to do. Especially if I’m alone which I normally am, because I can’t offload any of my extra things. I think sometimes the people at the scale take pity on me if it’s over and just give me a stern warning. It makes my stomach churn, but at least I’m not having a panic attack.

  5. Security.

    1. The first scan.
      Next you need your boarding pass again to give to the person at the start of the security line.
    2. The swab.
      Then there’s a person who directs you to which lineup you need to stand in (in Vancouver, there are about 8). They also randomly select you for testing. I was selected this time for a hand and bag swab (this is before you even hit the x-ray conveyor belts). I’ve been randomly selected for this before, and tested positive for explosive residue (I know, right?!), so naturally, panic. Thankfully this time it’s fine, but I’ve had to open all my bags, and when the person is finished I’m rushing to pack up because they’re already telling me where to go and keep repeating themselves as I try to pack up as quickly as possible, as if them saying over and over which lane I should go into will make me move faster and not give me a panic attack.
    3. The line.
      Now that I’m actually in the security lineup, I have to try to think about how many buckets I need, because the people behind you in line inevitably want to get through as fast as possible and try to take buckets behind you before you’re even done loading yours. Panic. And then if you haven’t taken enough, you have to reach back across them and get more. Panic. And then the people ahead of me have gone too fast, and I’m still taking my laptop out of my bag and chugging my water because I forgot it was in there while the person is reaching for my boarding pass. Ma’am, boarding pass? Ma’am, boarding pass? PANIC. YES IT’S COMING. Then she frowns at me because the Montreal-Saint John pass is on top, and says, “Wrong pass.” Panic. I’m like, LADY IT’S BELOW THE ONE YOU’RE LOOKING AT JUST FIND IT YOURSELF I’M STILL TRYING TO GET MY BELT OFF. PANIC.
    4. The gate.
      Then there’s the heart-stopping walk through the scanner gate. You beep, and get scanned with the beepy thingy or patted down. Or, you don’t beep and there’s the possibility that they’ll randomly select you for the full-body scanner anyway, which I’ve had happen multiple times. Oh, and there’s the possibility that they’ll think there’s something strange in your bag, and they’ll take EVERYTHING OUT and expect you to put it back there in 3.5 seconds while they push other people’s bags and buckets toward you. PANIC. Oh, and it was just for the pointy-looking tail of the porcelain salamander you bought on your honeymoon in Mexico. Good grief. When I bought it I didn’t imagine it as a weapon, but NOW I DO BECAUSE GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE.
    5. Repacking.
      When I’ve finally put my shoes, belt, sweater and jacket on (remember, heavy layers!) and I’ve sweat another bucket of water trying to get out of people’s ways as quickly as possible, I’m finally free to head to my gate.

  6. The gate.

    1. The wait.
      Oh, I’m at the gate an hour early? Great. There’s no available seating? Great. At least my giant carry-on bags double as headrests. It’s going to take me the whole hour to stop sweating again, by which point I’ll once again be freezing cold.
    2. The twist.
      (30 minutes pass) “It’s 30 minutes to boarding. Why aren’t we boarding yet? This is a big plane… Oh no, we’re going to be late. I’m going to miss my connection. It’s the last flight to SJ tonight. Oh god, I’m going to have to sleep on the floor in Montreal oh god oh god PANIC. I wonder if something is wrong with the plane. Air Canada never tells you if anything is wrong unless it’s too late oh god oh god. Wait…. Toronto?!?! I’m not going to TORONTO! They changed the gate!!! No announcement?!?!” ANGER. PANIC.

  7. Gate change.

    Once I’ve picked up my four bags and managed to make the trek all the way across the airport to the new, UNANNOUNCED gate, I find another spot on the floor (now there’s REALLY nowhere to sit, because I’m technically late now), and resume all the panic steps of #6, because they’re still not boarding the flight.

  8. Boarding.

    1. Documents.
      Now I need my boarding pass out AND my ID. And heaven forbid I forget my ID until I get to the front of the line, because it always gets stuck in the photo pocket of my wallet and takes ages to get out. Panic.
    2. The zones.
      I also get super anxious in the line because now they have boarding zones. Naturally, I’m always in the last one. So I stand around waiting for them to call zone 4 or 5, holding all of my heavy bags, because putting them down isn’t an option – I’d then have to do the process of picking them back up when they call my zone and I’d end up last in line. I also have to worry more about something getting stolen when they’re sitting on the floor.
    3. Actual boarding.
      And the whole time I’m waiting in line I’m worrying about boarding, because I don’t want to have to climb over someone when I get on the plane. Because for some reason, window seats are in the zone AFTER aisles, RIDDLE ME THAT. Another forced interaction with a person I’m inconveniencing by making them stand up. Or, on one occasion, a person who is literally going to not move at all and force me to CLIMB OVER THEM to get to my seat. There’s a reason I often get aisle seats now, especially on long flights. I hate making people move for me, and I inevitably have to get up to pee at least once on the 5-hour flight to Montreal, so, alas, I take the less-comfortable aisle seat so I don’t have to ask someone to let me go to the bathroom. It’s even worse if they’re sleeping. I can’t wake up a sleeping person! That’s terrifying!

  9. The flight.

    1. Flight.
      First of all, takeoff is horribly alarming. That drop when the plane levels off is next-level anxiety inducing. Turbulence is even worse. If you’ve seen Donnie Darko, the airplane crash scene is what I picture literally every time there’s turbulence. If you haven’t seen it, picture being in the middle of a terrifying plane crash, dark, thunderous clouds and all.
    2. Bathroom – aisle seat.
      If I’m lucky enough to be sitting in an aisle on the long flight, I can pee whenever I want. However, I have to be aware that the person beside me is probably also going to want to pee, so I shouldn’t sleep for too long if I don’t want to force them to have to wake me up to go.
    3. Bathroom – no aisle seat.
      If I’m not in an aisle, like this last time (I was in the middle on a 2-4-2, just the worst), I have to hold it for as long as possible. I try to wait for an opportune moment to ask to go. The best time is when the person beside you goes to the bathroom, because you can just get up and go with them. The person sitting beside me this time had a baby, probably max 3 months. She was hoping he would sleep as much as possible. So, once I needed to use the washroom, I had to wait until a time when he was awake.  I couldn’t possibly ask to go when he was sleeping and risk having him wake up when his mom stood up to let me out. Just. The. Worst.

  10. Getting off the plane.

    If the plane is on time, thank the lord. If not, the already anxiety-inducing de-planing is made even more stressful by the fact that you’re watching the seconds tick by on your watch. Each one that passes adds to the chances that they’re going to shut the door to your connection in your face, literally. (Again, it’s happened. The woman who did it to me was smiling.)

    1. Standing.
      In general, as soon as the seatbelt sign is off, EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE PLANE is standing, ready to de-plane. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? I’m still putting my shoes on. The g-force of the descent prevents this from being comfortable while moving. Then I’ve got to shuffle through every part of my seat pocket and underneath the seat in front of me five thousand times before I’m sure I didn’t forget anything. Then I can stand up.
    2. Etiquette.
      The regular etiquette of de-planing is one row at a time, which people inevitably try to get around. This makes me both angry and anxious. Then, when it’s my turn I have to worry about holding people up while I pull down my extra carry-on and camera from the overhead bin and try not to hit anyone with it.

  11. The connection.

    Next I find the gate screen as quickly as possible and huff-and-puff to my next gate. Repeat steps 6-10.

  1. Baggage collection.

    1. The wait.
      When I’m finally off the plane, I have the heart-stopping wait at the baggage collection area. Usually my bag is the very last off (thanks to being so early to the airport – first on, last off). I wait and wait as everyone collects their things. Nothing. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve been left without bags. There’s a reason my handbag looks like an apothecary. My suitcase has been lost so many times that if it’s important, like prescription medication, it’s in my carry-on. No, security person who can x-ray into my purse, I’m not a drug-dealer, just prepared, don’t give me that look.
    2. The report.
      Then I’m off to the counter to explain that my suitcase is black and big just like everyone else’s, and left to worry until it arrives.
    3. The drop-off.
      Usually the next day at the crack of dawn, while I’m bleary-eyed and still wearing my bathrobe, I have to run down the stairs to greet the taxi driver. Panic.

  2. Decompress.

    Get home. Have a hot drink. Revel in the fact that I didn’t die of anxiety for the 31-millionth time.

I have to do this again in just over a week? God help me.

Bee.

No related posts.

Creativity, Anxiety, and Courage

I learned three important things quite early on.

One, that creativity requires courage. Two, that anxiety demands courage. And three, that being creative with anxiety requires even more courage than either of those alone. For a long time, I found it too difficult to muster the courage required to share my creative passions because I was crippled by anxiety about the value of, and possible response to, my work. You may be thinking to yourself, “Just do what you love, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.” That’s easier said than done when you’re battling with anxiety. It wasn’t until recently that creating became worth the effort again. I want to share that story.

First, creativity requires courage.

For anyone. It’s courageous to create something and put it out into the world. I have always been a creative person, and until anxiety came around, I was able to find that courage regularly.

Second, anxiety requires courage.

It’s a similar kind of courage to that required by creativity. Anxiety causes me to fear and worry about almost everything. But I live my life despite the worry and fear, and that is courageous.

Third, creativity and anxiety together require even more courage, for me at least.

I wrote creatively a lot in high school but I stopped when my anxiety got worse. Why?  I worried endlessly about what people think of me and what I put out into the world.
First, I have an incredibly strong need for people to like me. I also have a terrible fear that people will dislike me. I worry about these constantly.
Second, myself and my creative work are the same. I put so much of myself into what I create. I think that a valuation of my work is a valuation of my person.

The courage required to conquer these two things together – anxiety and creativity – was too much to muster all at once for a very long time.

It is partly that fear that has prevented me from starting this blog for so long. Remember when I said it took me two years to write my first post? I was afraid that people wouldn’t like my writing. That they would think my opinions weren’t well thought-out. I was nervous that I would get attacked for my ideas. It wasn’t the expanse of the Internet I was afraid of, or even the most grizzly, snot-nosed, pockmarked Internet trolls. That’s another aspect of my anxiety – I’m not afraid of people I don’t know. Only people I care about. To some, that might seem backwards, but it makes total sense to me. The people I care about are the people whose opinions about me worry me the most, because I don’t want them to stop liking me or to stop wanting to be in my life.

The more I value a person’s opinion, the more I fear sharing my creative work with them. Case and point: I didn’t tell my husband what I was writing about on my blog (although he did know I was starting it), nor did I directly share my work with him, because I was too nervous about what he would think. I only found out he’d been reading it after last week’s (my second) post. When he told me he enjoyed reading it, I felt like the weight of my patronus fell off my shoulders. (Nerd joke alert, my patronus is an elephant. Quite possibly the subject of another post.) I also told very few of my friends that I was even thinking of starting a blog before I linked my first post to my Facebook page.

If there is one thing that has increased my courage in terms of pursuing and sharing my creative passions, it has to be an Instagram community that I recently joined called Bookstagram. Users create accounts with bookish (“of or relating to books” – Merriam-Webster) names and post exclusively about books and related fandoms. I have no idea how it began, but it now has thousands of members and probably millions of users interacting with it daily. It is undefined, and markedly different from Instagram itself, while working within its boundaries.

I discovered it a while ago and it interested me immediately – I already loved reading, talking about books, collecting, and taking photographs. But I was hesitant to join. I worried that my photos somehow wouldn’t meet imaginary standards and that the community wouldn’t accept me. Looking back now, that sounds ridiculous. I don’t know that there exists a more welcoming or inclusive community on Instagram. Regardless, I watched from afar for a good couple of years. I didn’t see the point because I assumed I would never have any success with it, and I felt shame for wanting to be just like them – what kind of 20-something collects figurines associated with books and TV shows, and spends most of her time reading and photographing her collections? I was ashamed of and anxious about my passion.

In November, I was feeling comfortable in my new job, and had begun reading for pleasure a lot for the first time since high school. I also had the funds to be able to buy more books and start collecting funko pop! vinyl figurines. I started following more Bookstagrammers, took photos of my books and funkos, and even posted a few on my regular Instagram account. I really enjoyed it. Suddenly, something clicked. The worry about what people would think of me and the shame I was feeling began to weigh less than the enjoyment I got out of finally being passionate and creative again. A few months later, I mustered up all the courage that I could find in my body and created a Bookstagram account. It was more successful than I ever could have hoped, and it brings me so much joy.

My whole point here is that sharing one’s creative work always takes courage. Doing it as a person with anxiety inherently requires even more of that daring.

Through my experience with Bookstagram, I realized that doing what I love feels way better than not doing it for fear that it will negatively impact people’s opinions of me. My whole point here is that sharing one’s creative work always takes courage. Doing it as a person with anxiety inherently requires even more of that daring. It’s scary stuff, putting yourself out there. But it’s so worth it.

That feeling is what bolstered my courage and helped me begin writing this blog as well. No one could ever have convinced me that people would enjoy my writing. Just like no one could have convinced me that people would think my enormous book and funko collection and my photographs of it were awesome. The only thing that could and did quiet my fears was putting those things out there and observing the response (which ended up being very positive).

That brings me to my next point. I realized something new about my anxiety when I started to take leaps and share my creative work: even if the response to my Bookstagram account or my blog hadn’t been positive, that wouldn’t have been a problem, because I wouldn’t have had any scary “what if?”s to worry about anymore.

I have to experience firsthand the things that worry me to be free of them.

This is simultaneously the hardest and easiest part of my anxiety to manage: I have to experience firsthand the things that worry me to be free of them. This is difficult because I tend to want to avoid the things that worry me or wish they would go away. It is also magical, because there is a sure-fire way for me to stop worrying – to tackle what I’m worrying about head-on.

I post some photos that are less successful. That’s too bad, but at least I don’t have to worry about the response to them once they’re posted. Whether it’s positive or negative, my brain no longer has to worry about making up scary possibilities. It’s much easier to deal with what is than to worry about the things my brain makes up about what could be. All I have to do is take a leap and share my work. I say “all I have to do” like it’s nothing, but it really does require a big dose of courage. I’m getting better and better at this with time.

There will always be people who love what you love.

Generally, I find that if you create something with passion, people will respond well to it. If they don’t, that’s too bad for them. Friends are there to support you doing what you love, and if they’re unsupportive, they’re not worth your time.

There will always be people who love what you love.  People who are inspired by the joy that you take from what you invest yourself in. People who try to put you down for the things you love really don’t merit your energy.

Having these realizations doesn’t mean that I don’t worry about the quality of my creative work or people’s opinions anymore. Anxiety doesn’t just go away. But now, the joy of creating and sharing things is more important than the worry that tries to prevent me from doing those things. The good outweighs the worry.

Courage is the choice to still be anxious, but to be creative and put my stuff out there anyway. To take the leap any time I share something.

Now I just take a deep breath, pick up my tool of choice, and create.

Bee.

Related posts:

  1. What is Lexical Abandon?
  2. Self-Care for Anxiety: 50 Strategies
  3. Lexical Abandon’s Life Lately
  4. Sleep Hygiene: Self-Care for Anxiety Strategy 1

What is Lexical Abandon?

As with most things where I am concerned, the answer to this question comes in the form of a story.

For me, as a person with anxiety (and I’ve trained myself to say it that way – I’m not an anxious person; my disorder doesn’t define me), the best way I can describe my anxiety and moments of panic is as a tornado of words directly on top of my head.

I’m not an anxious person; my disorder doesn’t define me.

In a situation that feels normal to me, when I’m comfortable, I picture myself speaking by easily selecting words from a database – for the purpose of this metaphor, a cloud – that functions as a library, dictionary, or whatever you’d like to call it – a drawer set, an archive, of words. If I’m talking about something that excites me, like books, nature, or blogging, I easily and inventively (at least I like to think so) pull the words I want from their compartments in the figurative cloud above my head and combine them to make something certainly sensical, and hopefully beautiful.

Then there are the times when I’m experiencing anxiety.

This occurs on varying levels, from feeling a knot in my stomach, to a sense of dread, to an incessant debilitating worry, to full-on panic – about a specific thing, or, as also often occurs, just feeling anxious or worried in general. Then, not only is my ability to act, or even move my body, taken away from me, but so is my ability to select words from the cloud. Partly because the worry and/or panic make me feel paralyzed, but also because the cloud above my head transforms from a lovely wisp of cirrus that swirls gently and provides me with millions of options per second that I can easily pinpoint to choose from, into a terrifyingly dark cumulonimbus, borderline tornado, that swirls above my head. It smashes words together with cacophonous booms, making it almost impossible for me to pick any sequence of words out of it that I could in any way shape into something coherent, let alone grasp even a single word that might signify to any other party what is currently happening above my head, let alone in my body, mind, or heart.

It is easy to play something off as not a big deal when you don’t have the tools to recognize or understand it.

For the longest time, talking about my anxiety has been effectively just like the above situation, only I’m not having a panic attack or worrying about something specific when I’m trying to do it.

I’ve just never been able to share one of the most important parts of me – the way my brain functions. For a long time it was because I didn’t recognize it for what it was. Only recently has talking about and de-stigmatizing mental health become common. I didn’t know what generalized anxiety disorder was until university at the earliest (which, for me, began 7 years ago). I had encountered depression and eating disorders earlier in my life – as early as my pre-teens – and developed an understanding of them, but I didn’t know anxiety existed (even though it presented itself in myself and some of my friends) until later. It is easy to play something off as not a big deal when you don’t have the tools to recognize or understand it. Like my friends often said, I was just “being Becca,” or “having a Becca freak-out.”

It has only been in the past two years or so that I’ve begun to recognize my anxiety for what it truly is.

Recently, on Bell Let’s Talk day, I shared on Facebook with anyone who I have as my friend (exactly 750 people, at the time) that I have anxiety, and have dealt with the disorder for at least 12-13 years. Prior to sharing my experience, I had only told 7 people. 7 people, in 13 years. Only 7 people who really understood what shaped so many of my decisions and coloured how I went about my life. Like I mentioned, people had known my panic attacks as “Becca freak outs.” People dubbed my anxiety (as I now know it) as “super-organization” and “ultra-involvement,” but never as a disorder, a physiological, psychological problem condition. The most attention (and I struggle to use this word; I definitely didn’t want any more attention placed on it) it ever got was off-hand remarks and (sometimes not-so-light) teasing.

The response to my post was overwhelming, and enlightening.

I was on the verge of tears all day – sad, happy, and cathartic. These feelings were especially strong because I was teaching that day. I shared with each class, mostly of 13-14-year-olds, about Bell Let’s Talk day’s importance and the impact mental health had already had on my life in my short almost-25 years (two suicides and one attempt – people I knew well, significant others and friends with depression, eating disorders, BFRBs and/or anxiety, and the struggle with stigma that surrounded all of it). The students responded incredibly compassionately, and some even shared stories of their own. Likewise, so many people responded to my post. By commenting, liking, or sending me direct messages. And I never would have dreamed that so many of the people who reached out to me were dealing with the same things as me.

“You talking about your anxiety helps me understand.”

That day, that post, finally gave me the jolt I needed to know that I was not alone and that sharing more of my experiences would help not only me, but hopefully many of the people in my life. I first put it into practice by talking to my friends and family more freely. I said to my dad, “It’s so difficult to talk to you about my anxiety because you don’t understand.” (This is true – he finds it difficult to understand the concept of not being able to stop thinking about something that worries you, of being physically debilitated by worry.) He responded with, “You talking about your anxiety helps me understand.” I find that talking to people close to me is almost always more difficult than talking to those that aren’t quite so close. After getting such an enlightening response from someone I found it so difficult to talk to, and the beautiful abundance of messages from friends and acquaintances, I am finally ready to bring Lexical Abandon, something I’ve thought about, and planned for over two years, to fruition.

That begs the question, then: What is Lexical Abandon?

Lexical Abandon, to me, is the following:
– Finally grasping the words I’ve never been able pull from the tornado or combine into sentences to finally break my silence about the struggles I’ve had with anxiety for over a decade
– Abandoning my fears of lexical overload, and sharing my views about the world from my own unique perspective. Wordily. I’ve always been long-winded, and it’s always been something I’ve been anxious about, and even ashamed of. No longer.
– Poetry. It is my creative outlet, something to finally spark me to write, something I haven’t been doing nearly enough of in recent years. I find that if I have an audience (no matter how small), a readership, I feel an obligation (not in a negative way, but a positive drive) to write for them, for you, and for myself. Creating this blog has been a long time coming, because it has taken me a long time to find the intrinsic jolt to actually publish it. I purchased the hosting and domain two full years ago. I have had “Lexical Abandon” sitting on the back-burner of my mind for two years. It has meant something for two years, for so much longer than that, and it has finally caught fire and is blazing so brightly that I can’t just keep it to myself any longer.

Finally, Lexical Abandon is not just about anxiety.

It’s about how I interact with the world. How I exist in the beautiful city of Vancouver that is my home. My experiences in the professional arena of teaching. My identity as a young, married woman, as a Millennial (and not in a derogatory sense). My exploration of the Pacific Northwest, my soul space, as I like to call it. My life. This is a life blog. But at the heart of all of it is the beautiful way I interact with everything in my world – through the lens of a person with anxiety. Sometimes it is a negative thing, but it also brings a lot of light into my life. I hope that will become clear to those who read my words, and that anyone with anxiety will find solidarity, and hopefully comfort, in my wordy ramblings (and sometimes rants).

In solidarity, de-stigmatization, and love,

Bee.

Related posts:

  1. Lexical Abandon’s Life Lately
  2. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Coming out on the Sunny Side