TL;DR: there have been many things that are making my anxiety worse, such as intrusive thoughts, not enough sleep, things like that. And I’m having a hard time coping. 

This is long, but I feel like I need to share it, so let’s get it on.

Living with anxiety has had its ups and downs, but sometimes it’s not as bad some days. Over the past two weeks, however, life circumstances and personal events have been making my anxiety a lot worse, and I don’t know how to handle it. Here are some contributions to my current level of anxiety:

People-pleasing. When it comes to making people happy, I have a servants heart, which I’m glad I do. I love helping people, but sometimes it’s very exhausting, and since I’m used to putting others’ needs first, that’s just how it is. I always look to help before being helped. After helping someone, I always second guess my performance and beat myself up because wasn’t perfect enough. I’m not supposed to be, but I don’t know why I feel the way I do about myself. Mostly I please people to hide my anxiety, which isn’t healthy.

Driving: I do Doordash as a summer job, which is nice, but driving is sometimes hard with anxiety. I have thoughts like “what if I accidentally cause an accident while delivering?” I don’t know why I have thoughts like that, because they’re not real. I hate bridges too. I don’t have a phobia, but I can’t stand driving over them, at least my anxiety has made me feel that way. 

Intrusive thoughts: when I’m alone, I sometimes have thoughts that I’m not good enough, or that I wasn’t productive enough, which makes me hate myself and my anxiety level rises. I know these thoughts are just thoughts, but I can’t help but want to cry because they seem so real at times. Sometimes I have panic attacks because these thoughts get to me. 

Sleep: this is interesting, but I get a solid 8ish hours of sleep every night. However, I wake up feeling exhausted almost every morning. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that it doesn’t help my anxiety. I just want to sleep for another 3 hours. I don’t wake up during the night either, which is also weird. When I do wake up, my mind is racing, thinking about what I have to get done that day, which makes me not want to get out of bed. 

In everything, I have learned that anxiety can be easy to live with, but also VERY hard at the same time. Every panic attack feels like a rewind. I don’t know what to do sometimes when my anxiety gets too hard to handle. On the outside I’m fine, but inside the worlds feels like it’s crashing down on top of me almost every day. 

Thanks for reading to whoever did. That means a lot. If anyone wants to talk, I’m here.