Hope you’re all well today. 

Wanted to share something that works for me in the hope the it might encourage or help someone similar. 

The root of my anxiety is very much contained in my family. Their lives, choices etc. etc and sometimes my guilt for succeeding and leaving them behind/not spending as much time. Though, for context, we’re not a close family, and it’s not something I long for. 

A lot of my anxiety can be classed as worry, I suppose. There are valid-ish reasons for feeling this way. Often meaning there’s no real way to solve it. I can’t control their lives just to satiate my anxieties. 

I cope by ignoring it. I don’t check up; actively don’t look at when they were last online, don’t text, don’t call and palm off invitations to hang out. This isn’t ideal but the idea of confronting them with my concerns make me feel worse, and a little bit stupid...

Recently I accepted that this was going to be a part of my life whether I ignore it or not, so I took what I thought was a HUGE leap and spoke to them all about my distancing and feelings etc. 

It didn’t cure my anxiety, but it immediately became more manageable. Today I felt the impulse to ignore contacting them again when it the anxiety began to spike, so I sent a message to my mother and explained that to her.  It helped. I feel more normal than I have done in months. 

This is a long way to say something small which is - try interacting with the cause of your anxiety (if you’re aware of it). 

It’s likely obvious to all you folks but it feels like a win to me as I had never looked for help and advice prior to this (only joined this sub a week or two ago). 

So thanks to all of you for sharing concerns, worries and tips with each other because it inspired me to take a step in the right direction. This is not what I want from life and think this has taught me that my way out is small, brave, manageable goals and repeated examples of the outcome “not being that bad”.