Anxiety affects a huge part of the population. It is real and needs to be addressed. In this episode, Ashley, a young adult who has been diagnosed with anxiety, shares how she took the initiative to improve herself and not let anxiety dictate her life. She talks about what daily life is for a senior high school student while coping with anxiety, all the while emphasizing the importance of taking the right steps as early as you can. Follow Ashley closer in her journey at her blog, http://positiveyetanxious.blogspot.com/.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Dealing With Anxiety
My guest is Ashley, a high school student and blogger. I’ve read her blogs. Ashley, welcome.
Thank you for having me.
I am impressed with what you wrote. You’re a senior in high school, correct?
Yes, I’m excited to finally be done.
I love the title of your blog, Positive Yet Anxious. I understand you’ve been diagnosed with generalized anxiety?
Yes, I went to the doctor and realized that this is not normal. They told me this is anxiety.
In your blogs, you described anxiety as, “A Devil on your shoulder,” which is a beautiful analogy.
Some people think anxiety is being scared. People are always saying, “I got anxious.” I feel like anxiety is much more. The devil on the shoulder is a little guy named Anxiety. For example, when you’re walking through the halls at school the little guy on your shoulder is telling you, “Everyone’s looking at you. Everyone’s thinking about you. Everyone’s judging you.” It’s always feeding these thoughts into your ear and you can’t control it. That’s how I refer it to the devil on your shoulder.
That’s a good way to explain it and you’re right. I agree with you. A lot of people don’t understand, they think maybe it’s being nervous and it’s something you can stop doing anytime.
Having anxiety, some people get scared of something and they can refer to it as anxiety, but when you have this constant anxiety, it’s not anywhere close to someone worrying about something. It’s that constant unwanted companion on your shoulder and it’s not going to leave you alone. You have to try to figure out how to make it go away.
Dealing With Anxiety Share on XI can well imagine you talk about walking through the halls of the school. I’m sure it impacts your schoolwork and your academic performance.
For example, I’m taking AP statistics and the teacher may say a word that I have no idea what it means. I’m about to raise my hand and ask it but the little guy on my shoulder is like, “Why would you ask that? Everyone knows what it means.” I tend to not raise my hand in class and ask questions. It’s little things like that. I don’t like to get up and go get a tissue during class because I don’t want people to be looking at me. I feel that guy on my shoulders is going to tell me, “Everyone’s looking at you. Everyone’s judging you.” I realized when I was diagnosed with this, that’s not normal to have thoughts like that. That’s when I realized, “Something is not right in my mind.” That’s how I started trying to deal with this.
If you don’t even feel comfortable asking the teacher for help or asking questions, that’s definitely going to impact your academics. In your blogs, you put a lot of work into improving yourself. Can you talk about that?
I realized that I need to work on myself and I need to get myself mentally stable and good. My family moved to California. I stayed here in Oregon so I can finish high school. I finished half of my junior year and I’m in my senior year. It was hard for me not being with my family. That was the peak of my anxiety. That took me and let me live there for those six months. Driving myself to school I would get the worst anxiety and anything would make me anxious. I was thinking of myself, I don’t want to go through that again.
Sometimes I could not function because I was so anxious. I made the goal to get myself mentally well so that I don’t go through that terrible six months again. I have a whole year for my senior year and I wanted to make this a good year. I don’t want it to be full of me being negative, anxious and depressed, everything like that. I tried to figure out things that trigger my anxiety. For example, I would constantly have the little devil on my shoulder telling me that I need to go and look at everyone’s Instagram post. I need to see how everyone’s having fun without me because I was in California for the entire summer. My anxiety would tell me I’m not good as these girls that are posting pictures and stuff like that. I got social media out of my life. I feel like this is probably one of the best moves I could have taken, and I have not regretted it. I still have my accounts but I log on to post a picture. To get this out of my life, this is a trigger for me and it’s probably one of the best things I did.
I know you wrote, as this summer came to a close you were, “I’m going back to school.” That was a challenge for you.
I’m close to my family, it’s hard for me to be living away from them. When I was about to come back to school, thinking about those six months I would never want to go through that again. It has been pretty great. I moved back here in Oregon. I am doing so much better. I have been able to enjoy my everyday life. I used to hate waking up in the morning because my days were full of me being anxious and scared of everything. I learned to deal with these things and I feel I’m much more of a happier person.
You write in your blogs, it sounds like you have a good support network in Oregon and in high school you talked about a school counselor who’s helped you, teachers and friends.
My school counselor, she has helped me a lot. My US history class was a big trigger for my anxiety. I had to leave class many times because I couldn’t handle it anymore. When my anxiety is to worry about that, my first thought was someone’s going to walk in this room and start shooting. We were learning about war and guns in that class. That was a big trigger for me. When we got our schedules, I was able to contact my counselor and we’re able to work my schedule so that I can have my boyfriend, Jared, and my people in politics class. In my US history class, I was alone. I didn’t have any friends. Having someone close to me in my class, it’s definitely helped. My counselor is amazing that she was able to do that and she’s able to work with me with for that.
It sounds like arrangements were made with your teachers that you can get up and leave the room when you needed to.
I was going to the counselor who was in the school. I would go to her and the one thing for me was I wouldn’t want to leave the room when I was having my anxiety. My first thought is, “I’m an open target in the hallway. What if someone comes and they’re going to start shooting?” I would leave the room and have my mom call me out. I would walk to my car and go home. I thought that history class would trigger me so bad I couldn’t even focus.
This was an arrangement that your school counselor was able to make. It says that you’re not on an IUP or anything, you had an understanding counselor who help facilitate. You’re able to figure out what helps and supports you and what triggers you. That’s huge. A lot of people dealing with anxiety are not as familiar with what their triggers are.
I definitely haven’t found all my triggers. It’s not like my life is fully anxiety-free and I’m living an amazing life. I feel that those are my main triggers and I’m grateful that I was able to figure that out. It was hard at first, especially getting rid of social media. I’m a teenage girl, that is a big thing. I was definitely hard at first, but I love that I was able to be strong to get rid of it and it’s improved my life so much.
You noticed the difference when you were able to eliminate social media?
Yes, definitely.
Social media, that’s how teenagers communicate.
Mainly most of my friends know to text me and not contact me through my social media.
It sounds like, mainly it was the using it and comparing yourself to others that may have also been the challenge.
It made me nervous for coming back to school seeing all these people and hanging out with all their friends. All these clicks that were coming back to school, seeing all my friends hanging out. It would make me nervous to come back to school. I feel like they forgot about me. Coming back to school, I realized that they definitely have not forgotten about me. It’s that anxiety telling me, “Your friends have forgotten about you. They’re having more fun without you.” It’s this curse I have that’s always with me and telling things.
You’re able to identify what it is and know this isn’t the truth, this is the devil on my shoulder.
To deal with anxiety, you need to be positive and make the best out of things. Being negative makes it ten times worse. Share on XSometimes when I’m at a low point and having these thoughts I’d think to myself, “Why am I so negative? Why am I like this?” That’s the thing about my blog. I wanted it to be a positive thing. No one likes when someone is negative all the time and I feel that was who I was, always negative. I realized that I need to be positive, make the best out of things. If I’m sitting here thinking these thoughts and being negative about it, that makes it ten times worst. If I’m sitting here getting these thoughts, I’m trying to work through it and I’m being positive. It’s not always possible to be positive but trying to work through it is such a positive thing. That’s why I want to focus my blog on trying to stay positive even though this anxiety is always there.
I like your comment about working through it. As I read your blogs and they’re positive but they’re also honest. You’re open, you’re honest and I can see how that can be helpful to write about it in that way, “Here is this situation, here is this challenge. This is what it’s like, and this is what I’m doing about it.” All of these are excellent recommendations for anyone else who’s dealing with anxiety on how they can work through it?
It’s like baby steps, you need to figure out about the problem. I didn’t even know I had a problem. I lived with it. The first step is figuring it out. It’s important to get help, it’s not something that anyone should have to go through on their own and you can’t go through it on your own. You need to seek help, you need to go to your school counselor or any kind of counselor. Also receiving help from your doctor getting medication for your anxiety. They’re there to help you and that’s something that I have been realizing because I’m independent I’m like, “I can do it on my own.” You can’t.
You have a lot of family support too.
I do. My family is amazing.
First of all, recognize it. I love how you’re writing your blog. Other people can see they’re not alone, other people dealing with this too. Get help and then start identifying your triggers.
Realizing that you’re not alone, part of my reason for putting out this blog was to see if anyone can relate to it. I was nervous at first because I was thinking, “What if no one else is like this? What if I’m crazy?” I put it out and I do post about once in a week. The feedback that I get makes me feel I’m not alone, in no way I’m alone. Many people reached out to me saying they thought they were alone. It’s helpful to me and helpful to others that we’re all able to realize that. Someone else is going through this, it’s not your mind being crazy, this is something that people go through.
You’re helping a lot of people. I admire what you’re doing, Ashley.
That’s my number one goal, to help at least one person and I’ve had many people reach out to me to tell me, “You are reading my mind.” They’re seeing that they’ve been helped and they’re realizing that they need to find their triggers. That was definitely my one goal and I feel like I accomplished it. I hope to help more people.
Your blog is Positive Yet Anxious.
PositiveYetAnxious.Blogspot.com.
Ashley, thank you so much for your time.
You’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me.