A day in the life of having anxiety-along with some Coachella Vibes.

It’s weekend one of Coachella, traveling and concerts are two of my very favorite things, so being combined into one for an awesome weekend is the best thing in the world to me. I had the opportunity to attend Coachella this year (weekend 2) but have chosen not to jump on it. Here’s why:

Have you ever experienced having anxiety? I have. I live with it every single day.

And this year, my anxiety kept me from attending something I would’ve absolutely loved to attend.

Let me explain, I have struggled with anxiety ever since I was a little kid, I used to go to therapy, meet up with groups, take medications, etc. None of it ever really made a huge difference and by the time I was old enough to recognize that I didn’t want to do those things anymore, my mom couldn’t force me to do so. No medication, no therapist, no thanks. So now I deal with my anxiety on my own. Some days I’m successful, some days I’m not.

A lot of times people say, “why don’t you just get over it?” “why would you ever allow something like that to disable you?” If only answering these questions was simple. I thought I would talk about what I experience in having my anxiety, not only in hopes to help others understand what I go through, but also to hopefully inspire others that might be struggling with similar issues.

Anxiety can be small, but it can also completely consume you. Just writing this is giving me huge anxiety. A day in the life of having anxiety goes a little something like this: Waking up, feeling like you have a million things to do but ultimately you notice and overanalyze what happened on your phone during the night. Like getting text messages, if the boy you have a crush on snapped you back, if you’ve gotten any important emails, etc. Then thinking through all you have to do for the day, getting worried that you might not have enough time to do it or that you are forgetting something. Worrying that you are doing something incorrectly or thinking about how you can’t do this because of reason #1, #2, #3 and so on. Once the day is done you get in to bed and think some more usually causing a lack of sleep.

With anxiety every single day is different. Some days I’ll have no anxiety at all, other days I’ll have so much anxiety that I can’t get out of bed. Some days I can overcome it with no problem, other days I really have to work on it. Overthinking has kept me from going to events that I really wanted to attend (aka: Coachella), or from going on a date with a guy I think is cute, and that’s just the beginning.

There are certain things or situations that will trigger my anxiety, for example, sleeping alone. I didn’t sleep in my own bed until I was 12 years old, I just sleep so much better when I know someone is with me, I feel more protected, even if they’re sleeping on the couch in the same room. I sleep most nights normally, but I know I would sleep better if someone were with me. One thing I know for sure is that if there is Thunder or Wind I will NOT sleep alone. My 24 year old self will drive home and sleep with my mother if I have to. And if I don’t have anyone to sleep next to me, I’ll just be pulling an all nighter attempting to distract myself from the noise.

Another thing that triggers my anxiety is going places alone and/or being alone in the dark. I hate going places alone more than anything else, mainly because the entire time I am on edge thinking someone is going to kidnap me. Sometimes I can go places and I am completely fine, other times I jump just when someone walks by. The dark is a whole different story, if I know that I’m going home to an empty house I won’t go in unless there is a light on, and if I do go in I will have my phone ready to dial 911.

One time right after I moved to Provo I was walking from my house to my car (a mere 30 seconds) early one morning and I thought I heard something & ended up crying/shaking for a good 15 minutes as I drove to work. I got that scared. I don’t get anxiety attacks often, maybe once every 5 years but they are incredibly hard to describe, you can’t breathe, you can’t move, your mind is in overdrive and you can’t do anything about it besides praying that it passes.

Little things can trigger anxiety just as much as big things. For me, I sometimes get major anxiety with something as simple as a guy not responding my my texts or opening a snapchat or DM and not saying anything back. When you have anxiety your mind typically will go to the worst scenario first before thinking logically. If someone doesn’t respond an automatic thought is, ‘What did I do wrong?’ ‘They definitely don’t like me’ ‘I must have said the wrong thing’. While obviously in most cases these thoughts are not true, it’s hard not to have anxiety about it. Waiting for a response from someone is torture to me. I hate it. But not everybody knows that so I can’t expect them to respond right away. That would be beyond unrealistic. It would take a simple ‘Hey I’m busy but I’ll call you later.’ to calm me down. The worst part about all of this is, I KNOW how dumb it is and I have no clue why these factors are triggers for me they just are.

Knowing that anxiety impacts my life is hard to accept. There are ways to cope and having anxiety forces me to learn more about myself and work on bettering it. I wouldn’t wish anxiety on anyone because it’s awful. But I am also grateful for my anxiety because it pushes me and challenges me on a regular basis. I get to overcome fears every single day and it’s a subject not many people want to talk about or hear about. But I’m here to be an open book and hopefully break some barriers. To those people who think anxiety isn’t real, I’m here to tell you that it is, I know this because I am living with it. Being aware of it and acknowledging it is such an important concept. This post was not easy for me to write by any means, I just hope it makes a little difference when it comes to how people view this mental illness.

I may not have gone to Coachella this year but I did get to team up with some amazing bloggers and sponsors to do a Coachella themed shoot. Maybe next year I’ll be brave enough to attend the amazing festival.

XOXO

Lex