Just Don't Worry About It.

Pretty much all my life I've struggled with anxiety. I can remember back to being a kid and having anxiety attacks about something I said or did on the playground or in the classroom that would eat away at me for weeks. Of course, at the time I didn't realize what it was, but as I grew older and it kept happening I realized I'm just kind of an anxious person, and I went through my whole childhood like that.

It got so bad when I was in college that I was giving myself these debilitating stomach aches on a daily basis, to the point where I would get nauseous and start sweating and panicking so badly I honestly thought I would pass out at any second from the intense stomach pain - often times this happened when I was in public, but I would keep it internal. I finally went and got tested for a bunch of things to see if there was something physically wrong with me because I didn't realize that my mental state was actually causing my body to have a physical reaction until the doctors came back with absolutely nothing wrong. And that's when I knew exactly what was wrong.

You see, it's really not easy to struggle with anxiety. You second guess everything you say and do and you're always wondering if what you've said or done is good enough or how it was perceived by everyone else. A thought might randomly pop into your head about something you just remembered you said several weeks ago that will cause you to go into a spiraling panic, start re-evaluating your whole life, and start plotting your move across the country where you can start over and never have to see the person you made that little comment to ever again, even though in reality they probably didn't even notice, care, or frankly will ever think about again. Meanwhile your stomach is churning for days and you're cringing about how stupid you feel for whatever the incident was. Your mind cannot shift away from it until you just can't help but start panicking and wishing you were never born. And then when you finally get over that one, something else pops into your head and the cycle starts again. At least that's usually how it went for me.

So one day I had a thought: I don't have to live like this. And I don't WANT to live like this. Constantly making yourself feel like you could projectile vomit all over everything at any second because you're having an internal panic attack that no one knows about but you is a sad way to go through life. So I realized I had two options. I could either go back to the doctor with my self-diagnosis and ask for some medication that would curb the anxiety but potentially make me feel like a zombie, or I could teach myself how to deal with it. I chose the latter.

I had a breaking point about a year and a half ago when something major happened in my life. I won't go into detail but at the time it felt like the emotional equivalent of someone close to me dying. No one died, for the record, but my anxiety told me to react in the same way. I was panicking and literally started debating packing up and moving somewhere else to start over, which thankfully only ended up turning into a spontaneous week-long trip to LA to visit my best friend and clear my head. Needless to say, I cried and hyperventilated the whole 4 hour drive to LA, and when I got back I decided that I was never going to let THAT happen to me again.

So what did I do? I taught myself how to breathe. I taught myself how to calm down. I taught myself to stop caring what other's thought about me. But most importantly I taught myself to start liking ME. I never really thought about the good qualities I have, like the fact that I'm funny (at least I think I'm funny, and that's all that counts in this situation), I'm smart, I'm a good person, and I put others before myself. And if someone thinks a comment I made is weird and they want to judge me for that, then it's not something I can control, and they're not people I want in my circle. They're the ones missing out on having me in their life, not the other way around. I decided right then that I didn't need or want anyone around me who made me feel like I had to second guess myself, so I began the difficult process of weeding out the people who did. And voila, I instantly started feeling this giant weight lifting off me. I started feeling worthy of being happy and not being so concerned with how I was perceived by everyone around me. I had to train my brain to stop caring and be ok with letting the real Chelsea shine through.

Don't get me wrong, this was extremely difficult and something I'm still working at for sure. It took me a long time to re-train my brain with no professional help whatsoever. But it's been a long while since I've had an anxiety attack and I know that it's because of the combination of people I now have in my life, and some simple advice I was given, "just don't worry about it." Stop worrying so much. Life is too damn short to be so unhappy and self conscious of every little thing. I'm weird, so what? Someday I'm gonna find my weirdo counterpart and nothing else will matter because I won't have to put up a front for anyone. Someone is going to love the best and the weirdest sides of me. And that's how it should be. I already have my weirdo friend-counterparts, which tells me I'm not alone and I'm never going to be alone. Plus, no one is worth that kind of anxiety in the long run of your life so there's no sense in getting all uptight over something that doesn't make you happy or make you a better person.

So the moral of the story is, it's not a losing battle. We all just need to embrace ourselves and our weirdness, because in the end no one can make you happy but yourself. And finding inner happiness is the key to finding happiness with others (or so I've been told).

I also love this Thought Catalog post titled, Everyone Is Weird. But more on that later.