Social Anxiety: a year later
9 tools that helped on the road to recovery
A little over a year ago I’ve started experiencing panic attacks and later discovered I suffered from a social anxiety disorder. In April I’ve shared a story called “Large Ambitions and a Social Anxiety Disorder”. Today I’d like to take you through what I’ve learned this past year.
But why?
If there’s one thing that I have been most amazed about, it is the sheer amount of people that suffer from anxieties. It is way more common than you might think. When I published my story, a really large amount of people — publicly as well as privately — told me about their own experiences. It was heartwarming to know I was not alone in this. But I was stunned that so many others, regardless of rank and title suffer in silence.
For those who don’t know what a panic attack feels like, this is roughly what it did to me.
I felt that I was in a way too small one-person elevator stuck between two floors. Ducktape over my mouth, unable to breathe. A haze of smoke around me and fire under me. Depressed that all of this happened in my head, disappointed that I failed to solve my own problems. At the brink of fainting, awaiting certain death.
I just want to share my experience on the road to recovery. Perhaps you will benefit from this experience.
The things that made it better
Seek professional help
If you are feeling the way I’ve felt, solving things on your own is really hard. Talk with your general practitioner, as well as a psychologist. They can help. Perhaps it will sometimes feel as if they tell you things you already know. I compare it with abseiling. You know how it works, there’s a rope going down and you have a harness to keep you safe. You’ll come off that mountain one way or another. If you don’t trust the rope and the instructor, you’ll go down with your body and face against the wall. You’ll be covered in bumps and bruises and it will hurt.
If you trust your instructor and the rope, however, you’ll manage to put your feet against the wall and come down much quicker, safer, and healthier. Make sure you work with gear that you trust!
Hugging and walking
When you start your road to recovery, you’ll be looking at this long road. Thinking it’s endless, and perhaps even pointless. But you’ll have to walk it nonetheless.
My tip here is to actually walk. Walk, walk, walk. I’ve walked (especially in the beginning) for hours on end in loose sand. Why? Well for one it tires you, which will bring you some peace. But also because walking long ends reduces the stress hormone cortisol, which has a likely connection to the situation you are in at that moment. Your brain needs time to process all of what’s happening. You’ll go into a form of mourning process, feeling that you’ve lost something precious in your life. Walk it off and give your head the time to go through all it’s thinking. Wear it out, and tire it, while you physically tire yourself as well.
And hug! Hug your kids, your spouse, your dog or sheep, or whomever is open for hugging. Even when you don’t feel like hugging at all. When you hug, you release a hormone called oxytocin, which is one of the best counters against cortisol. It relieves you from stress, quite literally.
Expose your vulnerability
Talk about it. You feel vulnerable and very alone, and it feels that nobody could possibly understand what you feel. But the thing is, you are wrong here. There are a lot — and I mean a lot — of people with similar experiences.
I’ve published that article to my work network, as well as my personal / social network. There was not one bad word, and so many heartwarming messages.
By exposing your vulnerabilities, you draw down the wall, helping you to heal. You won’t have to feel ashamed anymore that someone might find out, or that you’ll have to walk out because you feel you need to run away. It’s already in the open!
I’ve been doing meetings at work, and when I’ve felt something bubbling up taking over my system, I stopped the conversation and explained how I felt. This removed the pressure of being weird while walking out, and I wasn’t alone anymore. Strangely enough, accepting that it’s happening removes the problem. Speaking about it out loud takes it out of your own bubble and into the bubbles of other people. My peers during these meetings were already aware, because I had published that article, and so there were no surprises. I felt safe.
Not dying, feed the feedback loop
The systems that are triggered in your body, are the same systems that are triggered when you are in an actual life or death situation. They are helpful when you are chased by wildlife on the Serengeti, but perhaps slightly overdone when you are in a boardroom.
The feeling of ‘all eyes are on me’ can trigger this life or death experience. What you’ll do next, determines how your recovery will progress.
You can run, but then you’ll condition yourself with: “If I run, the problem will go away, so running is a good idea!”. The thing is though, you’ll start to run in every situation in which the going gets tough. You’re feeding your anxiety, even though it feels good.
Or you can fight. Stay where you are, try to engage your environment, talk and tell what’s happening inside of you, and learn that you won’t die. Not dying is a good thing! And I can tell, since it’s been a year since it all started, that not dying is the best thing that has happened to me ;-). I’ve learnt that I can manage the situation, even when I’m feeling mortified. So I’m less inclined to run away each time I practice not dying.
Bring it on
Don’t make yourself or your feelings small. You are actually, really experiencing something! Don’t marginalize, and tell yourself it will go away. No! BRING IT ON. Talk to the feelings. Tell them to grow as big as they possibly can be. Let them try to kill you. Because they won’t be able to. Feed that feedback loop. You are stronger than whichever ancient safety mechanism you were born with. Accept and go through the feelings you have, and talk with them. It’s okay that they are there, and it’s normal that you experience them.
Medicine
You don’t have to do all of this on your own. If all the former things don’t help you and you feel really really shit for the majority of the time, talk with your General Practitioner again. They can help feeling you less bad by prescribing anti-depressants. Your brain, and thus the way you feel, is based on chemicals. And you are experiencing a chemical unbalance. Medicine can help you restore the balance. You’ll still have to work relentlessly in maintaining a healthy balance.
A Lion
In the second episode of the series “The Surgeon’s Cut” on Netflix, Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa explains that he is scared and terrified every time he goes into an OR to do surgery on someone. But instead of letting the feeling paralyze him, he lets it make him become a Lion. If you look at it this way, you’re gifted with this wonderful mechanism that raises your heart rate, gives you focus, tenses your muscles and raises your attention. It’s not only prey that uses this mechanism, but hunters as well! Your brain gets more oxygen, is able to think faster, your muscles get more oxygen and are in hot-standby, ready to run and give punches, your lungs open up so you can make yourself heard. You. are. a. Lion. You just don’t know it yet, and it doesn’t feel like it yet. Next time, try to see what happens when you attack a situation, instead of withdrawing yourself from it.
The little kid that is still inside you
Sometimes it’s hard to break the dialogue with your internal self. At least, in my case it was. Imagine yourself as the kid you were. How are you talking to that little kid? Are you constantly angry? Maybe shouting? Disappointed? How are you treating that little you?
Now that you’ve taken that perspective and observed that this probably isn’t going anywhere, what would you advise to the parent? Compassion? Give space? Give time? Maybe give a hug?
Become aware of what you are doing. Because only when you are heartfelt aware, you are able to change.
Remind yourself of the times when you were perfectly capable of handing the areas you feel troubled in right now. Don’t be so hard on yourself!
Don’t settle
You’ve found yourself at the end of a road, and you have to walk a long way back. Ask yourself how you got there. Which things pushed you down those roads? Whether they have their roots in the past or the future, doesn’t matter. Address them. Don’t settle for where you are.
You didn’t get this far, to only get this far
You are the captain of your ship, but you cannot do it alone. You’ll need a crew to operate it, and you are part of the crews of other ships yourself as well. Know where to set sail to. Have a vision. Fix that broken leg. Mend that eye. Become that pirate of your own body and take control of what’s rightfully yours.
Do you suffer from anxiety or other mental distress and need to talk about it? Psychological problems are more common than you might think. 1 in 4 people encounter mental struggles at some point in their lives. Please contact your doctor (General Practitioner). They are trained to listen to your problems and bring you in contact with someone that can help you when needed.
