Anxiety vs Anxiety Disorders

Everyone feels anxious from time to time, like before an exam of a big event. If you’re in a stressful time of life, such as college or wedding planning (or the middle of a pandemic) stress and anxiety can be even more common.

This is why it can be tough to tell the difference between typical anxiety and a condition like panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

WHAT IS IT?

Typical anxious feelings –

A temporary and expected response to a stressful situation but not an ongoing problem. This is an appropriate reaction to the situation. It doesn’t interfere with other areas of life but can actually be a good and helpful thing. Can act as a motivator to accomplish assignments or warn you about dangerous situations. Can also activate the fight, flight, or freeze response.

Boundaries – A Breakdown

It is essential to have personal boundaries in order to have healthy relationships. These protect you, your mind, your heart, your soul, and your relationships.

WHAT ARE BOUNDARIES?

These are basic guidelines in a relationship for how you are treated, how the relationship looks, and for what’s acceptable and what isn’t. A boundary can be made for every area of a relationship: physical, emotional, responsibilities, spiritual, etc.

Healthy boundaries increase self-esteem and reduce stress, anxiety, and depression.

The relationship does not have to be a romantic or sexual one. In fact, you should have boundaries in every relationship. This includes family members and friends.

Think of an imaginary line separating you from something/someone else.

A study in grief

WHAT IS GRIEF?

Grief is the natural reaction to loss.

Grief is a strong, sometimes overwhelming emotion for people due to a loss, particularly of someone or something that the person had a strong bond with or affection for. Although, grief can also be for a relationship that has ended badly, a healthy lifestyle after a terminal illness, or other losses, such as a family home or a job.

FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF:

Denial

Denial is a conscious or unconscious decision to refuse to admit that something is true. This is natural as grief brings sudden and intense emotions. It’s a survival instance to ignore these feelings.

Working through a Panic Attack

Difference between a panic and an anxiety attack

Panic and anxiety attacks can feel similar, and they share a lot of symptoms, but they are different conditions.

PANIC ATTACK:

Comes on suddenly & accompanied by intense fear. The panic attack is often more disruptive than the anxiety attack. They can be caused by a trigger or external stressor or have no obvious cause.

ANXIETY ATTACK:

Comes on gradually and typically related to something that’s perceived as stressful or threatening. It can be mild to severe and occur while normal everyday activities continue. Usually related to a trigger or the anticipation of a stressful situation, experience, or event.

2020 LINGERS

“Trauma in a person, decontextualized over time, looks like personality.

Trauma in a family, decontextualized over time, looks like family traits.

Trauma in a people, decontextualized over time, looks like culture.”

-Resmaa Menakem

LOCKDOWN & QUARANTINE

Depression & Anxiety

The Office of National Statistics in the UK has found that rates of depression have doubled. Fatigue, anxiety, a lack of cues, and fewer social interactions all play into the rise of depression and anxiety.

A Look Inside an ADHD Mind

PART ONE: THE BASICS

ADHD isn’t a character flaw. It’s a developmental disorder of the brain. Some of the symptoms of adults with ADHD are:

• Trouble completing and organizing tasks
• Frequently losing important belongings
• Forgetfulness and distraction
• Restlessness and Impulsivity
• Difficulty following details
• Impatience
• Strong, sometimes inappropriate emotion
• Obsessive behaviors
• Poor memory

ADHD, anxiety, mood disorders, autism, and other conditions are not single or simple disorders.
They all have multiple types. ADD affects many areas of the brain and can manifest in many different ways.

Experts agree there are about 7 main types of ADHD.

Loving Those With Mental Illnesses

Beware of Spiritual Bypassing

SB is the use of spiritual ideas to avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and societal problems. Basically, it’s the use of religious words, theologies, or cliches to invalidate or avoid addressing the actual issue.

When spirituality and religion are used to compensate for challenging traits such as low self-esteem, social isolation, mental health issues, social issues like racism or sexism, or other emotional issues, they corrupt the actual use of the spiritual practice.

Some examples include:

• “It doesn’t matter who is president, Jesus is always in control.”
• “Everything happens for a reason.”
• “I don’t see color.” & “All Lives Matter.”
• “Try focusing on the positive!”
• “Don’t be anxious, just trust God!”
• “Rely on God and you won’t be so tired.”
• “You shouldn’t feel lonely. God is always with you.”
• “Have you prayed about it?”

Bible vs Political Parties

This was done quickly, with limited research. I am not making a stance (though it wouldn’t be hard to figure out where I do stand) but simply laying out what I understand with the QUICKEST information possible. Every issue is deeper than I’ve even begun to mention below and every party has SO many people who align with them but may disagree. These are general, broad statements and assumptions. Not absolute truths for every single republican and democrat. (Anything in quotes under a party column was taken straight from the party’s website.)

Every single stance in the Bible column could be argued. Every single verse could be understood and interpreted differently. In fact, some of them are literally taken straight out of context. But I wanted to, as quickly as possible, try to explain why I put the Bible’s stance on that specific issue. Again, you may disagree. That’s okay. I have done more research than what you see below, but every single issue could be an entire blog post about what the Bible says or doesn’t say. MANY of the issues are not outrightly discussed in the Bible and must be assumed based on what we know of Jesus/the heart of God/what we are told.

Imposter Syndrome

I live with this crushing weight many call “Imposter Syndrome,” which is basically the insecurity that no matter how successful I am, I’ll always be afraid it’s a mistake. That I’m just not good enough for this success. Or, according to Wikipedia (stellar reference right there) it is “the psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments or talents and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.”

In short, it’s the fear that I’ll never be good enough and soon, everyone else will see it too.

The painful silver lining to this predicament is that I’m not alone. Most people will have this fear, insecurity, or syndrome at least once in their life. Maybe you, random stranger hopefully reading this, are feeling that now. Or have in the past. Well, you’re not alone.

Affirmations

Do you feel heavy? Or, rather, does the world feel heavy to you right now? I know, for me, there are a dozen intense topics, emotions, events, problems, and pains floating around in my mind 24/7. I seem to be feeling everything more than I ever have in the past. The pain of my friends. The pain of the world. The problems and injustices and grief.

And I feel less than enough.

Somehow, things are becoming personal that should never have been personal. And it’s messing with my own identity and self worth.

I don’t know if you can relate with me, or if what I’m saying even makes sense. But I DO know that everyone needs a bit of affirmation sometimes. Everyone has hard days and days of low self-esteem. For those days, this particular blog post is for you.