Coping Techniques

Since being diagnosed with Anxiety and Depression, it's been like a lightbulb going off in my head.  I can recognize the symptoms for what they are now and talk myself down from the ledge of emotional free-fall.

This morning I woke up with a knot in my chest.  My shoulders were tense.  I felt a dark mood desending on me. 

In the past I would have just went forward into my day with a scowl on my face and a tear burning behind my eyes.  Not trying to understand why I felt that way.  Just succombing to it.

Being on meds certainly helps keep those emotions in check most days, but even they are not enough when I spent a lifetime without coping techniques or meds. 

This morning was different.  I felt the normal physical clues to my disorder and began to think through them.  Why did I feel this way?  What was worrying or upsetting me? 

Then I realized I had a bad dream last night.  One of those dreams that are so vivid and real and overlap with touches of reality, that you wake up thinking they did indeed happen. 

Silly girl.  It was JUST a dream.  Stop feeling so blue about it.

I shook it off and went to cuddle with my kids for a bit in thier bed to wake them from sleep.  Their sweet smiles and sour morning breath never fails to put a smile on my face as they rub their sleepy eyes.  I felt the knot of tension begin to release. 

When I was a kid, I had anxiety issues too.  Of course I didn't know that's what they were.  Instead I was labeled a shy child, scared and skittish.  Once I felt comfortable in my surroundings I opened up and was outgoing, well-spoken, and animated.  But when I was uncertain I shut down... hid behind my mother or sat in the very back of class, hoping to not be noticed.

I think some of my teachers thought I was lazy... this fear of failure kept me from really shining.  My second grade teacher, Mrs. Walker, told my mother at a parent-teacher conference: "If Miranda would just apply herself, she'd be dangerous."  She saw my true potential behind those wide worried eyes. 

When I was 8 years old, my aunt bought me a little diary with a lock.  It was blue and had Holly Hobby on the front.  I would write about my day, what boy I thought was cute, my friends and my frustration with my parents.  My joy for writing was born and it became my therapy.

Through my writing I purged the worries and daily disappointments, and in doing so - putting them into words, I learned to cope with them and come out of my shell.

Now, many many (yikes) years later... I am a fairly confident and outgoing woman.  One that enjoys meeting new people and experiencing new things.  I hardly recognize that shy and scared little girl I use to be.  But she emerges in the depths of my mind when I feel that anxiety and fear bubble up.   I just wish someone had known back then the demons I battled and were able to help me.  And it makes me wonder how many other children suffer from the same anxiety that I had, but we don't recognize it, and instead brush it off as "childhood fears" and "shyness". 

Maybe if I had been taught coping techniques back then, I would not need meds now.