Tag: generalized anxiety

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Productivity Shame

2020 was a rough year for a lot of people. A lot of us experienced disruptions in our professional and personal lives. This disruption has forced so many people to work in their homes. It’s also forced people out of their jobs. While I was lucky to not experience much of either of these things, I have recently caught myself in a negative feedback loop. In this loop, I constantly berate myself for a lack of “productivity.” This lack of productivity I’ve been experiencing has been through an active choice to embrace stillness by taking a school term off before jumping into a new job at a new school here in Daegu, South Korea.

I started out 2021 thinking of all of the changes that I have experienced in the last year. I thought about how many things I have completely turned around and I was able to give myself a few pats on the back. But why did I still end up feeling so shitty on most days? Why was I constantly feeling shame for not “doing enough” during my days?

I feel that the reason I am able to clearly see the mechanism in which productivity shaming truly brings a person down is due to the fact that I simply don’t have many obligations at this moment in time. Therefore, any “productiveness” that I perceive is necessary is actually not necessary at all. I literally have nothing that I have to do besides eat, walk the dogs, feed the dogs and cat, and clean the cat’s litter box. Technically, if I wanted to lay in bed all day and sleep, I had no obligations to stop me. Yet, I found myself feeling tired, hopeless, and full of self hatred.

I began to go into productivity overdrive a few weeks back. I scheduled every hour of my day to include some kind of activity. I started working out, studying Korean, walking the dogs 5 times a day, and reading. I even planned out exactly when I was going to prepare my meals and how long my meals must take. The first day was great. I finished everything. I felt this little high off of my accomplishments. I proceeded to try to pack the next day in the same way. While I succeeded, I found myself absolutely drained and exhausted from all of the hours I was devoting to studying and working out.

Ten or so days passed and I woke up this past Wednesday and felt absolutely hopeless. I was doing so many things, but I didn’t want to do any of them that day. I let my alerts on my watch and phone ring. Every time I swiped them away, I felt like a piece of crap. Feeling exhausted was getting to me. My insomnia was and still has been out of control. I was running on 4 hours of sleep every day and not allowing myself to rest was catching up to me. Yet, that Wednesday was not restful. I laid in bed, awake, frustrated and full of self-hate. Why couldn’t I just get my lazy ass up and do the stuff I’ve been doing every day?

I had completely depleted myself and instead of allowing myself to take a break on reaching these expectations, I mentally berated myself for being a “failure.” The guilt and the belief that you are not enough can be extremely taxing. That Wednesday stretched onto Thursday. Somewhere between Thursday and today, I finally figured out why I was “stuck” in this loop. I was setting expectations and goals that were so specific and grueling that I was setting myself up for failure.

You see, productivity shaming is an internal battle you fight with your perfectionist self. The self that sets these goals doesn’t have “happy, healthy, balanced” you in mind. It has the “cracked out, stressed, gotta survive” you in mind. It pushes you to the limit because perfectionist you was created under extreme scrutiny and stress. Your perfectionist self has served you well, and has likely helped you in many of your successes. However, the reality is that we can’t always be in “perfectionist” or “go, go, go” mode.

On Wednesday, when I woke up with the “fuck this and everything on the list” feeling, my mind and body was telling me, “Girl, it’s time to go easy on yourself today.” The checklists and reminders from perfectionist me were there to remind me of how I continue to set unrealistic goals for myself despite how badly I feel when I don’t meet them.

So, between Thursday and this moment, I’ve been working out how I can reconcile these parts of me. I reminded myself that it’s ok to not do everything on my checklist down to the amount of time I have allotted. I began to adjust my tasks from having allotted time slots to simply being a loose list of things that I’ll attempt during the day. I also broke down my list into “obligations” and “desires.” The obligations were simply to get out of the house twice a day for at least 30 minutes each time to walk the dogs. I tried to keep each of the lists manageable.

On Friday, I woke up in a pain flare-up from a condition I was diagnosed with a few years back. It’s called interstitial cystitis, which causes bladder pain/UTI-like symptoms in the absence of any actual infection. There’s limited knowledge on the condition and after many tests and scans, I was diagnosed with it based off of the fact that I was not diagnosed with other conditions that exhibit similar symptoms. I often have pain flare-ups during especially depressive/anxious times, and it’s just icing on the cake. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, is my body trying to tell me something?”

I recently saw a quote on Instagram that said something along the lies of, “If you’re guilting and shaming yourself while you are resting, then it isn’t really rest. If you feel exhausted after resting, then that’s a sign that you weren’t truly resting at all.” It’s definitely not the exact quote, but the gist of it is there. My body was telling me, “Girl, you aren’t resting enough. You aren’t giving your body what it needs while you can and your mind is making yourself feel like shit while you’re telling yourself to rest.”

If anyone else can relate to a chronic feeling of not “doing enough” please reach out. I’d love your insight on how you deal with this never-ending feeling that you should be busy with something at all times. How do I embrace stillness and rest? How do I get the most out of it when my mind/body seems to reject simple acts of rest such as sleep?

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Invasive Thoughts

For people that don’t have an anxiety disorder, it is often very difficult to understand that those of us that have anxiety don’t really want to think these things. The worries that pop into my mind are 100% involuntary. On top of that, I do not necessarily believe in every single thought that has ever popped into my head. It sounds wild, I get it. If this is not part of your human experience, it’s really hard to wrap your head around a thought flying into your brain and invading it. Having no control over what “conclusion” your thought patterns end up having isn’t something that everyone experiences. However, I aim to enlighten and help people understand those around them.

So what are intrusive thoughts? It’s like a fucking conquistador trying to claim your brain and sense of self as it’s own. They can be triggered by any kind of stimuli or image. They come in and they seep into your thoughts and try to convince you that it’s true. Eventually, your anxiety tries to convince you, “Hey, girl, you should probably just believe it so that you can prepare yourself for the worst. You know what your history’s been like. You know how shit just keeps happening. Be prepared.” Do I want to believe the intrusive thought? No. Do I just passively let it consume me? Also, no. It takes a lot of goddamn work to fight an intrusive thought.

So, what is the loudest intrusive thought I’ve been having? “You’re going to die alone because you’re not a person that’s made for long-lasting relationships.” *Cue all of the people trying to tell me how wonderful I am* So why is this so distressing to me? Well, it’s because I’ve learned from life that my intrinsic value is linked to how people perceive me. Should that be what determines my value? No. Does that stop me from feeling like a sack of shit? Also, no. So how do I work through this thought? Well, I ask myself if my personality really is the reason why I am not meant for “lasting relationships” or if it’s my past relationships that have worn away at my sense of self. I realize it’s the baggage I’m carrying from my past relationships that weighs me down from healthily developing new relationships. Now, if it’s the baggage, then it’s not a problem that’s permanent. That’s good! Then, I have to challenge the fear of whether or not I’m actually afraid of being alone, or if I’m afraid of what people will perceive me as due to my history with relationships. Working through that thought takes time and emotional energy that drains me. In the end, I’m left irritable and very, very vulnerable to emotional distress.

So… next time you’ve got a buddy or a partner that is having a moment with their anxious thoughts, try to encourage them to challenge the thoughts rather than tell them to “stop being so negative” or berating them for being a “pessimist.” We really… really don’t want to be like this. We just are.

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A Year

One year ago, I was in Korea, by myself, with minimal furnishings in my apartment. I was trying to get by until my dog arrived in late May, but the pressure of work began to close in on me. Work, as it seems, turned out to be not what I needed at the time, but I felt “stuck.” I held down the fort as best as I could but my mental health was deteriorating as I stuck it out until the return of my coworker.

A year ago, I teetered pretty close to the edge of existence and non-existence. I remember having a particularly stressful conversation with my then-SO. It was one of those never-ending, dramatic conversations where I kept spiraling and cycling through the same cognitive distortion and reasoning through it with another distortion. I had a nasty habit of forcing the situation into resolution rather than to give each other space and time to process and regroup before discussing the issue. I never really remember what these conversations and arguments were about, all I remember is the panic that ensues. The thoughts that swirl in my head and how they seemed to be absolutely uncontrollable. At the time, I didn’t really realize that what was happening was that my cognitive distortions and my anxiety level had turned from adaptive behavior due to past traumatic experience into a maladaptive disorder that would send my life into ruins.

I remember hitting the ground, my rock bottom, both physically and mentally. Not sure what it was that took over me. I suddenly couldn’t see anything past that floor and that moment when I was laying on it, half sobbing and half gasping. Anxiety saved my life that day. “I don’t want to die” alarms were screeching in my ears. I’m not sure why I felt like I would. I just did, and my brain was screaming for me to do something to help. I went to the emergency room that day after not being able to re-set my breathing to automatic for over an hour. Having my colleague pick me up off the ground and take me to the hospital was an ultimate low. I remember him telling me in the car, “I wish you told me that you were struggling.” All I could say was, “I wish I did, too. Because maybe all of this wouldn’t have happened.”

A year later, I still feel that way about the whole situation. I wish I stepped out and told someone sooner. I wish I told myself that I needed me sooner. I wish so many things for my past self, but all of that is useless at this point. I have walked this path and things have changed in my life. I am unrecognizable to me in the mirror. It’s no longer a bad thing. It just is. Disruptive thoughts have still ruined my day. They probably won’t stop. Luckily it just doesn’t ruin my life anymore.

Today, I want to celebrate a year of working on myself. Cheers to you, my friend. You are strong. It’s fitting that a new song by one of my favorite bands was released today. It hit me like it was about my life.

Zombie by Day6

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Late Night Thoughts – How the Mental Health Challenge Died

At the beginning of April, I started this challenge and lasted for barely a week. I want to make excuses for myself, like I normally do when people ask me what I’ve been up to and why I haven’t gotten in touch with people. I want to tell, “Oh, man, work has been so busy.” Which doesn’t mean it hasn’t been. It has been. There have been points in the last few weeks where I wonder if I’ve reached my stopping point for work, my personal life, and overall general well-being.

I’ve been mindful of each day’s challenge, attempting to acknowledge or practice them, at the very least, but reluctant to do a post or pick it back up on the blog. I think one of the biggest stoppers for any of my projects is the fact that I am a bit of a completionist. I know that this usually applies to people that play games or likes to collect full sets of things. However, in my case, I do not like to continue after failure. I wish to complete things in a perfect way. If I am not able to, I would much rather abandon it rather than continue going through.

In the last few weeks, my mind, body, and spirit have hit “survival” mode. When I hit that point, everything feels completely pointless. It’s hard to feel strong emotions or connection to yourself. It’s just a constant state of auto-pilot. It’s what I need to survive at this point. I haven’t journaled or have any time to play video games. At some point, I just wished for things to be “normal” again before realizing that I no longer really know what normal means.

Survival mode began to turn into “at wits’ end” mode. When I hit that stage, sleep deprivation continued to affect me, despite having multiple pills that are meant to help me sleep. I remember the deja vu moment of last Sunday while realizing, “Oh damn, second sunrise I’ve seen in a row. I haven’t slept at all in between.” When I finally hunkered down for some real sleep, I was instantly taken by sleep paralysis.

My fellow survivors, take it one day at a time. The most helpful thing I’ve done for myself is to set a small goal each day to complete. It helps increase my productivity and also help me achieve that sense of accomplishment that will help me get into a better headspace. Just one day at a time.

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Boundaries

I think one of the things I like the most about Korea is how distinctly different each of the four seasons are. I always feel a distinct mark that signifies the end of the winter and the transitions into spring. There’s never any confusion. The cherry blossoms will bloom in April, the leaves will start to come back on the trees and by the end of May, you will begin to hear the cicadas buzzing and feel the temperature rising. Every season has boundaries and there’s very little overlapping or confusion.

In contrast, in Minnesota, where I’m originally from, our seasons blend together into a sort of either cold or not cold. Even if you’re in the clear for a few weeks from the snow storms. Maybe even when you’re about to walk across the stage to graduate from college, a snowstorm could decide to show up and it would still be pretty “normal.” The boundaries of the seasons are blurred and it can often feel rather chaotic.

Much like the seasons the way I’m able to implement and follow through with personal boundaries has been vastly different. In Korea, I live independently and manage everything on my own with little to no help. Despite not speaking much of the language, I get by and have been able to live a happy and mostly healthy life. I draw boundaries between myself and my friends, family, and significant others. They do the same for me. I have learned here, that boundaries are important and necessary in any human relationship.

Back home in Minnesota, the boundaries get blurred. Growing up, boundaries were difficult for me. As the oldest child, I was always asked and expected to do things for my little sisters, even if it meant that I didn’t want to. In fact, I was taught that self-sacrifice or yielding to the younger siblings was my job. I was taught that I should be helpful and happy for my parents’ sake because they struggled so much day-to-day that the “least I can do” is to help them with certain tasks and projects I found to be unpleasant or not enjoyable. As I grew older, I became a confidant for both of my parents, and I didn’t mind, until, at some point, it became a matter of taking on their worries and burdens as my own and treating them as my responsibility. Cracking under pressure, I remember having several blow outs with my parents regarding my boundaries. I remember being upset about something that was, in hindsight, probably something I didn’t need to be upset about, but I was. I remember being told that I was “ridiculous” or “overreacting.” I remember feeling bad for expressing that what was said to me was not ok.

During this journey of healing and growth, I have found that many of my childhood experiences that have shaped me are products of a situation where my parents, as human beings, were learning as they were going. They were taught, through tradition, that hierarchy are important, and that the higher you are up on the scale, the more rights you have to blow through boundaries. This has made it rather difficult for me to understand that every human being needs to have boundaries. It’s made it difficult for me to ask for boundaries and it’s made it difficult for me to follow requests to give space and boundaries as well.

Recently, I realized that I have people in my life that do not need to continue to have a space in my life for. After many years of patterns and repeated behavior, I finally realize that not only need to place temporary boundaries on family members but I can also put up permanent boundaries around people that I do not wish to share my time with any longer. I felt cornered into making a decision to remove a long-time friend from my life. While I did it quietly and cautiously, I felt horrible. Horrible because I know that by not providing my explanation, I am supporting myself in putting up my permanent boundary away from them, but I am going to let this person continue living wondering or blaming me for putting her through an upsetting time. Losing and cutting out friends is never easy. And at my age, it’s even harder because I can only count the friends that I truly love and depend on my two hands.

I am grateful for the skills I have learned over the last year, and I’m thankful for all of the progress I’ve made. I’m proud of myself because I am able to respect boundaries that are placed between me and my significant over much more easily than before. I hope that readers that are struggling with feeling like they are always “taken advantage of” or that they’re the friend people only call when they’re “in trouble” can understand that putting up boundaries will save you from a lot of disappointment and heartache.

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