Anxious Brain

I have had one of my worst anxiety weeks I think since college. As in when my anxiety gets this bad, I cease to really function like a normal human being. I kind of self-destruct. I implode. I think it's because my anxiety triggers are so intertwined with the everyday. Right now this means school. So anytime I attempt to do any schoolwork, I can't focus because I feel so anxious about school. Which means that basically nothing has gotten done for a week now. Even with the unexpected 3-day weekend, I haven't managed to get anything done. Because doing schoolwork means that anxious brain kicks in and after feeling like crap and getting nothing done for a couple of hours, I give up and let avoidance mode kick in. At least then when I'm not getting things done I can feel okay for a short while. And forget keeping my apartment reasonably cleaned up. There are some days that I look at it and think, "Man, I can't wait 'til I have the time and energy to clean this place up." But when anxious brain kicks in, it's more of a "Man, I don't even give a crap that I have to climb over piles of school stuff to get to my couch or that I ran out of cups/spoons/bowls/etc three days ago." I cease to care.
And anxious brain doesn't just mean that I cease to care about the items on my to-do list. It also means I lose all will to do the daily things to take care of myself. I cease to sleep. Sometimes it's because I can't make my brain shut down well enough to sleep. But most of the time it's because I feel this deep-seated need to just not sleep for no other reason than I just don't want to. Because somehow I feel better staying up doing mindless, time-wasting kinds of things than to actually go to sleep. I stop eating too. Sometimes it's because my stomach is just in too many knots to handle eating anything. But more often it's because I've simply lost the desire to eat. I just don't feel like it. So I stop. And I cease to shower. I'm slightly more likely to right now because at school people will notice, but if I'm not going to see anyone I know on a particular day? Showering won't happen.
Anxious brain also deems particular locations or events unsafe. It's the reason that I stepped out of or skipped choir rehearsals multiple times a week for the rest of the school year after the time I had a massive panic attack on choir tour. It's the reason I don't know that I'll ever go back to camp. It's the reason that I avoid ever returning to the church I grew up in. It's the reason that I have no desire to return to my old school for anything and the reason I didn't feel comfortable in my old apartment by the time I left. And right now it's the reason that every time I go near my current school I completely fall apart. It doesn't feel safe anymore. Or, more accurately, it never really felt safe, and now it feels 100% unsafe.
Anxious brain means I can't manage to hold it together. I've about fallen apart in the middle of teaching countless times in the last week. Usually even on bad days I can hold it together from the time I step into the school building to the time I leave it, but not last week. Last week I was usually in tears in between classes and occasionally during student work time, all while attempting to hide it in the corner by my desk. During my prep period I was a wreck. Every single day. I was also a wreck anytime that I wasn't physically inside the school building. And have been a wreck anytime I've thought about school all weekend. I usually feel anxious on Sundays, but today I've had four panic attacks, one of which was the worst I've had since sometime last summer and was the first panic attack I've had in ages that I was convinced wasn't ever going to end.
Anxious brain means I catastrophize. But even though I know that the outside world would say that I'm being pessimistic and worrying about worst-case scenarios that are never going to happen, those scenarios feel very real and very likely to me. Like right now I'm fairly convinced that if all continues as it has been, I'm going to lose my job and probably never get another job in teaching at this rate. Because I'm not a fully functional teacher right now. I can't accomplish as much in as little time as the other teachers that I work with. And I know that my anxiety is getting in the way of certain aspects of my job; I try to do the best I can, but I'm not perfect. I'm trying to work through some of these things with my therapist, but it's a process. Unfortunately this past week I got in trouble for these shortcomings and it was made very clear to me that I had to jump from 0 to 100 in an instant because students' futures are on the line and it's all supposed to be part of my job in the first place. (And the fact that this district puts a massive focus on being good at something that is one of my greatest weaknesses made me extremely uneasy from the time I interviewed for the job, but by the time I got the job offer I was so desperate that desperation won over anxiety - at least for then). It all feels impossible and no matter how many times people say that they want to be supportive and try to help or ask how they can help. The truth is that there is nothing they can do. What I really need is time and understanding, but it's been made pretty clear to me that time to work through things isn't an option and because the majority of the population doesn't really understand anxiety, I don't foresee finding anyone who understands either. After having a panic attack in my principal's office last week, when I then wound up sharing briefly about my mental health stuff and that I am seeing a therapist to try to work through it, he asked me if I'm going to be able to work through it in order to make teaching a career. My response? That I'm trying. That I'm hoping to get there. And that's the truth. Because in the midst of all my anxiety in the past week, I realized for the first time in ages that I really do love working with kids. But I can't take the pressure. I'm trying to get to a point where I can, but I don't know that I can hit that point fast enough, not just for my own sanity in hopes of feeling less stressed out, but also fast enough for others' time tables. Because when your job involves working with kids, you have to have yourself together in the immediate future, not in the distant future at a time that you can't really predict. And suddenly I no longer feel like whether I continue to teach is even my choice - I feel like I'll get let go once again. Because my experience dictates that as soon as people have learned that I have mental health issues, which by definition take time to work through, they don't really want me working with kids anymore. With the exception of the time that I worked for a family that I'm technically blood-related to and who understood mental health issues. So when I catastrophize? My experience makes it feel entirely rational.
And people don't understand anxious brain. Or perhaps I shouldn't generalize too much because some people do. But only the ones who have had close personal experiences with mental illness in some way, shape, or form. The reason that I enjoy blogging is because it allows me to express all of this somewhere that people can see it in what feels like a non-threatening arena. But in the rest of life? The people that I see every day? They don't get it. Sure, they get the basics. But they don't understand what I have to do to cope to get through everyday tasks. They don't understand that how much extra work I have to do mentally to work through the extra roadblocks my brain sets up. And most of all they don't understand that the biggest factor in me getting better. After the panic-attack-in-the-principal's-office incident last week, he asked me how I was doing the next time I saw him, and I fell apart all over again. Which doesn't help how I'm feeling at school right now. I tried to explain that after a really bad day, it just takes me time to get better, but I don't think I had him convinced. And he wants to find ways to fix me. Actually, fixing struggling teachers is kind of a big focus at my school. For a normal person, this is a helpful thing. If a teacher is stressed out or searching for new tools or struggling to find techniques that work, given them the tools to move forward in a more positive direction. But for someone with anxious brain, or, possibly more accurately, anxious/depressed brain, offering teaching tools and advice only makes things worse. Because anxious brain feels overwhelmed by all the new information and depressed brain felt like a failure already and social anxiety brain feels panicked because now everyone knows about the failure. I know that others have this amazing picture of what a great teacher looks like, and I'd like to get there someday. But usually the times that people are trying to give me all the advice are the times that it's taking me every ounce of energy to get through the next five minutes (or less) without completely falling apart emotionally. What anxious brain needs most on the bad days is someone who will be there to listen to the fact that I'm struggling, affirm that in my head the anxieties are real, and above all else to not offer advice and accept it when I'm saying that I'm working through things and in time will be okay. But it's not work that others, outside of trained psychology professionals, can help with. The people that are the most helpful are the ones who realize that they can't help and are just there. No advice, just a non-judgmental listening ear.
I spend most of my life wishing that people understood anxious brain better. How it makes everyday tasks that are easy for the rest of the world feel nearly impossible. How it can't be fixed the way that other problems can be. How what it needs most is support of people who aren't trying to fix it. How it really just needs people to understand what they experience because of it. The word is slowly finding its way out. I think I've seen more articles circulate around the internet about anxiety in the last year than I have any other time in my life (like this article I ran across last week). But it still doesn't feel like enough. The word isn't making it to the right places. A few months ago I sat through a lunch conversation that belittled a co-worker's daughter for her anxiety. So the information still isn't making it out to enough people. There are many days that I wish I could make a career out of being an advocate for mental illness. I know there are volunteer positions like this, and I hope to someday get involved. But for now I write. Because my life would be so much easier if people understood my anxious brain. And I know I'm not the only one.