Anxiety and Uncertainty

Heyo!

Recent studies have discovered that on average one in every 5 people suffer with an anxiety disorder. This is different to just feeling a bit anxious about something, and there are various different types of anxiety disorders that someone may suffer with. It's not just about getting anxious for exams or just over-thinking on the odd occasion, anxiety disorders ruin people's lives without the right treatment and support from people round the affected. It's becoming increasingly common in young people, with a recent study indicating that 82% of students suffer from stress and anxiety, and 45% having experienced depression.

So why start a blog post with statistics like these? Well, I wanted to seriously address anxiety and to highlight that it's not just something silly that young people have, it can affect all age groups from all walks of life. You may not even think you suffer with it, you may have never experienced it, or you may have known for a long time but not been able to do much about it. If you think you may have an anxiety disorder please speak to someone who can help, because when my anxiety was untreated it kept spiralling and made me feel very small and alone and pathetic, and that's not something I would wish on anyone. 

My anxiety has been really bad this week, for a number of reasons. It has stopped me doing some of the things I wanted to, and has hindered me being myself in situations. This really annoys and upsets me because I don't want my anxiety to be the boss of me, and whilst it didn't take over my whole week, it certainly affected me pretty badly. This was the first bad week for my anxiety in quite a while, so I am hoping it won't be happening again anytime soon because I don't know if I can do it again right now because of how drained I feel. I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about it at all, but drafting this post helped me a lot and lifted my mood, so hopefully it'll help someone who's also feeling a bit iffy about the future too - you're not alone I promise and this feeling will pass!

I had a bit of a wobbly moment this week, anyone who follows me on social media will have seen it, and I got terrified about the future because people all asked me on the same day what I was doing after uni. The real answer is, I'm not too sure. My anxiety took this hesitation and uncertainty and ran with it, making my mind wander and my thoughts sprint ahead of me leaving me unable to catch my breath and to spiral into an anxiety attack so bad I had to sleep to try and escape it. With some advice and reassurance from my friends I felt a bit better (and after a nap too!) and I managed to tackle the rest of the day, and then the rest of the week just a few hours at a time and seeing where I ended up and what I ended up doing.

I'm not going to meticulously plan for the future, because I'm terrified about it. But I am going to plan the things I can control, like my dinners, the types of tea I want to drink, who I meet up with, my uni work, my craft empire and just making sure I'm looking after me the best I can. I have a rough idea for what I want to do and where I will be next year which is very comforting, and whilst I may not know exactly where I will be living or what I'll be doing in full yet, I know I will be in a city I love with a flatmate I adore and around the people I love, and that's all that matters right now. Oh, and that I'll be making loads of things out of wool and yarn and reading lots of books and drinking buckets of tea, and that's a pretty good plan if you ask me.

B x