And I say that because I’ve struggled with it for a really long time. Most notably, the past two years of grad school and my year as a school principal made me feel anxiety nearly all the time. I hated it then and now that I have a wonderful new job and have put those anxiety-inducing experiences behind me, I am extra sensitive when I begin to feel that familiar butterfly-in-the-stomach sensation. I started to feel it earlier today and became concerned. One of the things I learned about anxiety last year is that you shouldn’t try to analyze it and explain why you have it. You should just acknowledge the feeling and move on. I learned that from my husband, who learned that from using the Headspace meditation app, which I also began to use intermittently. Today, more than ever, I wanted to know why I was feeling this most dreaded emotion. It didn’t take me long to figure it out, and once I did, the feeling went away.
So here’s the funny thing…my anxiety over the last two years existed for different reasons. During my first year of grad school, I felt it nearly every day because my going to grad school in order to be a school principal was a secret that I kept from the people I worked with. The plan was to reveal my new role as principal at the end of the school year. That kind of anxiety was more about the fear of people finding out the secret before it was time, and the consequences I would face from my “mentor”. It was also about anticipation and constant wondering how everybody would react to the news. The second year of grad school, the anxiety was much more intense because there was a lot of criticism and unpleasantness from the things I had to do as the leader of a school and also from my “mentor” and her method of mentoring that didn’t involve a shred of positivity and/or encouragement. Two years, two different reasons for my anxiety. Today, I discovered that I can get anxiety for a third reason, unfinished tasks. On Thursday, my work day ended abruptly because the place where I work shut down early from a water main break that resulted in a boil water advisory for the area. I found out also that we would be closed today as well because of the expected inclement weather from Hurricane Helene. When we found out that we were closing early and not coming back until Monday, I had to stop what I was doing and make preparations for us being closed. All day I was working my way through my to-do list and mentally planning what I would do the next day. When I had to abandon those tasks, I didn’t have time to wrap them up neatly to put aside until Monday when I could get back to them. Everything was rushed before I left for the day. Didn’t even have time to straighten up the top of my desk. While I have been trying very hard to not think about work when I’m not at work, today I realized that I was doing well not thinking about it, but apparently, my subconscious was doing the thinking for me. That’s where the anxiety came from. Knowing deep down that things in my office were unfinished and not organized for picking back up on Monday morning. A lot of things left up-in-the-air that I don’t have control over. Can’t do anything about work until Monday, if for no other reason than my key card to get into the building doesn’t work on the weekend.
Anxiety isn’t always a bad thing, but I know I don’t like it because I have felt it more often with negative things happening or fear of negative things happening in the future. Feeling it now when there isn’t something that in anyway compares to what used to cause it is interesting to me. It makes me want to get rid of it as fast as I can because I know how miserable it made me mentally and physically this past year in particular. I still have a subscription to the Headspace app and I am determined to get in a meditation routine so that I’m not so over-reactive to the anxiety when it does creep up. I truly feel for the people who suffer with it in a way that is debilitating to their daily lives. While I do have a medication that I take twice a day specifically for anxiety, it doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s something that is ever present in my life, whether I am actively feeling it or not. I wish I didn’t have to take medication for it. I wish I didn’t have to have it pop up randomly and send me into a tailspin. I wish I didn’t have it at all. But I do, and that’s o.k.
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