{"id":9315,"date":"2019-09-07T17:27:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-07T22:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/msalishacarlson.com\/?p=9315"},"modified":"2020-11-06T15:45:57","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T21:45:57","slug":"understanding-and-recognizing-the-signs-of-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/msalishacarlson.com\/understanding-and-recognizing-the-signs-of-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding and Recognizing the Signs of Anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"
Admitting that you need help is hard. REALLY HARD. Even harder is confession of something that exposes your weaknesses and leaves you feeling vulnerable and uncertain. For me\u2026 that painful confession was admitting I needed help with my anxiety. I had all the signs of anxiety<\/a>. I just didn’t recognize them in myself.<\/p>\n Several years ago, a friend of mine confided in me that she was struggling with anxiety. She shared feelings of inadequacies, of how it was affecting her marriage and her children. We shared tears and stories.<\/p>\n Many of her feelings and situations paralleled the life I was living. She had come to the right person for support. Oh, I was going to be a great encourager, confidante, and prayer partner.<\/p>\n Some of her experiences and feelings were a little too relatable though. And finally, one day she said to me, \u201cMaybe you should talk to someone too.\u201d<\/p>\n Just to clarify, the \u201csomeone\u201d my friend was referring to was a psychologist.<\/p>\n Ha! I don\u2019t have anxiety. I don\u2019t need help! I can\u2019t believe she would think that. I\u2019m fine.<\/em><\/p>\n I really thought I was fine. I was just overly emotional, overly sensitive, moody, and angry. And I had inherited one hell of an attitude from my dad\u2019s side of the family\u2026 it was just the family\u2019s \u201cpersonality\u201d. It was how we were.<\/p>\n No, my behavioral pattern and emotional struggles were not the same as hers. I. DID. NOT. have anxiety. And I definitely didn\u2019t need help.<\/p>\n Or did I?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her comment echoed over and over in my mind. It haunted my thoughts after every emotional outburst. It made my heart ache with the painstaking realization that she was not wrong.<\/p>\n How can you say to your brother, \u2018Let me take the speck out of your eye,\u2019 when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?\u00a0Matt 7:4<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It took me two years of mulling over the idea that I \u2018may\u2019 have anxiety, two friends\u2019 sharing their stories of anxiety with me, and one of my children displaying the same emotional struggles before I could finally accept the fact I needed help.<\/p>\n If I didn\u2019t have anxiety before, I sure did now after all this contemplation.\u00a0In retrospect, it was silly of me to have waited to have the hard talk. It was silly of me not addressing a long standing issue that I was aware of sooner. I wasted 2 years that I could have been rebuilding a mentally healthier, happier me.<\/p>\n Friends, I don\u2019t want to you to make the same mistake. Let\u2019s face it, we\u2019ve all experienced anxiety to some degree\u2026 sweaty pits and pounding heart when making a presentation, nervousness approaching the boss in hopes of a promotion or raise.<\/p>\n A certain amount of anxiety is healthy and natural. But if you\u2019re questioning the health status of your anxious feelings, ask yourself these questions:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Do you know how many of those answers were a YES for me? MANY.<\/strong><\/p>\n I was angry and irritated an incredibly large portion of my time. To the point those around me walked on eggshells so as not to provoke and enrage my internal beast.<\/p>\n The fear of danger that my parents instilled and overly cautioned me about as a child raged to life with my own children. Even despite the illogicality of those fears.<\/p>\n I had irrational visions of my oldest child spilling a pot of boiling water on his face and being burnt to an extreme degree. And in fear of this, I would yell at my boys to stay completely clear of the stove if there was something cooking.<\/p>\n My heart raced and my blood felt hot running through my veins when a friend asked for me to volunteer in children\u2019s church. And I would avoid her because of it. She didn\u2019t understand that the chaos with kids triggered my anxiety to the point that although I would hold it together there, I would come home and lose my crap with my own kids and husband.<\/p>\n I often thought that my kids and husband would be happier without me, without someone nagging and nitpicking and criticizing them.<\/p>\n Friends, do you see the warning signs?\u00a0These were just a few of them. But there I was, thinking I didn\u2019t have anxiety.\u00a0I\u2019m happy to say that admitting I needed help with these emotions was the best thing I ever did.\u00a0For the first time in my life, I gained control of myself instead of trying to control everything around me to sooth my overwhelmed emotional state. Acknowledging my weaknesses has given me strength. It has given me understanding and a whole new perspective<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019m far from perfect. There are still days when a big \u201cWarning: Stay Away from this One\u201d sign should be plastered to my forehead. But overall, life is really darn good. And I wouldn\u2019t trade that hard, heart-wrenching \u201cI think I may have anxiety\u201d talk with my doctor for anything.<\/p>\n If you think this may be you, please ask for help. Anxiety disorders are manageable and curable with the right treatment and therapy. You are not stuck in this state.<\/p>\n\n
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