Are you ever really recovered from a mental health problem like anxiety?
I’d be interested to hear what everyone else thinks about recovery from anxiety? Once upon a time, I would have liked to think it was. I was quite young when I first seriously started to acknowledge that my brain wasn’t working like it should. My only frame of reference for illness was all the other ailments I’d had in my life – like swine flu (no, really) or a kidney infection. Horrible, but ultimately surmountable.
After all, my anxiety did ‘go away’, at various point. And if we’re judging ‘recovery’ from the baseline of ‘being suicidal’, then you could argue I’ve been recovered for well over three years.
Except, except. I’ve never been that bad again, granted – but anxiety has always found ways to creep back in. Which seems pretty bloody unfair – surely after all the counselling, and the sertraline, and the soul-searching/life-changing, I could just enjoy being better?
Sadly not. While I don’t love the ‘mental illness is like a broken leg’ analogy, I have realised that for me, anxiety is a bit like asthma; I have an active part to play in managing it, and probably will do for the rest of my life. My asthma got a hell of a lot better once I quit smoking (shock). It got worse again when I moved into a mouldy damp basement flat in North London. It got better when I got fit(ish).
My actions impact my health. It’s not fair that I have dodgy lungs, but bemoaning that fact won’t change the truth.
It follows logically, then, that anxiety might not be something I can recover from entirely – but it is something I can manage. I’m starting to think there’s a sort of happiness to be found in accepting this. Because accepting it means accepting a lifelong management approach.
And when I manage my health effectively, I can wake up and spring out of bed in the morning, going about my life with nary a worried thought in my head.
Managing anxiety: my 5 must-dos
- Get outside regularly, even if it’s cold.
- Limit my alcohol intake, even though I love booze.
- Sleep enough, even when people laugh at me for being a Granny.
- Exercise enough, even though I hate it, and would rather be on the sofa watching Mad Men.
- Listen to Headspace every night – I’m not going to call in meditating because I usually fall asleep four minutes in, but I’ve trained my mind to associate it with relaxing, and it seems to work.
It’s taken me a surprisingly long time to work out what this list should look like. And then I wasted more time ignoring it, because I love drinking, and late nights doing wild things with friends, and not exercising. But I hate being anxious more, and if this active management is what it takes to keep it at bay, I guess I better suck it up. Is it fair? No. But you can’t change that, so there’s not a lot of point in worrying about it any more.
Because for me, recovery isn’t an endpoint. It’s getting up every day, facing your demons, taking care of yourself, and remembering that you deserve to be happy.
Keeping anxiety at bay: a 4 step mini-guide
- Over the course of a week, spend time noting down what makes you anxious. Even if you suffer from a general sense of dread, there’s usually triggers – whether that’s alcohol, lack of sleep, a social interaction, or something else. (PS., if you can, share this process with someone: staring down the barrel of what makes you feel bad can be quite triggering, but I do think it’s a necessary part of changing your life for the better.)
- Pick the one that seems most manageable to deal with and write down how it makes you feel and why it’s a part of your life.
- If it’s something you can stop doing, like drinking, try cutting it for two weeks and see if you feel an improvement. My advice is to only cut one thing at a time – don’t give up smoking, drinking and sugar in the same week; it’s a recipe for rebounding. (Also, don’t give up sugar: pudding is great).
- If it’s something you can confront, like a social interaction, get it out of the way as quickly as possible. Rip the plaster off! 90% of anxiety for me is thinking about the thing – the thing itself is rarely that bad.
What do you think – is recovery an endpoint or an ongoing process? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and let me know if you have any good tips for keeping anxiety at bay!
READ MORE FROM NICER THOUGHTS
- Two fingers up to the voice of anxiety
- Keep on movin’: exercise for anxiety
- Gifts of joy: positive thinking and mental health
“It’s as if I think mental illness is something I might grow out of, like puppy fat or having an imaginary friend. I want to shake my thirty-year-old self by the shoulders and say, ‘No, Bryony! OCD is not an imaginary friend. It is a very real enemy, and very real enemies do not just disappear if you ignore them, you blithering IDIOT!”
As I’ve said on many occasions: I am a lazy swine and hate exercising, but it’s fundamental to my sanity, so 
Sometimes, you just need to not think, so a mindlessly fun game on your phone can be a lifesaver. Two Dots is your standard addictive formulaic Bejewelled format, but with cooler graphics, a nicer soundtrack, and some indie design credentials that can’t really be argued with.
Get immersed in art
Get ‘appy
This was probably the sensible choice but it does mean it’s now been the better part of eight years since I really sat down to draw, craft or create anything more than a drunken fancy dress effort. (Although as you can see, my drunken fancy dress efforts were very good.) This makes me sad, because I really loved it, once upon a time. And it’s also a shame because art for anxiety can have really impressive results.
And there are plenty of other great options out there, regardless of what your go-to beverage is. I had the pleasure of trying