Inspired by the stories of Geek Mental Help week I decided to share my own experiences with mental health, in particular anxiety. Anxiety, for those who haven’t experienced it is frustrating, exhausting and it sucks all the fun out of life. What I’m essentially getting at is anxiety is Scrappy Doo. You want to have fun with the whole Mystery Machine Gang being meddling kids, you remember having great success doing that kind of stuff before, but now you have an asshole whiny voice joining along. The voice reels of pointless exposition that you really couldn’t care for, says stupid things, annoys you down to your core, but try as you may, you just can’t shake it. Finally you think you leave it behind before all of a sudden, PUPPY POWER comes rolling in ruining your train of thought sometimes throwing off your whole day. Goddamn I hate Scrappy Doo.
Anyway, what I primarily struggle with is social situations, if you type in ‘social anxiety’ into Google the handy definition at the top of the page gives a pretty solid definition: Social anxiety is the fear of social situations that involve interaction with other people. You could say social anxiety is the fear and anxiety of being negatively judged and evaluated by other people. It is a pervasive disorder and causes anxiety and fear in most or all areas of a person's life.*
Now I may not be the most social person at the best of times but there have been times where my anxiety has flared up to a point I’ve struggled. That’s when the asshole inner monologue we all have stops being an irritant and morphs into a tyrant. Instead of being able to relax and enjoy myself I become hyper alert, aware of everything going on around me. Before I speak to people I often have played over the conversations I envision in my head over and over again, to the point where I do speak I often say the wrong thing. Nothing is worse than having a massive argument with someone in your head, becoming frustrated and then treating them poorly when the person you’re arguing with hasn’t even said a word.
My anxiety peaked a few years ago, circumstances at work changed, and when what a large part of your identity is suddenly changed without your input you lose agency. I became unhappy. Not that this is the core of my anxiety, but it was a catalyst to feeling deeply uneasy. All of a sudden a place I had once considered safe, felt poisonous and unwelcoming. Hushed conversations and silence when walking into a room plunges you into darkness, even if isn’t meant to. Continually attempting to understand what a group of people are thinking, believing conspiracies the darkest recesses of your brain spits out, no matter how ludicrous is exhausting and does not make for a happy person.
I found the anxiety spreading to other parts of my life, planning ahead of time to get out of social engagements knowing that by the time to go out would come around I wouldn’t want to go. I felt an overwhelming sense of dread about going to social events. I’ve always been somewhat reserved in social situations but during this period it was taken to a new level. When I went out I’d normally have a good time, so why didn’t I want to go? A fear of being found out. Found out from what exactly I don’t know. What they would do if there was something to be found out, also draws a blank. Also, who the hell is judging me? Myself, and I am a harsh damn critic.
When this became an issue that impacted me physically including headaches, migraines and feeling depressed I sought mindfulness. This helped, but it didn’t provide visible results for some time.
Speaking with people about this has proven interesting with differing results, my wife knows how my mind works and can sometimes be the force I need to motivate myself to go out and enjoy myself. Although sometimes I’m pretty sure I would’ve had a better time with the PS4 and the cats sleeping on me. Some of my friends have actually confided in me that they often feel similar themselves, seeking help through both counselling and prescription drugs.
Others have just looked at me, raised an eyebrow and questioned it. “Really?” “Yes, really.” “But you seem fine when we’re out.” “Sometimes I am, just sometimes I’m stressing about it.” “We all stress sometimes, I mean what’s the worst that can happen?” Well I’ll tell you, death. Death is the worst thing that can happen, you could drug me, roll me up in that fancy rug you bought from Costco and then drop me from the 14th floor balcony, that’s what could happen if we’re playing that game.** “Yeah, I guess.”
So dear reader, how did I claw myself out of this? Well, this is why my story may prove positive for Geek Mental Help Week. I planned out what I wanted to achieve with a backlog and applied Agile to my life to take more control. Dividing my life into themes with epics, stories and tasks I decided that although I may not be able to control my anxiety directly I could control my environment which would go some way as to calming it down.
Using two week sprints I would plot out what I wanted to achieve, what was important to me in the upcoming two weeks, be it professional development, learning to relax (still a work in progress), working on my health and a myriad of other tasks. Each sprint was different, but they all yielded results. As I started to make progress and have a focus my anxiety naturally calmed down.
In addition to all this I came across the technique of just saying what was stressing me out. Giving air to that terrible voice and the worries it would espouse. Then, upon hearing the Machiavellian yet truly stupid things it was making me think, I would calm down. Hearing the stupidity aloud allows you to then confront it directly, review it and remove it. This partnered with mindfulness techniques and the sprints have truly helped me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still not a social butterfly, choosing to attend social meetups but mainly keeping to myself or my group. I despise those ‘about me’ things on websites and will often prefer to communicate via text as opposed to speech (strangely enough though, this doesn’t impact my ability as a user researcher, when speaking to users the words flow like second nature, weird). However I do feel that I have more control and I’m generally happier.
Anxiety and imposter syndrome are horrible, destructive things and I don’t think I’ll ever truly be shot of either. However, I do feel they won’t completely take over my life, but if things get worse, I thankfully have a strong network of people who are more than ready to help, alongside resources I’ve found and will happily share upon request.
Fuck Scrappy Doo.
**An actual thought train I had once