Anxious Behavioral Trends

I’ve been a little MIA lately, both in the blog and in person. I feel like my mind has been racing, and when my I’m having these internal conversations in my head, there’s not much time for me to have real, external conversations with anyone else.

The past few weeks, particularly the last two, my anxiety had been roaring as we prepared for Auggie’s late 18 month wellness visit. Something about doctors has always unnerved me, but now, having to take my son to the doctor about knocks me off my hinges. Especially when we’re anticipating an appointment where vaccines will be mentioned. (Check out how that went here.)

I’ve also had a lot to do in my actual job, as I’m being tasked with taking on a new solution. I feel like most people don’t realize I do have an actual full time, if not more than full time, career. The job just allows me to work from home with Auggie a good portion of the time, which I’m eternally grateful for. However, what most people don’t understand is that working from home with Auggie really means is staying up until midnight trying to reply to the day’s billion emails, which seemed to have multiplied here recently.

So how to I cope when my anxiety starts peaking?

I’ve noticed an anxious behavioral trend over the years and it goes something like this..

1. Withdraw

   As soon as an anxious thought hits, I have a tendency to want time to digest what is happening and process the repercussions of whatever it is that triggered my anxiety. If I could, I would just stop time and have my internal mind-conversations with all the what-if, if-then, then-this scenarios that play out in my head, but I can’t, so I normally retreat, or try to. I used to retreat to my bed, but since becoming a mom, a bed isn’t much of a retreat anymore. Now, I try for places like the bathroom.

2. Obsess

   Once in my retreating location, I pull out my friend, Google. Google helps me to work through all of the what-if, if-then, than-this scenarios I thought up while in my withdrawn phase. Google also has a tendency to create more scenarios, however. The additional scenarios cause a spiraling of obsession, until little hands come knocking on the bathroom door. Or big hands, if my husband needs something.

3. Irritable

   The disturbance that takes me out of my obsession phase typically results in irritability. Irritability because I can’t find all the answers, I realize I’ll never have all the answers, and I don’t have enough time to prepare myself for every possible circumstance. This leads me feeling ill-prepared for the weird rash or post nasal drip that might result from cumin up the nose of your toddler.

I apologize to you, but mostly to myself, for spiraling. I had been doing really well using this a safe space to work through my fears and anxieties, but anxiety tends to relapse. I’m all too aware that regardless how far along I get in my journey with anxiety, there will be bad days, or weeks in this case. What’s important is that we pick ourselves back out of them.

Do you also have a anxious behavioral trend that you’ve identified? Is it similar to mine? How do you catch it early and mediate out of it?