✦ lo-fi ghost ✦

I’d like to think I’m doing a lot better with my anxiety these days. I rarely wake up in the middle of the night in panic attack sweats to trippy nightmares anymore. As much as I’d like to think that it might be the culmination of moving to a better place and having a new job, I really think the biggest change was just accepting it as a part of who I am.

For anyone who might be going through a similar journey with an anxiety disorder, you know how up and down things can be. Your mood fluctuates constantly and you always feel like you have to keep a tight grip on your emotions. The smallest thing can set you off and can also make you feel better. It’s a never-ending mystery really. I’d like to think of anxiety as like a shadow. It’s not always there, but it’s there every single day at a certain time of day, for no rhyme or reason. You have to be ready for it and really, you just have to cope with it.

I’ve done this rodeo for over a decade now. Me and anxiety, we aren’t friends, but we’re like cellmates. We truce sometimes. We duke it out sometimes. We feel like we’re on the brink of death sometimes. That’s just how it goes. That’s life. I’ve had people ask me what is the best way to deal with an anxiety disorder. Medication? Therapy? Witchcraft? For me, I’ve tried it all. Yes, ALL of those. What’s worked best for me is to simply cope. No amount of medication or therapy or spells will make it go away friend. Learning to accept it makes it feel normal. It’s okay to have a mental breakdown. It’s okay that it makes you feel absolutely unhinged sometimes. Accept it as a part of you, but it isn’t YOU as a whole. It’s just a shadow.