If I’m not working, I’m not going to make it up the career ladder. If I’m not playing with my son, I’m not nurturing him enough as a parent. If I’m not cleaning, the roof will cave in.
High functioning anxiety does have its benefits. I spend my weekdays marketing for B2B companies, weekends with the most amazing toddler ever, volunteer regularly for important LGBTQIA+ causes, and I clean every room in my house every week. But no matter what, it will never be good enough.
I always feel impending doom is going to destroy everything I’ve tirelessly built for myself and my family. One email notification can stop my breath, wondering if I’m about to be fired or forgot to pay a bill. While I can function well in society, there’s always one random task that will give me so much anxiety I won’t be able to complete. I’ve dropped credit scores because I was too afraid to call to pay a bill, I’ve held off on completing small work projects because I was too afraid to receive criticism, and I’ve missed out on social events because I was too afraid to respond to a text.
So, what steps can one take to relieve anxiety? Insert the dunno emoji. Kidding! Well, only a little. One thing that my therapist taught me that has helped me a whole bunch is to write down the action that’s causing me anxiety, list the worst-case scenarios, and write out logically why each scenario wouldn’t happen. For instance, I always feel anxiety over sending in an expense report for work, thinking that I’ll be accused of spending too much. That doesn’t make sense at all, though, because my corporate card happens to be associated with a myriad of monthly fees. By breaking this down logically, I’m able to submit my report on time without an apologetic tone.
A lot of this high-functioning anxiety thing is a trait of the millennial generation, who graduated high school during a terrorist attack and entered the workforce during a recession. That said, it’s something we need to be open about. Especially for marginalized communities, we need to ensure that anxiety is a disorder we take seriously and openly discuss so that people can move forward with this disorder and still thrive personally and professionally.
I’m certainly no expert in how to relieve anxiety and would love to hear thoughts from the readers as we explore this journey together. But the first step is open dialogue, right? So, welcome to my life, and I hope you enjoy running through my extreme to-do lists with me!
To chat with other folks with anxiety, join the Brains and Spoons Facebook group.
High-functioning hot mess here for the girls, gays, and theys. Writes about anxiety issues, parenting, office culture, and has an occasional rant.
So many milennials struggle with this and the pandemic certainly isn’t helping. Exercise is always helpful for me!
This post is so relatable! I put off so many things because of fear over the other person’s reaction. I had the same advice from my therapist – to write it all down and follow through with each worst-case scenario. When I saw how silly and unlikely some of them were, I was able to laugh at my self and get the “scary thing” done. Great post!
This post is very true and indeed helpful. Writing down your feelings and thoughts is a great help and, in truth, helps improve mental health.
Such a great post, and I love the infographic as well! Very useful.
Great post! More people should read this
I was writing stuff down for awhile but then I stop. I need to write again. My anxiety is big right now.
Great informative post! I will definitely start using these tips for my anxiety.
Very informative article and good tips! Thank you for sharing!
I struggle with this as well. I’m also a blogger. I always feel like “life” is just more draining to me than other people. I definitely have been a high functioning anxious mom, employee, business owner, wife. I think I used to just power through it until my mid-30s and then it started to effect my health – stress, thyroid, memory, depression. Now it’s a new adventure for me – menopause! I’ve always blamed it on hormones, but I have an ADD mom, brothers and sister and I have always suspected I have some sort of ADD as well.