Self Control And Anxiety

I have a feeling that we all have issues with self-control, I know I do. It causes a lot of issues for me. I find it very difficult to have self-control when my anxiety is at a 7. I’ll do anything to feel better to get the anxiety to stop, so self-control really goes out the window. I’ll eat or I’ll cry or I’ll binge watch youtube. There are things that I need to be doing for self care that involve self-control. Also, my routine. We all know the push and pull I have with my routine. One day I’ll have it down and I’ll feel good for a little while. Another day I’ll just throw caution to the window and just not do any part of a routine. It fully is a struggle. So, my anxiety and my self-control go hand in hand.

I’m not sure if anyone else feels this way. When I’m less anxious my self-control is pretty solid. I don’t overeat because I don’t eat much to begin with, but I still eat more than usual. I have digestive issues so eating more than what the doctor said is not good. I know my self-control has gone out the window when I stop listening to my doctors. When I let go of my coping skills or just ignore them and not use them. I can’t let my anxiety control me though. I can’t let my self-control go out the window just because I’m anxious. I’m more anxious these days. I’m not sure if I wrote this but my psychiatrist told me that since most of my anxiety is caused by grief the most I can do is use my coping skills, take anti-anxiety meds if I need them and give myself time. To me, taking time gets boring after awhile, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still need it. So, giving myself time is part of self-control, I need to control myself that I’m not doing too much because I’m bored, because time is not something you can control. I don’t know how much time I’m going to need, but I’m going to need self-control to keep myself in check.

I also need to stop binge watching YouTube because it doesn’t help anything. I need to stop sometimes and listen to a podcast or something. My boyfriend is also here to keep my in check, but he shouldn’t have to do that. I should be able to do that. Those times he has to keep me in check and bring me back to reality have become lessened over the past month or so. To me that seems like progress. That I have enough self-control to take into account what he says and take it into account and put it into effect.

Self-control comes in many forms. It could be me having the self-control to let my anxiety be and relax even though I’m bored. It could be trying to keep on my routine. It’s really in everything I do.

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Trying is Enough

I’m sorry about the unexpected hiatus. I’ve been mourning pretty hard the past week or so. I’m writing this at 6:20 in the morning. For some reason i felt like writing so I wanted to take advantage of it.

What’s been happening is that I’ve been consumed with anxiety. Like when I wake up, on a scale of 1-10, my anxiety is usually about a 7. It doesn’t really let up during the day either. So, basically to combat the anxiety I have to try and revamp my morning routine. Which I don’t want to do, but I need to. My mental health is the most important thing. If that means I need to change a few things then by all means I will. I’m cutting back from working out 6 days to 4 or 5. I’m just kind of changing random things to see if it’ll make things better. I’m not really sure what else to do. Today, i decided to have a snack when I woke up, with my water. We’ll see.

Another thing I’m doing is trying to change my mindset. I try to think, okay I feel bad, what do I need to do feel better? It’s more of an active way of approaching my anxiety rather than passive. Right now the answer is usually anti-anxiety medication and time. I’m so consumed with sadness that my body doesn’t know what to do and my anxiety kicks in. The only thing that heals a loss though is time. So, I try and find a distraction and relax.

Another way I’m trying to do is complain less. I’m constantly complaining about how bad I feel, like every hour. How is that being productive? If I just lay around and just keep thinking that I don’t feel well, I’ll get lost in my own head. That is not helpful at all and it’s very annoying. I’m not very good a looking at the big picture when I don’t feel well. Which is also not helpful. Since I’ve been trying to change my mindset things are kind of getting better. I feel better this morning so far, I mean, I’ve only been awake for 38 minutes, but usually by this point my anxiety would be a 7 and I’d be curled up on the couch under a blanket trying to control my breathing.

I’m going to make a to-do list today with like two things. I don’t want to overwhelm myself because that will trigger my anxiety. Let’s be real though, almost anything can trigger my anxiety. It’s more about how I handle it now. It’s about how much effort I put in even though I don’t feel well. It’s about trying and that has to be enough.