As with depression, anxiety disorder can manifest itself in many different ways depending on the person and the situation.

If you have anxiety, you could feel it constantly where your thoughts are consumed by it, or you could feel it situationally, where certain events trigger it. Either way, this illness is not an easy one to cope with and definitely is no fun!

I remember back to the first time I had a major panic anxiety attack. I am pretty sure I was 11 years old and my mom was away on a trip for a few days. My aunt was taking care of us during the day and my dad was home at night. When my mom left to go to the airport, I immediately broke into complete panic mode. I was deathly scared that the plane my mom was flying in was going to crash and my mom was going to die!!! I just knew it-  I was 100% positive this was going to happen. 

 I loved my mom very much and I did not want to live my life without her. My cousin was there with me that day and I remember telling her exactly how I felt. As I tried to speak through my sobs and tears, she listened carefully to me, and then she said something that gave me more comfort than anything else I needed to hear. 

She said something to this affect, “Sara, your mom is only going to be gone for 3 days and then she will be safely home, her plane is NOT going to crash and she is going to be fine.” Those words were exactly what I needed to hear because she said them with so much certainty that my 11 year old self automatically held on to them and wanted so badly to believe them.

She was right. At the end of the 3 days, my mom was home again safe and sound. The fact is that my cousin obviously couldn’t tell what the future would hold, but she could tell that I needed to hear that in my time of complete irrational thoughts. I needed to hear that she believed it would all be just fine.

Anxiety can be crippling even paralyzing.

It seems as though no matter what the logical explanation is, your mind tells you only the irrational side of the story. Some anxiety is normal, all of us have it. For example, the anxiety we feel when we are about to take a test at school. If we have thoughts like,  “I need to study so I will do well on the test,” come to mind, this is a good thing. That thought can motivate us and help us prepare and get ready to succeed on the test. It is when the anxiety we feel is extreme or causes us to think and do very irrational things. It makes the future seem like dooms day all the time. It is the constant worry that things will always end in destruction and have a negative outcome. This anxiety hurts us and leaves us feeling unmotivated for good and usually only motivated out of fear.

As the years have passed and I have had many many more episodes just like that one talked about above, I have come to realize that I have way more control over my anxiety than I knew or thought could even be possible. It has taken years and years and constant mental effort to overcome it, but as I apply and practice what I have learned, it gets easier and easier to turn it off.

Roller Coaster

I was talking to my niece a few weeks ago and asking her how her trip to a local amusement park was. She told me it was so fun but that she didn’t go on any of the big roller coasters. I asked her why she hadn’t, she said it was way too scary and she was extremely scared that the roller coaster would break down and she would ultimately get hurt or even die as a result. I then asked her a few questions such as, “have you ever seen or heard about anyone dying on a roller coaster?”, “Do you know anyone who has been hurt by riding on a rollercoaster?” To both of these questions she embarrassingly said no.

I reassured her that the way she was feeling was not her fault, that she was having anxiety over a future event that she had no control over. I then asked her more questions, “What other feelings were you feeling when you had the opportunity to ride the roller coasters?” “Were you feeling panic, like you wanted to escape, and feelings of impending doom?” she said yes she definitely was feeling all of that. She said she feels like this a lot. I then told her that I too had experienced those exact same emotions as I had been to amusement parks with large roller coasters. Immediately she didn’t feel like she was abnormal or weird anymore.

 I talked to her about how the feelings she had were not feelings that came from God. Heavenly Father will never put feelings like that into our hearts when we have done nothing wrong. We talked about how satan is real and how he wants us to feel completely hopeless and out of control so that he can take control of our thoughts and make us feel awful all of the time. That being said, I told her that Satan didn’t necessarily make her have anxiety, that it can be a mental illness we have to deal with, but that he can use that illness as a way to creep into our lives in other ways.

What can I do to trick myself out of anxiety? 

It isn’t always possible to trick yourself out of anxiety, but sometimes with lots of practice and effort we can alleviate some, if not all of its symptoms.

1. the first thing we can do is as soon as we have that initial anxious thought, we automatically SHOVE IT OUT! We don’t let it stay. We automatically know the way it makes us feel is bad, so we shun it, we do not let it rent a room or space in our brain. 

We do this by saying to ourselves or out loud,”NOPE THIS ISN’T TRUE, THIS ISN’T TRUE.” A friend of mine taught me a phrase that I use all the time when thoughts of anxiousness start to enter,

 “LOVE DID NOT CREATE THIS, THEREFORE IT IS NOT REAL.” 

I love this saying because it is more than true. If the feelings of anxiety you are having are making you feel bad, majorly discouraged, or panicky, these feelings did not come from God. He does things out of love, he will speak to you in ways of peace, ways that will bring you hope and comfort. Satan or the Adversary will only do the opposite. So go ahead and try it next time you are struggling.

I have countless tricks up my sleeve that continue to keep my anxiety at bay.

2. Another one is automatically physically changing the place that I am in and the activity I am doing. It is a trick of distraction.  When your brain focuses on the anxiety you are feeling, and you feed it with more irrational thoughts, it will continue to travel down that old neuropathway.

 When we start feeling this come on, if we move and literally distract ourselves, our brain immediately has to focus on the new task at hand.

 For example, let’s say I am about to go somewhere in my car, and I start feeling overwhelming feelings of fear that I will crash, worried that my kids will be crazy during the car ride, and I am really anxious that I am going to have to talk to strangers at the party we are going to. As soon as those thoughts flood my mind, I immediately disregard them and I call my sister on the telephone. 

Right away, my mind had to shift to the new task at hand, my focus was taken off of the horrible impending doom thoughts and it was distracted by me saying hi to my sister and getting fully enveloped with what she was up to and how she was doing. 

This trick can work miracles. I love this one. 

Other ideas of distractions could be quick things like 

Do 10 jumping jacks, 

Run around your house,

Turn on some upbeat music. 

You get the point.

If you struggle with anxiety and ???

Here is an amazingly insightful article on understanding anxiety

If you have realized you have little worries creeping up on you that seem to spiral into irrational dooming thoughts, or just an overwhelming sense of no control over your life or current situation, you may have anxiety. And if you do suffer with it, try to get help coping with it as soon as possible. 

The sooner you get help the sooner you feel more in control over your thoughts and over your thought process. 

If you currently struggle with anxiety what are some coping mechanisms you use that have helped?