It’s always hard to experience the low points again. To return to incessantly checking your phone and shaking your legs, to question everyone’s motives and see yourself as the villain in everything.
Accepting and handling anxiety is a really intense process, it’s difficult and tiresome. It takes time to find what works for you and it can be frustrating to try out coping mechanisms that have worked for others but do very little of you. Once you find something that works for you and things become brighter you almost instantly forget the low moments. You go for long periods of time without panic attacks, you focus less on people instantly replying to your messages and you start to be present in your day to day life. Things are brighter and clearer and there’s a pathway out of the darkness, a pathway that you could not see before.
It took me a long time to find my pathway, to figure out what works for me. I tried multiple counsellors, I convinced myself daily walks would help me, I threw myself into work in the hopes of taking my mind elsewhere. I slowly learned that, for me, it was about being in a place where I was willing and ready to accept help. I was seeing new counsellors when I had no intention of working with them to help myself, I was binge drinking to try and forget how dark my world was.
It wasn’t until I was truly ready to meet a counsellor and be honest about how low I was that I could actually see a way out of it. For the last few months things have been relatively bright and clear, finding a counsellor I connected with and not holding myself to insanely high standards helped me feel more comfortable with who I am and where I am in my life.
Then the little bouts of darkness made their return. Small things like checking my phone to make sure my friends were talking to me and convincing myself I had annoyed or upset people. Zoning out of conversations I was having with people while incessantly shaking my two legs. Spending days off work lying wide awake in bed until most of the day was gone and I was wracked with guilt for wasting it. It felt different this time, it felt like it was all my fault.
Once things become brighter you start to convince yourself that the dark periods have gone, they’ll never return.
I’ve been to multiple mental health talks where inspiring people like Brent Pope and Conor Cusack have firmly reiterated that bad days will always exist but as always I thought that won’t happen me. Once I figure out how to conquer this anxiety, I’ll be able to completely eradicate it from my life and be happy again.
It’s difficult to be reminded that healing is an ongoing process. You can’t just give up on your coping mechanisms, you can’t just abandon the process that pulled you out of the darkness. I’ll never fully get rid of my anxiety, I’ll always have to deal with dark moments. I’ve found it insanely tough to accept that I’ll still have the odd panic attack and every now and then I’ll have a strong urge to make all my friends reassure me of their friendship.
It’s terrifying to think happiness isn’t for you. It’s terrifying to think you can’t hold on to something everyone else appears to have.
But that’s just it, everyone else appears to have it. Happiness is probably the most subjective thing on this planet. It’s something you achieve for yourself, by yourself.
Happiness will never be found on your Instagram or Snapchat feed, it’ll never be achieved by putting that essay off for another night and as I’ve realised over the last little while I won’t find it holed up in my bedroom with my phone on airplane mode. Or at the end of a pint glass.
Low moments will always be something I battle with but brighter days have made me much more capable of handling them.
Help information
If you need help please talk to friends, family, a GP, therapist or one of the free confidential helpline services. For a full list of national mental health services see yourmentalhealth.ie.
- Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
- Pieta House National Suicide Helpline 1800 247 247 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement) or text HELP to 51444 (standard message rates apply)
- Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
If living in Ireland you can find accredited therapists in your area here:
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