anxiety – The Angry Librarian

anxiety, depression, information, let it go

Mistakes and fixing them

January 25, 2019 flippingpageslikemad

In the past couple weeks, here are a sampling of the ways I have messed up:

drove to the shopping plaza that has Famous Footwear and Hand and Stone, did an errand, then drove to the shopping plaza that has DSW and Massage Envy only to realize I needed to go to Famous Footwear, and that it wasn’t in that plaza
hung up with a customer 5 seconds before I clicked one more time, finding out that yes, contrary to what I thought and told her, Uber does actually offer a driving service to non-smartphone users, aka a regular taxi company
did not blog once per week as intended
went to the gym and only ran on a treadmill for 1.5 miles, left without doing any weights
ducked into Target to waste time and use the restroom, left without buying anything and felt successful, only to remember what I needed from Target on the way home
set my alarm for 7:02PM instead of 7:02AM, was 30 min late to work
(not in last couple weeks, but) bought a new car when my employment is on a temporary basis AKA not necessarily secure
got into bed, got back up and brought a bag of tortilla chips back to bed & ate them immediately prior to sleep
ignored red flags and continued to invest emotional energy in men/boys who are uninterested in or unworthy for a relationship
replied “adios!” when someone told me to have a good weekend (instead of the obvious socially accepted response “thanks, you too!”)
wore the wrong sweater/necklace/dress/boots combination and looked frumpy
ate eggs from the dining hall and didn’t notice that the sign said they contained milk
asked my BFF about the micro-details of when to text/how to interpret texts/what to say back so many times that she literally purchased me a magic-8 ball

These are the ones that stick out. That last one isn’t a true mistake, since obvs my BFF likes talking to and helping me, buuut it got excessive and probably annoying. The bad part was the overanalyzing/obsessing, BUT, bonus, I got a gift out of it!

So, that’s my brain. One of the joys of anxiety/depression is ruminating. Loops of thought that play over and over and over, generally focused on bad things that have happened or mistakes I have made. I’m getting better at accepting that I can’t control when bad things happen to me, buuuut I’m still moderately stuck on the letting-go-of-things-I-messed-up. The above are a hodgepodge of work, internal, health, and interpersonal. The running themes are things I have done that [I believe] will make people think less of me and times I disappoint myself (I suppose that is just me thinking less of me).

But what if I removed the “think” from thinking less of me?

Because, though some of the items on this list have caused me to lose sleep or increased my stress, none of them are crises. I can deal with them. (That thought in and of itself shows progress!) And progress is good. Slow but good. After all, I’m not going to end my lifelong trend of acting like every next guy will be The Guy all at once. (My–optimistic, if extremely naive–motto is “it could happen!”)

It’s the thinking-the expectations my mind builds based on very limited data-that hurts. I’m working on finding a way to fix mistakes in the real world, so they stop bouncing around my head. Walking around in and reacting to reality rather than staying trapped in my thought-fog. And letting mistakes go if there’s nothing I can do about it! And doing better (probably due to being more mindful) next time.

To be continued!

anxiety, be a better human, judgment, kindness, lists, meditation, writing

Activities formerly known as eye-rolled at

May 3, 2018May 3, 2018 flippingpageslikemad

Just can’t stay away from ending sentences/fragments with prepositions.. Sorry, not sorry!

Moving right on, I thought I would address Mental Health Awareness Month, aka May, our current month. I will be using comics from Sarah Scribbles’ new book Herding Cats in what is hopefully not problematic in terms of copyright, but instead inspirational to have you go buy the book or check it out from the library because all of her books are fantastic.

As with many people who experience depression/anxiety/other mental health issues, periods of my life are up and relatively worry-free, and periods are fraught with self-doubt, negative self talk.. aka times when I annoy myself, yet also antithetically isolate so I’m not seeing anyone other than myself, and many aspects of my life look lame, uninteresting, boring and shitty.

Right now, thoughts-wise, I’m pretty good! Springtime is warm and sunny and helpful to my mood. I am loving not drinking coffee (as much as I can despite missing the taste, but Larry David points out, the ritual of drinking tea from a mug in the morning is the same as drinking coffee from a mug in the morning) because I am far less jumpy/tense. There has been a sharp uptick in my weekly exercise.. in that I have started routinely exercising each week, sometimes even more than once. Lately I have been reading many good books, and have tons of summer family events and friends’ weddings/general fun to look forward to.

Seriously, go purchase/borrow this book. It looks like this:

As you can see from my pirated photos of her awesome work, she too suffers from periods of anxiety and depression, often (not pictured) due to current events and from social situations. I’m coming to her same conclusion, that making ‘stuff,’ in her case art and in my case writing, is a solid way to avoid or process the crap going on around me, or at least to clear my head/escape my thoughts for a little while.

Another way to do that is meditation. I have gotten a little lazy on that front, and often only use a meditation app to fall asleep rather than doing my standalone exercises. I also have found the perfect teacher/meditation class. It has been great. Yesterday, though, I learned that she will be moving the class from Saturday afternoon (yay weekend availability!) to Thursday evenings (nooo, my job is at night!). Under typical mental health circumstances, I would never have gone back. However, this is the longest yoga studio relationship I have ever had, and I’m flipping COMMITTED at this point. I even stopped lying to them to get that sweet, sweet student discount. Instead, throughout the summer at least, I intend to ask my boss if I can work different hours so that I can make it there in time, because it is that important in centering and rejuvenating me. Where once I disdained the soft, gentle yoga-teacher speak, now I see it as worthy of aspiration.

In addition to yogic calm, I once eye-rolled and avoided the following items HARD and have now come to love, advocate, or at bare minimum tolerate them:

Clogs (love, for their comfort and versatility, despite my BFF thinking they say “I’ve given up!”)
Tucked-in shirts (tolerate)
Meditation (love AND advocate)
Alternative medicine of any kind
Visible panty lines (Then, the SHAME! The SHAME! Now, tolerate)
Emoting of any kind –other than laughter– in public (the SHAME! The SHAME!!!)
Nonfiction books: during my young and naive school years, I didn’t realize that after you’re done with school, there are no homework assignments. My version of self-directed learning involves a lot of nonfiction.
Therapy: when my parents divorced, my mom insisted that I see a shrink. She undoubtedly read somewhere in her hippie newsletters that children going through these traumatic life events needed to talk. I resented the fact that she was throwing money ($125 per HOUR) down the drain, and who the hell was this “doctor” lady? I didn’t need to talk, and so I didn’t. I sat in her office and stared at everything on the walls and thought occupying thoughts until I was too bored to maintain my moody silent protest.

That last youthful judgment brings me to my next point. Even though I’m feeling good right now, I am making an appointment with a therapist. For real this time (though I have said I should probably go for proooobably four years). Because for the first time, I actually want to do the work necessary to keep myself operating NOT on a keep-to-myself-because-I-don’t-want-to-expose-my-lameness-to-my-friends-all-sad-sack-like kind of wavelength. It’s poopy digging into the dark recesses of past heartbreaks and traumas, but at least for me it’s looking pretty necessary to prevent future lows. “The work” here is an emotional extension of the zen principle of non-resistance. Feeling the feels & releasing them to drain their power. Lightening the load by talking–to friends who have been there, getting to know the kindness of new friends, or to the olde standbys of supportive family, or to a therapist–generally makes it better.

Emote-avoidance, begone! Let us celebrate mental health progress with clogs and St. John’s Wort!

anxiety, be a better human

Cranky Post

April 13, 2018April 13, 2018 flippingpageslikemad

I adore coffee. The smell, the taste, the way it jolts my brain into the day… Mainly that last one. My mom watches me drink my morning cup of coffee (with dairy-free vanilla creamer and one ice cube) and declares “it’s clear you drink it for the caffeine.” True. I chug it.

Last month, I stopped drinking coffee. Just because. I substitute tea instead, and it has made a difference. I do not feel jittery at any point. I feel calmer (which may concern some people, since I am often low-energy anyways) and I have noticed that I am less likely to lash out at others or disappointing situations.

When I got into my car after work to find that a student hit my car in the parking lot and then fled ‘the scene,’ I did not freak out. Instead, I was pleased that another two students saw the whole thing and tried (though unsuccessfully) to catch the perpetrator’s license plate number, leaving me a not successful but charming note. It wasn’t even a choice not to be angry. They wrote “the man ran away” driving a Toyota Corolla.. and the damage isn’t that bad.

This is not to say I am numb to events occurring around me, but instead that I feel less amped up and on edge. A (separate, more final) car problem during move out day that left me without a partner for five hours? Gasp! We stayed another night, into the following month. A few months ago, the thought of the apartment management discovering and getting mad at us would have driven me up a wall with anxiety. I slept soundly in my bonus last-night-in-the-apartment. (It helped that I knew they wouldn’t be conducting an inspection that day.) What else could I do? Though a strong(ish) and independent(ish) woman in mind, in body, I am incapable of moving a bed by myself.

Coffee, though my superpower, wasn’t awful to let go. With its exit, I got another step closer to the giving-fewer-f*cks (about the small stuff) and closer to letting the small stuff go.

Here is a brief list of times I wish I had had a zenlike mentality:

at a lunch meeting, when a (sick) colleague I just met ten minutes prior handed me a lemon wedge with his bare hands instead of handing me the plate of them like a civilized human being
- note: I decided to forego any and all future lunch meetings
on the phone with my mom, whose concern I snapped at even though she is probably right and I might be slightly depressed at the moment
- note: she loves me but I know I need to start exercising and cooking more for myself without her telling me
  - I had two salads this week, FYI.
  - And “played” racquetball (I don’t know that what I do can be considered actual sport)
every single time I shrink a line-dry article of clothing in the dryer
- note: practicing non-attachment so this is less of a negative occurrence
every single day I snooze my alarm approximately 7 times, resulting in an hour more of dozing that wastes my time and leaves me groggy
- note: practicing more discipline to get up on the first alarm, and positive self-talk so that I don’t start my day by saying “get up, you jackass.”
when my boss sent me two documents and asked me to copy and paste “it” into “the other one” and send “it” back
- note: I copied the wrong one somehow

Maybe/probably, I am sleeping too much. Maybe/probably, I’ve been eating too many cookies and chocolates. And I hope spring weather means more than allergies & I will get outside more for exercise (or indoors for racquetball 🙂 and social activities.

Maybe/probably the anxiety gave way to depression. Frankly, now that I have experienced plus or minus a year of anxiety, I would much rather be mildly depressed. At least depression lets you relax your muscles!

Probably/definitely, though, I’m sad about this breakup. And I think I am allowed to be. Sometimes, coffee or no coffee, people have bad days. Or bad weeks. Maybe months. Maybe more.

I’ll try to cap mine off here soon.

Does anyone want to do some yoga and/or cook? Or know a good massage therapist? Or maybe a regular therapist? I’ll be okay.. Just have to get used to coming home to this empty bed.

Onwards.

anxiety, giving, judgment, kindness, stuff

Mission: simplify.

February 12, 2018April 17, 2018 flippingpageslikemad

I consistently stare into my closet. For what I deem unhealthy amounts of time. Every day, if the door is open, I peer into it and try to acquire a new target for my not-new, but not-often-practiced skill of culling my personal possessions.

This will not sound remarkable to anyone who has lived through the four-month lease cycles of New York City, but in the 7.5 years since graduating college, I have lived in 3 different states and 8 apartments/houses. In March, I will move for the 5th time in 2 years. (Heads up, penpals.)

Moving is the absolute worst. (Melodramatically, of course.) It forces me to touch all the crap I have dragged around with me to all of these places. (I or other awesome humans who help me move the crap, that is.)

So perhaps it is a mere response to my rambling woman status, but: I need to get rid of clutter.

The symbolism isn’t lost on me, a person who suffers from anxiety. At my worst, every sentence that leaves my mouth, text or email I send, as well as statements said to/about/near me can rattle around my head for days/months/years. My mind at its worst is a pinball machine, with tiny thoughts hurling around at warp speed and maximum volume, carrying self-chastising/self-doubt/FOMO/self-analysis/self-judgment. (See a pattern?) A pinball machine where I cannot let ANY OF THE THOUGHTS go down the little chute, defending its exit.

Mind clutter is real, it is deafening and it is not healthy.

Depression is a filter, but anxiety is a magnifying mirror I hold up and see all my faults, failures and ways I don’t measure up, and I need to step away from the mirror.

So, I prune the closet. Normally, I prune the closet AND STILL feel anxious.

One of my biggest stressors is money. It would make sense, then, that since I began an almost-every-day meditation practice and committed to the decision to spend money on experiences rather than items, I have been less anxious. (And this is even BEFORE I read The Year of Less by Cait Flanders, motivational text about not spending money on non-essentials.)

Two things needed to happen: 1, I need to divest my non-essentials. 2, I need to stop stress-shopping, which is my entirely nonhelpful habit of buying clothing for the joy it will bring. Though the joy is real, it is temporary and does not mask or replace the anxiety about x, y, nor z.

Ultimately, what I need to address is a simple question. What do I actually need?

For the physical clutter: I have fewer books than any other librarian I know; I know how heavy they are to move, and I donate them. I either unsubscribe or immediately delete marketing emails. I donate clothing (using Marie Kondo as a suggestion, not a religious text), recycle papers I wrote in high school/college (and yet I still retain some, because I am a pack rat). If I can’t or don’t use it, I’m at the point where I am content with losing it. Someone else needs it more than I do.

For the mind clutter: it is cleansing getting rid of stuff, and worrying less about what to buy is freeing for both my head and my financials.

All this said, one of my 2018 resolutions was not to spend money on ‘stuff.’ January did not see any progress in that regard. February has seen a rock solid commitment thus far, though, and I feel great about paring down. I feel great about planning a trip to Italy for a friend’s wedding because I know it will be memorable and rejuvenating, delicious and beautiful, and it means quality time with people important to me.

Simplifying my life will hopefully turn this pinball machine brain into a gumball machine… Instead of all the mental noise, I’ll be able to focus on one thought-gumball at a time with mindfulness and calm and intention.

Get me out of my head/closet/apartment and into the world.
Librarian Moment/Suggested Reading:

Cait Flanders, The Year of Less
Alison Stewart, Junk: Digging Through America’s Love Affair with Stuff
Kondo, Marie, the life-changing magic of tidying up
Levine, Judith, Not Buying It

anxiety, books, career

This One’s for My Girls

January 14, 2018April 15, 2018 flippingpageslikemad

I had planned to write some furious paragraphs about Drumpf’s derogatory comments about brown countries, but I waited more than 24 hours and watched tons of personal stories (Anderson Cooper’s was particularly moving, as was Don Lemon’s) and reflections and jokes about how rude, racist and smugly rich he is. I’ve worked through my rage. He is an embarrassment to our country, and I am actually grateful that he is taking the GOP down in flames with him/drawing a line in the sand for elected officials to actually choose to be decent to and on behalf of their constituents. I have to believe that decency will win, in 2018 and in the long run.

But this political outrage/irritant is only one of many sources of anxiety. The outside world is nothing compared to the echo chamber of an anxiety-riddled brain. My friends and I constantly discuss the myriad ways that we question ourselves, our decisions and our progress in the adult world.

Last night, I went to dinner with three of my dearest friends, one of whom is moving out of state this week. She’s taking a risk, acknowledging that her part-time position won’t be enough to live on & knowing she will within the next few months need to find another part-time job, possibly a full-time job, as well as an apartment that is affordable and safe and not miserable for commuting in January. This is not the worst idea ever. She and her boyfriend will be living in the same city again. This is not the riskiest idea ever. She taught English in Japan for two years, venturing there without speaking more than a few sentences of Japanese. She is highly qualified, professional, thoughtful, organized, responsible and bilingual. (Yes, I know, show-don’t-tell, but I don’t want to violate her privacy.)

And yet, she is terrified at the weight of this decision.

As are all of my friends. About who they’re dating or the lack thereof, about how often they cry or don’t, about whether to buy a house, whether they bought the wrong one, about their rent, their income, their careers, their kids or lack thereof..

And yet. As with many other instances of my sweeping generalizations, upon further reflection, I know that is not true. I have many girlfriends (and more acquaintances, so maybe this also has something to do with how much more vulnerability you share with your closest friends) who are sure of themselves. They are not calm 100% of the time, but they are stable enough not to fly off the handles upon an unplanned event, a depressing news story. They are not entirely derailed or roadblocked by doubt every time they need to make an adult decision.

This is my goal. Closer to unflappable. Bold. Confident in my purpose. Kind to myself and less critical of others.

Here are some books that have empowered me to me move towards this:

About finances and how they generally work out if you take control of spending: You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero

About relationships and what to accept/expect/let go: What French Women Know by Debra Ollivier

About caring less about what other people think: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

About how to clear my head/raise future children: Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

About social anxiety and how I am definitely not the only one who suffers from it, and also just a pleasant reminder that comics are great: Adulthood is a Myth by Sarah Andersen

About how to be a person: The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters by Emily Esfahani Smith

Everyone should read this book. This is my favorite excerpt, talking about a study that asked people to answer the question “Who are you?” after either staring up from the base of a tree or at a nondescript building.

The world is huge, and awe-inspiring! (Just ask Neil DeGrasse Tyson.) Perspective is important, as is getting out of my head enough to realize my problems are often not as catastrophic as they appear between my ears. In fact, thinking that they are just might inhibit me from behaving well towards others, and letting fear drive me absolutely blocks me from growing or changing, taking any risks at all.

My friend will be fine. She and this move may even be great. She will carry her support network with her and find a community of coworkers and explore a new city. Like me, she has to quiet the peanut gallery of doubts and welcome opportunity. Read before bed instead of scrolling through articles on her phone. It’s not okay.. yet. But who says it won’t be soon?

books, reading

Tag: anxiety