Close That App

From Truce

“The sun will rise and we will try again”

– Twenty One Pilots

This week has been filled with some really good moments, and then some pretty horrible ones.

I’ll start with the bad. My anxiety was the highest it has possibly ever been one night last week. It got to the point where I was so convinced that my biggest fear was going to happen. I don’t know how to describe that kind of anxiety attack, other than the fact that it’s impossible to focus on anything else, not even your own breath. I’ll spare you the not so pretty details of the actual event that night, but I felt so vulnerable and weak; I wasn’t in control. It’s terrifying when your biggest fear runs wild through your mind. I’m no stranger to panic attacks, but this felt different. It felt as if there was a switch in my brain that shouldn’t have been flipped, but was.

On a slightly better note, I got the chance to go up north with Hannah and my parents. It’s so beautiful this time of year. The trees were a mix of gold and crimson, casting an orange light across everything. These few days that I’ve been so lucky to get time away, I turned off my notifications for snapchat, instagram, and twitter. It felt really good if I’m being honest. I think we can all notice something new if we detach and take a break from the inevitable negative media that is so constant nowadays.

In my constant pursuit of self-care and love, I have been attempting something that I never thought I would be interested in or able to do. I downloaded the app headspace, and for about a week have attempted to meditate every day. So far, I’ve been able to keep up a steady rhythm of taking five minutes out of my day to sit and let thoughts come and go in their own time, as if I’m closing an app on my phone; I have the power to let it leave. Countless therapists have told me to do this, and whenever I tried I never seemed to get it. Now, I feel like I finally decided to do it for myself, and therefore, have found some level of success in feeling more mindful, and at home as well as in tune with my body.

I have also been keeping a journal the past couple of days. I think that after my huge anxiety attack, I had a lot to say. A lot of thoughts cascaded onto the page in front of me as a result.

I have been listening to a podcast on Spotify called Coffee Talk by Kalyn Nicholson -a youtuber I have mentioned before, and am bound to mention again. While listening, I stumbled upon a very insightful piece of truth. The episode I’m referring to is called “Not Dealing With Problems & Hard Emotions”. One of the things she talks about is this concept of being a ‘bulldozer,’ meaning sometimes we push away certain realities, problems, or emotions by keeping ourselves busy in a way that eventually makes us feel numb to the weight of our lives. She uses the example of being consumed by work, illuminating the difference between working hard, and letting the work consume you. In my own life, I can easily see this happening. I feel like it’s incredibly easy to focus on one thing to obsess over instead of dealing with those emotions or problems that need to be dealt with. Being numb is nothing strange to me. In fact, it almost has two meanings for me. From my own experience with depression, it appears to have two faces, sadness and pain. The sadness can easily be described as feeling numb, where the pain feels like very inch of your body is aching to feel anything other than that pain, and that often leads to wanting that numbness again. Two examples Kalyn uses are focusing on work and food. I have experience with both of these on an unhealthy level. Similarly to the difference between working hard and being consumed by work is eating based on stress and boredom instead of when you’re hungry. Both of these are unhealthy ways that we can push away those realities, problems, and emotions that we don’t want to deal with. For me, it’s been so long since I’ve really taken a step back and looked at what I do to avoid these certain realities, and in turn, I’m finally able to see how unhealthy those coping mechanisms are. Learning to balance work with other things in life is a skill, just like eating in a healthy way.

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“Feel what you need to feel and then let it go. Do not let it consume you.”

-Dhiman