If you’ve followed my blog, you may have noticed that I spoke about dealing with anxiety. You may have also noticed that I did not dedicate a post on it or go into very specific details about what I was going through.

So today, I’m here to talk about Generalized Anxiety Disorder. And this may be the most important, yet anxiety-inducing blog post I will write for myself!

The other day, I talked to my brother about how my anxiety still exists but is gradually getting better day by day. He told me that I should cover the topic on my blog as people may benefit from it, but I told him that I am actually embarrassed about discussing this openly. I feared judgment. I didn’t want people to look at me and think something was wrong with me.

However, just going through anxiety and my journey, listening to an anxiety podcast, learning from different events and perspectives, and actually taking an End the Anxiety program has led me to realize that I need to make a lot of changes in my life. One of these include battling my fears head on so that I can rewire my brain to realize things that seem scary aren’t so scary after all.

So here I am, talking about GAD, and I hope it ends up being helpful for anyone going through the same thing.

My Generalized Anxiety Disorder – How I’m Treating Anxiety and Ending the Cycle

More People Have Generalized Anxiety Disorder Than You May Think

I am battling with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), but I’m confident I can beat it. In fact, I have made vast improvements in which my anxiety is manageable and doesn’t get in the way of my normal life as much anymore. Though I can’t say I have fully beaten it yet as my physical symptoms pop up from time to time, I’m 100% confident I will (and I have the End the Anxiety program I bought to thank).

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is “when a person finds it difficult to control worry on more days than not for at least six months and has three or more symptoms”. “People with GAD don’t know how to stop the worry cycle and feel it is beyond their control, even though they usually realize that their anxiety is more intense than the situation warrants.” (quotes from ADAA).

Mental health issues are currently so taboo in Asian culture. Society makes you feel shame and weakness around having mental illness that everyone’s trying to keep up this image that they’re fine. So I guess it’s scary for me to just say it how it is, that I have been struggling with GAD, but I might as well openly talk about it as it might help other people. It’s unhealthy to keep these things to yourself as the more you maintain this front, the more your issues can manifest in other ways to unbearable points.

It honestly helped me to learn that other people, even celebrities like Ariana Grande have it. I was listening to a song on her album only to come across this video:

She wrote her song “Get Well Soon” for “her personal demons and anxiety”. In this article, Ariana mentions “I would be in a good mood, fine and happy, and they would hit me out of nowhere. I’ve always had anxiety, but it had never been physical before.“ and that was really powerful for me cause I realized even people like her may be going through what you’re going through.

I mean if you look it up online, you’ll find you’re not alone:

And check out this article. Some have, or have dealt with these cases in the past – Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Chris Evans), panic attacks (even Oprah Winfrey and Emma Stone), social anxiety (Jennifer Lawrence), OCD (David Beckham), depression & anxiety (Selena Gomez), and the list goes on and on. We’re not alone. 

I found out that GAD affects 6.8 million adults, or 3.1% of the U.S. population.

I thought I was alone for the beginning of my journey. I thought nobody went through this and I freaked out because I had physical symptoms around something I couldn’t even explain, and I felt crazy because of it.

I still automatically tear up watching Ariana Grande cry about GAD and describe GAD in that article, because her feelings seemed similar to that of my own. It was a dark time for me when I couldn’t manage my anxiety and had no idea what was happening to me. When I was first struck with the physical symptoms of anxiety 2 years ago, I was shocked and scared as hell. I felt absolutely helpless. I’ve always had a bit of anxiety about things, but it was the first time I had actual pain from it, and it scared the shit out of me. Because the more I freaked out, the worse the physical symptoms were.

Every day I would wake up thinking “here it comes”, and my chest pains and tightness in throat would start taking over me. The chest pain was the biggest thing that I feared. The symptoms would last the entire day, every single day, and any little external trigger could amplify my symptoms even more. I was scared that the rest of my life would persist like this – and to be honest, merely existing became super painful. I had around 5 occurrences in which I needed to sit or lie down on the floor while I was in public settings, because I was feeling dizzy/unwell/panicked from GAD.

I’m the type who wants to resolve things and take action. But anxiety is super counterintuitive because the more you try to resist it the worse it gets. And that’s why I felt like I was experiencing one of the worst feelings in the world.

People could tell I was going through shit. All I could talk about was anxiety as it was consuming my entire life. And when people talked to me, sometimes I tuned out their words because I was so focused on my internal dialogue. In my head I was thinking “okay how do I get rid of the pain, it hurts, I can do this, okay what can I think through to resolve this, what do I need to worry about”. And it manifested in other ways where I was exhausted, angry, and upset a lot of the times, and I perceived things more negatively because of this anxious state I was in.

A Quick Look at My Background

I think it’s important to understand how I even got to that GAD point. I never thought I would have anything like this. Perhaps if you met me on a night out or saw me on YouTube, you would probably think I was easily social, fun, and fearless.

Birthday party shenanigans 

But examining my upbringing and my perspectives on life, I kind of understand how my anxiety and fear gradually built up.

Growing up, I was expected to achieve a lot. I was this chess champion, who played a bunch of different instruments, who did well in school, and my mom said whatever she had me learn, I was able to learn it. I was a serious student.

When I went to high school, I felt lonely and sad as I moved to a new school district and didn’t really know anyone. And since I was very introverted it was hard for me to make new friends. But one day I just flipped a switch and decided I had to put myself out there and talk to people. I even received “Most Changed” in the yearbook.

My mom started worrying, getting upset with me, and thinking I was turning into a bad kid. She told me I needed to worry more. She wanted me to achieve great things. I mean, I too wanted myself to achieve great things (and I still do).

So I put a lot of pressure on myself as I grew up, especially after graduating college. I started overthinking, worrying a lot, and trying to control all aspects of my life. “Adulting” is hard because you start thinking every life choice you make is so much more permanent. It was hard for me to accept that there’s a lot of life you can’t control. And perhaps while I was on my digital nomad journey, when I got into a serious relationship, and when I wasn’t working full-time, a lot of worries came about (none of which really came to fruition) and all these uncontrollable aspects of my life started to pile up to a point where it peaked my anxiety.

I realize that my Generalized Anxiety Disorder built up overtime and there’s no one external trigger to blame. My upbringing of constantly trying to excel and expecting the most out of myself in many domains of my life must have influenced me a lot as it built this framework for how I think and feel. I want to be kind to myself and understand GAD is not all my fault, but like Dennis Simsek the Anxiety Guy says, it’s my responsibility to overcome it.

Things I Did to Try and Help my Anxiety

I had two friends who went through the same Generalized Anxiety Disorder (and panic attacks) but on an even larger scale, because they would visit the ER and hospital constantly thinking something was wrong. Doctors always told them they were fine. I never got to that point exactly because I always blamed myself for my symptoms, for the most part. But I did however do the following to try and take action:

• I went to a therapist twice.
• I did a full 2-hour medical exam including EKGs, blood tests, and more.
• I got a life coach for a period of time.
• I purchased the Dare book.
• I meditated for 1,000 minutes total (but I was still terrible at it due to my anxiety).
• And this year, I visited the doctor twice for random little things I thought could be larger problems, but the doctors confirmed I was just being paranoid.

These practices helped, but meeting with a therapist or life coach, for example, couldn’t really treat me because these people had never experienced what I experienced. They’re unable to give the right advice if they can’t understand what I’m going through.

But as I visited doctors and noticed nothing was wrong, the more it engrained in me that this was an inner battle and that health-wise I was perfectly normal. I thought that having almost 2 years of chest pain/anxiety could significantly affect my body but somehow it hasn’t.

I’ve panicked a lot less overtime, but the physical symptoms would still frustrate me. However, I started understanding moreso that anxiety was in my control even if I didn’t have the exact solution. The less I blamed triggers and external situations, the more I accepted things. And the more I accepted things, the less I got angry, frustrated, or helpless.

After I came back from my travels, I also made a friend who allowed me to be my weird, anxious, introspective, ambitious, dreamer self, and it helped me resist less and love myself more. It made me realize that a good support network is very important. So make sure to surround yourself with empathetic people who understand you and lift you up.

How I’m Treating Anxiety and Battling the Cycle

I randomly stumbled upon The Anxiety Guy and started listening to his podcast.

What got me interested was that he battled GAD for 6 years (what), and came out okay on the other side. He was in a worse state than I was as he visited the ER at least 50 times. And at one point he didn’t leave his house for a month. It is crazy to see how calm and collected he is now, but it is cause he has trained and rewired his mind to accept sensations and stop overthinking and worrying when unnecessary.

His existence already gives me and others the confidence we need to push through to the other side. We don’t need to just cope with anxiety. We can fully beat it.

Based on Dennis’s podcast, program, and e-book, I decided to document some of the things I will be working on and treat this stage as a “fresh start”. One of the things Dennis talked about was total acceptance of anxiety, including the physical symptoms, and taking responsibility to make a change. I used to resist the idea of having Generalized Anxiety Disorder because I thought naming it made it more real. But Dennis advocates getting educated around what GAD is and really understanding what you have. Now that I’m admitting it, talking about it, and have learned a lot about it, I’m finally seeing the anxiety for what it is and understanding the steps I need to take. Openly talking about it allows me to accept it better as well.

The main thing I need to do is rewire my brain. This will take time as my brain needs to retrain itself after years of conditioning from past experiences and learnings. Your brain starts building frameworks and associations at a young age, and not all of them are the right connections to be made.

I didn’t realize it but worrying has unfortunately become a coping mechanism and a “safe place” for me, as it allows me to be feel more in control of my life. Sometimes I’ll feel I’m not worrying enough and find things to worry about as if it allows me to be more productive and prepared or something. I need to retrain this habit. If I start becoming aware of what situation makes sense for a fight or flight response of worrying versus what situation doesn’t, it will help me react a bit less to external situations.

I will also need to connect the mind and body by moving more and appreciating physical sensations. Being totally focused on my thoughts and feelings all the time means I’m not being present and I’m too focused on the internal.

Some of the changes I plan to make will need to be repetitively implemented over and over again through action in order for drastic change of actually fully overcoming GAD.

My daily schedule will look like this

• I will practice the miracle morning rituals, AKA: 1. Meditate 2. Read 3. Visualize 4. Practice affirmations 5. Write 6. Exercise
• Then go to work. I’ll take 5 minute walk breaks from time to time.
• I’ll listen to the podcast on some commutes as well as re-listen to the program.
• I’ll utilize the “Fresh start journal” from the anxiety program.
• I’ll do yoga before bed.

I will also :

• Be more conscious of how much water I drink.
• Drink more green tea.
• Involve myself with projects – DNQ is my biggest project and main focus right now.
• And in general, do things I’m afraid of or feel I suck at so things feel less scary and I become more confident.

One of the affirmations I’m repeating daily is around understanding that my chest pain is due to my body’s fight or flight response trying to protect me from harm. It’s a survival instinct. So I thank my body for the chest pain and tell my body I appreciate what you’re doing but it’s not necessary, because I’m safe.

Conclusion

I’m surprised I’m publicly discussing my Generalized Anxiety Disorder but I’m glad I’m doing it (I think). I saw this on my Instagram feed the other day, originally posted by Matt Haig and thought it was a great way of viewing mental health problems:

The anxiety I’m going through is just an experience, and it doesn’t define me. If you’re going through any type of mental health illness, just know you’re not alone. It’s an experience; it’s not your identity.