Anxiety Spillover

If you're experiencing anxiety, can say it out loud and are conscious of where it comes from, you are either pretty in tune with your mental health or have put in the work to get here. Now, how do you stop that anxiety from spilling over into all aspects of your life?

My Scanxiety is still firmly planted and present this week. At first, it would pop up when I looked at my calendar. There it was, my oncology appointment reminder written in dry erase marker neatly as if there was anything neat about it. I stopped looking at the wall calendar and started making notes on my iPhone instead, thinking I had removed the trigger. I was wrong because a trigger can be anything when you are anxious enough.

What are my plans for the weekend? Well, it depends on what kind of news I get on Friday. I should workout to shake this feeling off, but I can't seem to get out of my head enough to count reps. And just like that, everything is tainted by anxiety that seems to have spilled all over my pretty life.

I know this feeling will pass. I know that I am probably fine. But if you've ever not been fine, you know there is still a chance, and that is enough to make you panic.

If only it were this easy to let something we were excited about spill over into every other aspect of our lives, washing away all the worry and rinsing clean our fears. We can't forget, but we can distract ourselves a little by spending time with the people we love and taking lots of deep breaths. There is no magic solution, but there is some peace in knowing that we aren't the only ones feeling this scary feeling, and talking it through with someone who gets it is always an option.

Update: I did in fact, get good news and had a great weekend surrounded by my best friends and the tiny humans they created. We ate fried mozzarella, watched The Little Mermaid, drank champagne, and laughed hard. It was everything I needed. Don't wait until you feel better to make plans. Your friends will understand if you just can't pull yourself together to show up, but you will regret it if you miss out simply because you assumed you would get bad news.