Panic attack chronicles: Don’t let your mental illness bully you
My husband drove us home in my car, sans groceries. I sobbed the whole way, shaking and panicking, and thinking “I’m such a weak fucking loser. I wonder if he’ll leave me. I hope he does — he’d be better off.”
But having panic attacks/mental illness doesn’t make you unlovable, or a bad partner, as long as you are being proactive about caring for your mental health…
Guilt, comfort zones, and buffer days: Dealing with vacation anxiety (yes, it’s a thing!)
I’m going on vacation! I booked a real, non-weekend-only trip where I’ll fly outside of the United States for the first time in 16 years. I’m so excited and grateful. But on top of that gratefulness and excitement is a bit of anxiety. I know, I know, get over myself and embrace the vacay. I plan to, but I still need to deal with a few latent fears and anxieties that I know some of y’all are also feeling about vacation.
Here’s how I’ll be handling vacation anxiety…
The scarcity trap: How sugarcane farmers helped me understand my obsession with becoming a parent
I’ve found some relevance in articles and incredibly personal accounts of pregnancy loss, infertility, grief, and/or anxiety. But it wasn’t until listening to this Hidden Brain podcast from NPR — The Scarcity Trap, Why We Keep Digging When We’re Stuck in Hole — that I found an unlikely solidarity with the experience of sugar cane farmers in India.
The perpetual anxiety of never knowing if my job will be abolished: How I deal with job insecurity
Guys, I’m currently working my dream job. It’s awesome. But the very existence of my job is dependent on outside factors, and is re-evaluated every six months. The last year in particular has been really really uncertain; I’ve kept my job, but just barely. The next evaluation is looking very grim.
I’ve found ways of dealing with the perpetual anxiety of never knowing if my job will be abolished. Maybe these tips can help others with job uncertainty, like me…
A pilot’s tips for dealing with your flight anxiety
As a pilot I’ve had more than my fair share of mid-air incidents — engine failures and the like — and at the end of the day none of it has stopped me flying, because I know how the plane works.
Here’s what I consider the biggest, most important bits of information I can give to people who hate flying…
How do you deal with a parent with severe anxiety?
I love my mother. Which is why her anxiety disorder is so awful for me. She’s been like this for years– doing things like suggesting that everything I do will kill or harm my baby. But now her anxiety over everything is giving ME anxiety over everything. Does anyone have tips for dealing with a parent with severe anxiety?
How I faced my fear of the dentist: If it works for me (and cats) it can work for you
I’m not just afraid of the dentist. More accurately, I have a “shut down completely, cry when I even THINK about going, prescription drugs are not enough to calm me, once made a dentist too upset to continue working on my mouth, trauma response-level” fear of the dentist. Until this past year, I hadn’t been to the dentist in almost 10 years!
I was recently talking to a friend, who also has a fear of the dentist, and she asked how I conquered my fear and went to the dentist, not once but THREE times this past year. My answer was that I did NOT conquer my fear, but I did do this…
My fear of flying was conquered with some good storytelling
I used to tell myself that flying makes me anxious. I’m talking “grab the hand of the stranger sitting next to me, cry, hyperventilate, desire to fling open the plane door and jump” anxious. This is the story of how all that changed…