I know, I know, the title sounds a little strange. Anxiety is AWFUL. It's degrading, annoying, frustrating and paralyzing. Especially with an anxiety disorder, anxiety literally ruins and destroys the lives of so many people. So how is possible that such a nasty thing taught me something?

Well, here's the catch: Not all anxiety is bad. Anxiety is a valid thing; a part of life, something that we all experience once in a while, something that we NEED to experience. Kind of like if you were in the woods and saw a bear far out, your fight or flight kicking in telling you to move could actually save your life. Or the fact that the roller coaster could break down on you, but you want to go on it anyway. That is adrenaline at it's finest.

Anxiety has our best interest in mind and tries to protect us, unfortunately sometimes it does that a little bit too much. Six months ago, I would never have been able to say that anxiety taught me anything. I would still be wishing it to go away and never come back, but I can't wish it away anymore. Yes, I can wish it away from killing me and destroying my life, but I recognize now that there are a lot of things that anxiety teaches us, whether it be good or bad.

Ultimately, I believe every lesson I have learned and will learn was taught by God himself, but I also believe He uses things to teach us those lessons and open up our eyes. I always used to consider anxiety as a bad friend that wouldn't leave me alone, sucked me into everything, and rubbed off on me. Now that I'm doing really well in recovery from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Depression, I realize that having Anxious Anne by my side all day everyday was not helpful and she'll continue to be a pest. However, I can't underestimate the things she's taught me. In fact, I believe that focusing on the things that I've learned from anxiety rather than the destructive harm it has caused me completely changed my perspective. Although she's annoying more often than not, here are some lessons that Anxious Anne taught me:

1. Feelings have so much to do with thought patterns.

Anxiety comes with all of these crappy, faulty thought patterns. All of this negative thinking, personalizing, magnifying, seeing things as either black or white, all of those thought patterns are dangerous. Anxiety has forced me to come face to face with those thinking patterns. Once recognized, they're a lot easier to regulate. I work really hard to change those patterns, and I feel so much more happy when I'm able to do so! This leads me to my next point

2. Therapy works.

Throughout my therapeutic journey, I've experienced a variety of different methods which have all helped me in different ways. But because I believe thoughts effect our mood, I'm a fan of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy! Once those crappy thought patterns are identified, we can work through them, challenge them and replace them with happier, more rational thoughts. It WORKS! Not only that, but therapy helped me figure out the underlying causes of my issues, and is a great place where I can just be honest about everything. Venting works! In the beginning I didn't want to open up and get better, but when I swallowed my pride and did my own part of therapy I started to notice a difference in myself.

3. There is no cookie cutter way of how to deal with any emotion.

I never realized that there were so many different forms of anxiety/depression, and how it manifests itself in so many different ways. Anger, hurt, and grief are the same way. Everyone reacts differently to these emotions. Obviously there are wrong ways of handling these feelings if we decide to turn to drugs or violence because of it, but there is really no RIGHT way to handle emotions. Pain wants to be felt. It has to be in order to heal. In dealing with anxiety, I've learned how anxiety wants to feel, versus how depression, hurt, anger, and others want to feel. But how I feel these emotions may be different than how someone else feels them. Emotions are complex. So often I go to my therapist and ask how I'm supposed to deal with this or feel this and he always responds "Just how you are dealing with it right now." Some people shut down when they're anxious; others don't shut up. Just because anxiety effects me one way, doesn't mean there aren't other ways it effects people. This was a huge eye opener for me.

4. Mental illness is so common.

Until I was diagnosed with one myself, I never realized how prevalent mental disorders were, especially anxiety and depression! I remember growing up and being surrounded by sufferers, but always thought it was weird and not a real thing. The demons of mental illness are out there affecting so many people. Realizing this is what led me to become a mental health advocate and promote mental awareness.

5. People are afraid to talk about mental health.

So many people suffer yet so many people don't want to speak up about it. I've seen this firsthand. Once I started doing research and becoming vocal about anxiety and mental health issues, I expected everyone else to do the same. I knew how much the vulnerability was helping others and why weren't they speaking up with me. I began to recognize anxiety and depression in other people and encouraged them to speak up, but they were too scared. Opening up about my experience with depression and suicidal idealization is even worse- people are horrified! They think it's so scary. Mental health is taboo, and I find that frightening.

6. It's okay not to be okay.

I have always loved to repress feelings and put on an act. But now I realize it is okay to not be okay. I do not have to be happy all of the time. If I am going through a crisis or a hard time, I can feel those things and shouldn't have to worry about people forcing me to walk over them and just be happy again. It is so important to just feel what our bodies want us to feel, both physically and emotionally. God gave us emotions for a reason- we must feel them!

7. We all have underlying causes unconsciously motivating us to behave in a certain way.

I know I'm speaking in super psychological terms right now, but this is so true. There is always a reason for how someone's acting. Being anxious all of the time, I'd always hear ignorant statements like "It's all in your head," or "You have no reason to be anxious." On the surface, maybe I did not. But the thing is, buried, deep inside me, I had things literally eating me alive. I was too scared to feel any of the other emotions so my mind turned all of them into one massive load of anxiety. There were things from my childhood that I buried so deep. Anxiety showed me "Wow, clearly I have stuff inside that are dying to come out!" And they were. Now that therapy has helped me realize most of those causes, I have been less anxious.

8. Repression can literally kill you from the inside out.

Again, stuffing emotions is so dangerous and so unhealthy. There are certain things we have experienced, maybe trauma, and the feelings associated with it can be scary. But those scary feelings will not go away on their own. Until those emotions are released, you’ll be digging a deeper and deeper hole for yourself. That’s exactly what I did. Thankfully, I’m starting to pin point my emotions better and just let each feeling come out on its own. But when I forget to do that, or my mind starts to bury them again, anxiety will let me know that it’s happening. That way can stop and think “Okay, what am I REALLY feeling right now?” For that, I’m thankful.

9. Panic attacks are real.

I’ve always had this preconceived conception about panic attacks. I thought people who had them were crazy. It was all in their head. They were making it up and doing for attention. Once I started to have panic attacks, I realized “Wait, whoa, no, these are definitely REAL!” And they’re so scary! They affect your whole entire body and really do make you feel like you’re gonna die. Now I’m hearing other people say the things I used to say about panic attacks, and I cringe, because there’s such a lack of understanding. Do we really have to experience something for ourselves in order to understand?

10. Words can make or break people.

Like I said before, with anxiety comes a lot of degrading from other people. This is, most of the time, due to the lack of understanding. And I get that. But the things that people said about me because I was anxious or depressed or whatever, have cut me so deep. People are so judgmental. When people are struggling with something, it’s important to not just throw words around. Not only do they hurt, but some of the things people said about me in relation to anxiety made me doubt anxiety even existing. This made me feel psycho. I’m sure at some point in my life I said an inconsiderate and judgmental statement about someone for feeling a certain way. I am human, and this happens. But because I am so sensitive and know how offensive those statements are, I try to be really careful with what I say about anything relating to mental health,

11. The psychosomatic system is so powerful.

A healthy mind really does create a healthy body, and vice versa. I was diagnosed with stress/anxiety induced Irritable Bowel Syndrome. There was nothing physical! All of the tension I’ve experienced and body aches I’ve had as a young person have been due to emotional issues. Those who feel crappy emotionally WILL feel crappy physically. I never realized how much the two were intertwined. It’s actually a fascinating thing, really.

12. Positive self-talk is essential.

This kind of goes along with thought patterns, but it’s important to literally say nice things to yourself out loud everyday. I never used to say good things about myself- they were always negative. This contributed to more anxiety. The more I started to talk to myself nicely, the more I was able to control the other negative thoughts. This takes a lot of practice and it’s not easy to do, but it can be done. Every day I have to say things out loud like “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” “I am beautiful.” I surround myself with positivity as much as I can to just be submersed in it and make it easier to say positive things about myself.

13. Anxiety doesn’t just go away by the snap of the fingers.

Telling someone to “Snap out of it” will only make it worse, because anxiety doesn’t work like that .Sometimes you just have to play its course. This is the same with other emotions too, I never realized why people were so antsy and couldn’t just stop. It’s because emotions are much more complex than we play them out to be. Even recovering from this disorder- it’s a lifelong process and so much of my time must be dedicated to manage it/breaking the pattern.

14. Having a mental illness does not make someone psychotic.

I believed all of the stereotypes I heard about mental illness. There are a lot of different types, some worse than others, but still all debilitating. Having a mental illness does not make someone a psychopath or psychotic or weird, just different, in a way that’s hard to understand. People with mental illnesses are human beings. Would you make fun of someone or judge someone for having cancer? A mental illness is the same as something physical- I just wish the world could see that, stomp out the stigma and start loving rather than judging.

And lastly, the one that I think is the most important….

15. We must feel all other emotions in order to experience the fullness of joy.

How do you know what joy feels like if you have nothing to compare it to? The one good thing about feeling negative emotions strongly is that I get to feel the positive ones strongly too, and I’m grateful for that. But it wasn’t until I was at rock bottom, so depressed, then finally came out of that pit and was like “Whoa, what is this I’m feeling?? Why does it smell so good?” Honestly, the feeling you get when you come out of such a deep pit is amazing! It’ll make you never want to go back in there again, and you’ll do everything you can to stay out of it. I can truthfully say that anxiety is that reason why when I’m happy, I’m HAPPY. Because I know what happiness feels like, and can cling on to that. And for that, I’m thankful.