I’ll never forget my most recent breakdown. It felt endless. And as for me, I felt hopeless. We all have those days. Those days we just drown ourselves in paint canvases and old crossword puzzles. Or maybe for you it’s a rainy day with a pot of coffee and a good read. No matter what it is any of us try, anxiety makes himself feel right at home.

I’ve always kept to myself. I’ve believed in that old saying, the more people know about you the more vulnerable you become to them. It’s the build up of a bunch of small things until finally something just breaks you. One time I cried because my mom’s best friend took a bite out of my bratwurst. Was I crying solely because she did that? There was a whole pan of bratwursts just like that one, why would I do that? If you find yourself being able to relate to this, I’ve got some news for you. For starters, you’re not alone. Secondly, I have some tips and suggestions I’m about to share with you in hopes to help people just like me.

Before I just throw random coping strategies at you, that might actually seem more like unique and fun hobbies, I’m going to walk you through a day in the life of me. It’s a Thursday. Six AM my alarm goes off, my mom yells to my room, “time to get up!” once every half hour. All I can think at this point is leave me alone woman! Stop nagging me! I’m grown! Right? Wrong. 6:50 rolls around and I still haven’t showered. My class is at 8 and with traffic it’ll take me an hour to get there. I rush through my morning routine, bringing my peanut butter smeared bagel into the car with me. Five out of ten times it ends up in my lap before I even hit the highway. I try to enter my class as discretely as possible, but everyone always looks. Trying to shy away from the attention I just undoubtedly brought upon myself I sit in the back of the class. ‘Oh great, what are those little squiggles up there on the board and what do they even mean???’ Words. These are words. The words that we are using to teach our lesson today. Not only am I late and far behind the rest of the class, but now I’m thinking maybe I need glasses?? Should I see an eye doctor? Am I going blind?!?! Ok, I’ll just ask for help. An hour of stress sweat and playing the catch up game, but I got my work done! Off to my next classes. One I have a test that I didn’t study for in, the next I did the wrong assignment for, and the last one I feel like I can finally breathe. But it’s thursday-I’m off fridays- is my boyfriend going to the bars tonight? I should ask. Maybe I should go. Driving home my transmission starts acting up again. By the time I get home and my parents take a look at it we find out I need three new parts and a new tire if I think I’m going anywhere within a five mile range of my house. Hurry call the tire shop. On hold. On hold again. I hate living at home!! If I was just at Mizzou already then I would be living on campus, minutes away from my friends and twenty away from my boyfriend, who lives by the relaxing cornfields. Instead, I’m stuck in this horrible wanna-be-city place with a broken transmission and a bad tire. It’s almost closing time for the tire shop and I’m still on hold. Might as well just cry. My life is so terrible. What if my boyfriend goes to the bars without me tonight because my car sucks. And what if he meets someone else? Ugh. I can’t risk that. Can I? Better get going! Wipe the tears away. A couple hours go by, and with the help of everyone around me I’m off to the land of the cornfields for the weekend! Finally- I can breathe.

This is not even close to as detail oriented as my days and thoughts usually are. But- as you can probably see- I tend to not only be an over thinker but a hypochondriac as well. For those who don’t know me, my life is everything but terrible. My relationship is everything I could ever hope for, my family consists of the most supportive and loving humans on the planet, I’m gosh darn near as close as it gets to the ideal student when it comes to attendance, work ethic, and grades, and my car is only having troubles because I’ve crashed it multiple times- all in which I’ve walked away from. With all that being said, I needed to find an escape from my troubled thoughts that mainly consisted of the what-ifs and the but-if-onlys.

Start simple. Clear your mind of everything you’re thinking and breathe. Think about what your body is doing in order to keep your organs and muscles and everything in between alive and well. In with the oxygen, out with the carbon dioxide. Now just like your lungs and diaphragm, you try the old in-and-out trick. In with the positive, out with the negative. This is just a temporary fix. Just like anyone else, I can’t focus on breathing for a whole day. I can’t even do it for a whole hour. But it’s a good start. One of the biggest feelings I can relate to my anxiety is the feeling of disconnect- or not belonging. Reaching out to friends and family has been more help to me than I could ever imagine. Anxiety makes you feel like you need to isolate yourself. Like you just need to be alone and listen to sad music and that’s what will fix you. No. You’re feeding anxiety when you do this. Bake cookies with your mom, call your grandpa and see how he’s doing, maybe he can meet you for ice cream, or lunch later this week. Ask your dad to play catch with you, or to show you how to check your transmission fluid in your car. Ask your brother to show you how to air up your tires. Ask your sister or your friend to go through your clothes with you- getting rid of things you’ve been hoarding since middle school is refreshing. If no one is available (and yes, sometimes schedules work out like that so don’t freak out and think the world is against you), then spend time with yourself. There is no one more interesting than you. Do your laundry, cook up some new recipes, clean out your social media profiles, do some research on your career path, mow the grass, go to the park, see how many times you can hula hoop without dropping it, write a poem, attend a yoga class, learn to play an instrument. You name it. Anything you can imagine. The possibilities are endless. You never thought about that, did you? Neither did I. This is the beginning of everything that is and can be.

My word of advice- don’t let the dark rainy days discourage you. One of my favorite quotes ~ “You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass” (Thimber Hawkeye). If you have faith, indulge yourself in the bible, for that alone will never let you down.

Brooke