Anxiety

Content warning: This essay discusses anxiety and mental health.

Why do I feel this way?

Deep down, I knew something was amiss. My mind raced when I went outdoors, imagining unrealistic scenarios that, in hindsight, were a symptom. I was hyper-aware of the people around, wondering if they were watching, almost all the time.

I worried when people looked at me. Were they about to say something mean to me? Approaching people to ask questions – no matter how common – scared me. I didn’t want to take up space. No, I didn’t deserve to take up space.

I regularly referred to the National Health Service (NHS) web page on anxiety, wondering if the words on the page described me. What if my symptoms aren’t bad enough? Perhaps I am making up the way I feel. Others must feel worse. I’ll be fine.

Not only did I wonder why I felt this way, I thought that I didn’t deserve to feel any other way. A vicious cycle of despair.

Earlier this year, I didn’t feel like myself to an extent I have never experienced before. I felt disconnected. I wondered if I was good enough. I struggled to talk with baristas. I would worry if I could not find something in a shop because I did not want to disturb one of the workers to ask for help. Every night, I would go to bed having stayed up later than what I wanted to, usually with feelings of worry.

It was like having a cacophony of music in my head that I can’t decipher nor stop. Instruments are playing. I don’t recognize them. They are making a noise that distracts me. When I ask the musicians to stop, they stare as if I am mean and undeserving of their attention.

I don’t deserve rest, said my mind. Then came the darker feelings. Maybe I don’t deserve to be alive. I knew those feelings were not true, but part of me wondered how I could keep going on. Such thoughts were particularly prominent over a period of a month or two last year. Every time a dark thought came, I was scared. Why was my mind making me feel as if I did not matter? I knew deep down that my mind was lying to me.

I wanted the music to tone down so I can hear myself – the real James, not the anxious James – think. I want to have conversations without playing every scenario over in my mind. I do want to be alive. Not just to be alive, but to live without seeing danger everywhere and being unable to relax.

I realized I needed help. I needed my doctor.

I was sweating in the waiting room. My heart pounded. I could not name what I feared. Rather, I was as I often am: anxious. In the doctor’s office, I sat and crossed my legs, an uncomfortable position. I couldn’t maintain eye contact.

He said that I was anxious.

At that moment, a weight lifted off my shoulders. I was not “making up the way I feel,” as I worried. I was suffering from anxiety. That diagnosis helped me feel validated. When I was doing research online about anxiety, it was easy to equivocate. When a doctor tells you that you are suffering from a mental health condition, there is no denying the situation. I had to admit that my deep down feelings were true: something was wrong. We worked on a treatment plan.

Yes, I have anxiety.

I’m James. I have written educational coding tutorials that have been viewed more than 25 million times. I have contributed to open source software on which over a thousand projects depend. In 2023, I wrote over 350 blog posts. I created a programming language. I published at least 15 new Python packages. Seven projects and pieces of content to which I contributed or wrote made their way to the front page of Hacker News. I wrote a book.

From the outside, I appear productive. What you don’t see is the anxiety that I felt throughout the year. I wrote many words. I also stayed up until midnight trying to eke out one last blog post on several occasions. I made a programming language. I also felt so tired that I was unsure how I was still able to do so much. I have suffered, and suffer, from anxiety.

Anxiety has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a child, I touched the wall outside my bedroom a certain number of times. If I didn’t, bad things would happen. Whenever I was stressed, I would regress into those disturbing, unnecessary patterns; touching walls, light switches, and more. As I grew up, I found myself sad on occasion without reason. A teacher once called home to say I had been falling asleep in class. I didn’t realize I had been sleeping.

After leaving high school, I started to wonder what if, often. I entered the working world during a pandemic, an environment in which paranoia was mainstream by necessity. Stay home, stay safe, save lives. I saw risk everywhere I looked. What if the person in the supermarket next to me has COVID? Will I get it? Will I spread it to others? Despite all the walks outside and time spent with family, I was increasingly anxious. First, slowly. Then, after the pandemic receded, I was anxious seemingly all at once.

The world was opening up, but my pandemic mindset – defensiveness, worry, fear, what ifs – stuck with me. That mindset that had once protected me now became a mean friend and I didn’t know how to stop them from being mean to me.

Unease that follows you

Anxiety is a feeling of unease that is with you all the time. I wanted a stop button. A magical button that, when pressed, would make me feel “normal.” At the beginning of this year, I had forgotten what normal felt like. I had my work, which was as close to normal as I remembered. Work kept me grounded, as did family. Yet an underlying fear came with me everywhere. A voice that said “no” and put me down.

On any given day, I might worry that I said the wrong thing to someone. I would avoid most social contact, fearful that others would reject me. I felt that there was something wrong with me that made me less interesting to other people. I would make up scenarios in my head. What if I went to an event and people didn’t like me. So I wouldn’t go. What if there was a dog on my walk that scared me. So I didn’t walk around somewhere that I would have enjoyed.

I was forgetful. I would forget to take the recycling bin out for collection, meaning I would end up with cardboard in my living room until the next collection two weeks later. I would forget about birthdays. I needed to write everything down otherwise it would not get done.

Anxiety is psychological but the effects are also physical. One day earlier this year, I was walking on a pavement and I started to close my eyes. It was quiet. I was immensely tired. I felt heavy. I yearned for a stop button on my mind, eager to get some rest.

I vividly recall walking and closing my eyes. I was unsettled because I knew I was tired. At the same time, I would not let myself do anything about it. I would go to bed knowing that I would be tired for the whole next day. I would pull my hair out as my stress grew through the day, a behavior that became more common as I got less sleep.

In hindsight, closing my eyes was dangerous. What if I tripped? What if I walked into someone? These thoughts were not on my mind at the time. My eyes were heavy so I closed them. My mind had raced so much that there was little energy left. The energy I had left was being used to move my feet to get home.

Every morning, I would wake up anxious and tired, and rush to start my day. I have never left a tap on, but it might take me between five and ten minutes to feel confident that I have turned the taps off before I leave the house. I don’t want to flood the house, I thought. Not that I have ever flooded a house, but my anxiety convinced me this was a reasonable concern.

I had two modes: I was either up at 6am, starting to work at 7am, or I woke up later in the morning and worked until later at night. There was no consistency. I could not find a routine. For years, I had been a routine person. I could be up at 7am, consistently. Now, I do not have that energy. I lost a bit of the spark that powers me. I was drained every day by worry and fear.

Some days, I was upset and wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. I recall one day lying on the floor, uncomfortable, wondering why I am the way I am. Why am I so anxious? Why do I have so many unhelpful thoughts? No tears came. I still can’t cry. My eyes are dry. I would feel upset about not being able to cry. Who can’t cry?

Moving forward

After seeing my doctor, I went on a six week course of talking therapy treatment, consisting of one two-hour long session every week. I struggled to listen to much in the course. I have two guesses for why I did not absorb much of the material.

First, I think that I didn’t want to hear about all of the work that I would need to do to help my mind relax. I wanted an easy solution. I had read about anxiety and self help at length online. I had meditated for two years earlier in my life. I had read about anxiety and the importance of being kind to yourself. I wanted a solution now. The music was loud.

Second, I may have been resisting the work because I knew how hard it would be. I was so far away from a relaxed mind. Every technique was like a homework assignment whose benefits would be most visible months later.

At the same time, I buried my head in work. I attended the course, but then I would go straight back to work. Indeed, the feeling of “I did something!” helped me power through the days. I spent days at a time with words and code, two of my comforts. I would receive praise. I felt like I was able to make a contribution. I was… valued.

For every assignment I completed – a blog post, a computer program, helping a colleague – I felt fulfilled. At the same time, these tasks were like a television show: delightful (to me), but something I could always use as a distraction. I could always go write another blog post instead of confronting a difficult thought. Work became a means by which to escape how I was feeling.

Through meeting colleagues in person (I work remotely), I started to get to know the people behind the screens. I had made friendships and I didn’t even know it. There was nothing wrong with me, other than the voices in my head telling me that I wasn’t good enough.

Being around people helped, immensely. I rediscovered that people gave me energy.

With every step forward, however, there was a step back. I thought one weekend that I would have to go back to my doctor; the mental health course wasn’t for me and I was having a difficult time. I was tired. I worried if my tap was off all the time. I was excited about work – excited to create. But, I didn’t want my mind to tell me I wasn’t good enough and pressure me into over-exerting myself. These two attributes came as easily to me as kicking a football far on a pitch comes to others.

In addition to the energy I received from being around people, I kept up my personal projects, such as this website. I like writing. I like coding. I like making new things. I especially enjoy when what I make inspires someone else.

I started a series called “Moments of Joy” in which I documented something joyful that happened to me or that I saw. I forced myself to see the beauty where otherwise I saw clouds; dark clouds. Through each word, I was rewriting my brain to think more positively and see the brighter side of the world. It didn’t feel like this at the time, however.

The series was a joy to write. It was a break in the day when I had to mentally picture a good thing that happened to me. I documented over 50 moments of joy.

Writing, however, was both a therapeutic tool and a source of anxiety. “What ifs” permeated every aspect of my life. I questioned whether I was writing enough. I asked myself questions like “am I writing enough?” I associated writing a certain amount with a “successful” day. On December 30th, 2022, I published eight blog posts. I pushed myself to keep writing those, as if I had to write them.

People helped. Writing (for fun) helped. But there was a missing ingredient: acceptance that I need rest.

One day, I was working on a coding project and I thought to myself, “I don’t like this anymore.” I needed a break. I wasn’t tired of coding, I was generally tired. I decided to take a few weeks away from the project. I haven’t returned to it yet.

With that said, I took comfort in my work and projects. The notion that I no longer felt enthusiastic about one of my projects was frightening. My looking back at what I had accomplished in a day made me feel valued. Now, I had to reconcile with a new challenge: I no longer had the energy to be as active. I needed a break.

Months later, I decided to take a break from personal writing. I had a work trip coming up. Work was going well. I wanted to focus on work rather than my many personal projects.

I took a break from organizing online events, too. I had no energy. My battery was at 2% by the end of the day. This break lasted a month, during which I traveled, met with colleagues, and worked on intellectually gratifying projects at work.

All of these breaks helped give me more room in my mind. I was not cured, but I was less tired. A step in the right direction. If you suffer from anxiety, you will know that managing anxiety is all about working one day at a time.

You may be thinking: “James, of course a break would make you feel better!” In hindsight, I agree! But earlier this year, breaks didn’t feel like an option. I had taken breaks before, such as at the beginning of the pandemic. This time felt different. My mind was closed off to the idea of breaks. There was a voice in my head always saying I had to do more.

My rest helped me develop a healthier expectation of what I can and should strive to accomplish in a given week. I realized that writing or coding every day was not a prerequisite to happiness. Such tasks made me fulfilled, but not exclusively. People give me energy. Having time to play musical instruments brings me joy. Traveling opens my mind.

I started taking vitamin supplements, too. I decided to take Vitamin D supplements because I had read that the NHS recommends everyone take one per day during winter months, when there is a lack of sunlight in the UK. Furthermore, I have not spent a lot of time in the sunlight this year. After taking Vitamin D supplements for a few days, I felt great. My mind started to feel more open; less anxious.

As I write, I am feeling better than I can remember. Staying in regular communication with people, working on meaningful projects at work, carving out time for personal projects, and learning to accept that I need to take breaks sometimes have all had a significant impact on my mood. Vitamin D, too, has helped give me more energy.

Earlier in the year, I was intimidated by the amount of work it would take for me to tame my anxiety. The course may not have been the right medium for me. I needed to work at my own pace. Every moment in the year – seeing a doctor about my anxiety for the first time, speaking with a psychologist, realizing I was worn out – helped me internalize that I was not feeling well. It all started with taking a break from all of the non-work tasks that were taking up my time to rest.

Eight months ago, I might have woken up and looked ahead feeling like I had just another day of anxiety. Some days, I would wake up early, work while half-asleep, worry about the people around me, forecast social interactions, avoid doing something I need to do like take the bins out, worry that I can’t cry, and wonder why so few people text me.

Now, I still feel all of those things, but to a lesser extent. They don’t bother me as much as they once did. Every day is a challenge, but less so. Whereas I might feel hurt on most days of the week, I feel a bit more restful. After forcing myself to rest. And reflecting on what I have done this year. And spending time with people. And thinking about my health. In combination, these changes make me feel a bit better. I remember a feeling from earlier in my life: invigorated, with a playful, child-like enthusiasm toward the world.

I hope that I will feel the same way this time next year, too, and every day in between. I know I’m going to have down days. May they be as few as possible. The music is quieter and less disturbing. I start to feel like I deserve happiness.

Your friends may be anxious

Do you have a friend who is feeling a bit down? Check in on them. My friends play an invaluable role in my staying happy. If you have spoken with me, you may have noticed I am generally upbeat and excited. I am the sort of person who mentions Taylor Swift regularly in conversation. I like to make people laugh.

With that said, I have also felt anxiety beat me down. Often on the same days as when I have appeared joyful to others. I could be on a call and appear fine. After the call was done I would feel out-of-sorts. I could receive a message from a colleague who had an idea and suddenly feel overwhelmed. The music was loud. My mental battery was low.

I have never asked anyone if they suspected something was off. Nobody raised a flag, unlike my high school teacher who phoned home when I fell asleep in class. I must have become better at masking my pain.

Someone can say they are okay, but if you notice something isn’t quite right, that person could be suffering from anxiety. Your words will matter. Your words may make their entire week better, just as words from my friends have.

“James, I’m anxious.”

If you are anxious, you’re not alone. I am, too. Our minds probably tell us similar stories like: we’re not good enough, we shouldn’t take up space, we should apologize for everything, just in case we maybe accidentally made someone potentially annoyed (even when we did nothing wrong, on reflection). I know you know that the words “rest” might seem intimidating. It might seem borderline offensive for someone to tell you to rest. But I’m going to do it anyway because rest helped me tune down the music.

Rest.

Strive to do more relaxing activities one step at a time. Ask a friend if you can go on a walk. Go to a coffee shop and think more about what you are going to order than what the barista might think of you. People really don’t think about you as much as you think, speaking as someone who felt everyone was thinking about me when I was out and about.

Learn a new song on a musical instrument. Write a weird, funny story that makes you laugh that you are never going to share with anyone. Watch television. Do your thing. So long as that thing isn’t going to stress you out.

Above all, I send a digital hug and say: you are valued. There are better days ahead.

Please seek professional help if you are struggling with anxiety. I have found the Mind and NHS websites in the UK helpful for general guidance. With that said, digital content is no substitute for a professional diagnosis. There are people who can help.