Anxious and Unsure About My Future

[JasmineP]

I've been wavering around anxiety for a few days I think. I'm in my childhood home on a 'vacation' from my college apartment. i don't have many of the things I usually have and my rough day-to-day routine is broken which I don't think has been helping me.

i drove back last week after having a friend spend a week with me, I don't like driving with a goal, so from my home town to my college-home puts me on edge, makes me angry and is distressing. The drive was kind of stressful but went well enough. Being at home that night was fine, my childhood bed is a twin, down from the full I sleep on, and the mattress is a lot firmer than the one i have in my apartment. I sleep poorly to begin with but this past week has been worse.

My grandmother and two of my aunts came down to visit my mother's grave before her birthday so I had to deal with having them in the house. They're all loud and being around them agitates me after a while. I can't watch any of the stuff I would on the television in the living room, there's no space for me to draw at the dining room table, and then I'm busy taking care of things for them. After i'm done taking care of things for them in the house I then get advised and berated and yelled at. They didn't do it this time but for most of my college life they judged how long it's taken me because 5 years is too long. I try not to be mad at them and I try to remember that they're from a different generation and how New Yorkers interact is louder and different from Virginians but it's still difficult.

They left and I spent two days with headaches from taking melatonin to sleep.I'd sleep pretty all right but the following day I'd have a pounding headache, i figured out what was going on, stopped trying the melatonin and slept poorly but I'd not have a headache the following day so it was an improvement of sorts.

I've spent some time these past few days drawing things for my senior art show and getting designs settled and working on consistency. i'm feeling pretty good about this preliminary work but every time i think about how much I have to do, 3 12 page comics, plus a cover for each fully colored or greyscale colored to be done by early October so I can get the pages printed into sellable books i kind of freak out and i don't think I'll be able to get it all done in time. I still have to finish planning my show, organize it, promote it and classes start on Monday and i have things I need to take care of then along with finding money for my last semester. I can do work on my comic in two of my four classes so most of my time outside of class will also be toward getting this done so I should be done in time but I keep feeling like I'm not doing enough to get done in time.

When i stop and think about that I freak out.

Hell, i took a small break Thursday night from working on design roughs to see my best friend and on the drive to the 24-hour diner we were meeting at I started freaking out. I don't know what I was anxious about, I love seeing the fool but I started panicking so I had to listen to Pi by Hard 'n Phirm which kind of calmed me down. the rhythmic listing of the digits of pi is kind of calming for me, I don't know but i accept it. I hung out with my friend and was able to vent about some of the things on my mind. When we parted ways I kind of just felt a low steady feeling that not all was right, just anxiety with no easily discernible cause.

i got home fine and went back to drawing in the dining room at the table but felt on edge because my brother was there. I didn't say anything to him, i just sat down and kept working on a new character design i was struggling with and trying to get locked down. i was just chugging along, listening to an MIHH, i kind of wanted to listen to one of my more comedic podcasts but with him near I felt he'd judge or question me for laughing. He probably wouldn't but i didn't really want any type of interaction or attention so I kept to something that wouldn't keep me giggling.

i'm sitting here, enjoying the podcast, working on designs and I just feel really anxious and my only plans for the immediate future are to sleep, draw more tomorrow and go see musical comedy on Saturday. I can't think of any reason to not feel fine or comfortable with things but I'm not really calm. My drawings have been pretty okay, i could draw better but i'm not too worried, these are sketches for me to work out bigger things than the details that I'm leaving from the page. Not everything is as good as I know i can draw but they're a lot better than some of the other drawings i've attempted recently so I'm feeling pretty good about them.

i don't know, that's kind of how i'm feeling right now. Just a lot of anxiety and i'm not sure why.

[Kit Pistol]

Hi Jasmine P.

I've never responded to a posting, so bare with me. I too have anxiety. I remember being in college and going home. It sounds like you have no place to call your own, for now. It's hard to share space. You have a lot of school work to do. It's hard to work if you are feeling judged.
One thing that really helps me is trying to get in the now. When you think of the past or the future, bring yourself to the now. It is the only "real" thing. I sometimes have to read passages from books to help me such as Pema Chondron, Thich Nhat Han or Ekhart Tolle. If that doesn't work, I go to my "dark" coping skills such as saying to myself "none of this really matters because some day, I will die anyway. So why stress?" It's not a suicidal thought, just a reminder that some day I will die and I will have wished I didn't stress so much. Don't judge yourself for having anxiety, for me, it makes it last longer. It will pass. You are ok as you are.

Good luck and best to you,

Kit

[weary]

my only plans for the immediate future are to sleep, draw more tomorrow and go see musical comedy on Saturday

Those sound like really good plans! Seriously, it's good that you have your art to keep you engaged and music and comedy (and musical comedy!) is important. I am feeling my best when I am either enjoying music or laughing, and those are two of the most reliable things that my wife and I can still reliably share pleasant moments with no matter how upset or stressed we are.

Anxiety sucks but it is normal. You seem like you have a lot of uncertainty about what you think your life will look like going forward, and being home and thinking about your Mom probably churned up a lot of feelings that you do your best not to dwell on if you can help it. One thing that I have learned is that sometimes the physical sensations that I associate with anxiety overlap with the ones for excitement, and sometimes when I am actually looking forward or feeling good about something, I interpret the way that I feel physically as anxiety. I have been trying with some success to be more mindful of that - I don't know if that's something that you have ever considered. I guess one can be "excited" mentally and physiologically about things that are good or bad, so automatically assuming that what you are feeling is "bad" anxiety, especially if you're not sure what you are anxious about, might mean that you are labeling/judging an emotion or even a sensation without sitting with it and experiencing it long enough to understand what it really is.

Or maybe I'm full of shit. Who knows?

[heart]

I felt the same way recently. Thanks for sharing, I needed to read an articulate version of what I was thinking because in my head its all aklhdjfsaldkjfhaldfkhj. Seems like people expect a lot from you and that's why you get anxious. I don't know anything though I put my shit on inside out today. Take some time for yourself, be good to yourself! I think drawing for comics is so cool btw! And try find a place to escape to when you're at home. I go to the roof where no one else can climb up to and I just block everyone out for awhile. Sometimes people can be overly demanding and its hard for me to deal with that because my anxiety intensifies it.

Enjoy your week : )