What If It Wins?

So…It’s been three weeks since school and DBT started, and I’m not sure I’m adjusting to this new schedule very well.

I have DBT three nights a week from 4:30 to 7:30. On those days, my life basically consists of waking up, going to school, going to DBT, coming home, and going to bed. Then I get up and do it all over again. It’s a lot.

I feel like I’m constantly short on time. There’s schoolwork to get done, things to do at home, and I haven’t exercised in a while. It doesn’t help that I’m still feeling the effects of my strained calf. Everything seems a little harder when there isn’t enough time or energy to go around.

So, what’s an anxious, depressed person to do?

Right now, I’m doing a lot of Urge Surfing. I’m trying to sit with the anxiety instead of fighting it, reminding myself that it’s temporary and that it will eventually pass. I just wish I could get to the bottom of why I feel this way in the first place.

The truth is, I’ve struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. It was made even worse by the sexual assault I experienced when I was thirteen. Somewhere along the way, I learned to be on alert, always watching for the next thing that might go wrong. Now it feels like I worry about everything, whether there is actually something to worry about or not.

It certainly doesn’t help that I’m not sleeping very well, as usual, and I’m also going through some changes with my medications. My body and brain seem to be getting plenty of opportunities to sound the alarm.

And yet, I know I’m in a very different place than I was in January. Read just about any post from back then, and the difference is pretty clear. I’ve worked incredibly hard to get here.

Still, I find myself hyper-alert to anything that might go wrong. That word matters: might. So much of my anxiety is about things that haven’t happened. My brain sees the possibility of something going wrong and reacts as though it already has.

Sometimes the anxiety gets so intense that I’m afraid I won’t be able to control it. I start thinking that eventually it will win, and if it wins, I lose.

But maybe that’s not how this works.

Maybe I don’t have to defeat anxiety for me to win. Maybe winning is noticing it, sitting with it, and continuing anyway. Maybe it’s Urge Surfing when I need to, using the skills I’ve spent months learning, and reminding myself that feelings rise and fall.

I don’t have to figure out the rest of my life tonight.

For now, I can use the skills I have and take each day as it comes.