Anxiety since a young age: Struggling to maintain motivation to try and fix it.

[Marlow2]

I have memories from primary school of anxiety thoughts and feelings and feel that it has always been present in my life (mainly social/performance anxiety). Of course I had no idea of what it was back then. Now, at 25, I am still dealing with these same feelings.

I have noticed my anxiety getting worse and having a bigger impact on my life over the past 5 or so years. It has really effected my social life and eats away at me daily at work. I used to be really good at hiding it, but the worse it gets the harder it is to hide.

I feel varying levels of anxiety on a daily basis, struggle to concentrate on things, feel tired, avoid many situations, have a poor memory and experience feelings of depression along side my anxiety. I find it hard to be in the moment because of anxiety and feel I am missing out experiencing life to its potential.

I have tried a couple of things over the years but just cant stick with trying to improve my anxiety levels. I get sucked back into the same rut. I have seen improvements in the past but I loose motivation, experience low energy levels, get caught up in bad routines or things, such as my job, take preference. (I think the pressures of my job and maintaining the appearance of being overly capable in my role are huge contributors).

Does anyone else struggle to maintain motivation or easily get back into bad habits?

What things or tactics have helped to keep you motivated?

[Maggie2]

Hey Marlow2,

I totally empathise. My anxiety too has gotten worse and harder to hide the older I get, so I feel you!

I run my own business, so I too get caught up in that as an overall distraction/excuse for avoiding other things I want to work on or improve - especially around my anxiety management. So, I think I get where you're coming from.

One of the things I've found really helpful is to be kind to myself and not beat myself up for getting anxious. I find that accepting that's just the way my brain is sometimes stops me from feeling like a failure. And, it has for me been weirdly empowering and motivating me to find ways to reduce the frequency of unmanageable anxiety because it relieves the pressure to do something.

Guided meditations have also been helpful for me too, but I get that they're not everyone's cup of tea.

Hope you get some useful tips in this thread 🙂

[Croix]

Dear Marlow2~

I can relate to your troubles. I just drove out to the shop to buy food, and found myself heading the wrong way - I was on autopilot going towards my workplace whilst my mind stressed out out over a small issue.

Anxiety and depression are illnesses that don't just disappear or get better by themselves, or by strength of will either. I know because I tried to soldier on alone for far too long. That was a mistake. Taken earlier I'd have been easier to treat.

Can I ask if you are on any sort of treatment? I was to able to improve until I did.

You wanted to know about motivation and slipping back. I had PTSD, depression, anxiety. Things were very bad and motivation was totally lacking. When it came, it did so because I'd found - or rather my psychiatrist had found - meds that did something. That together with hospitalization and family support started my improvement. Nowadays I'm out of sight better.

Talking to other people there seems to be a common problem - feeling better, going of the meds, then withdrawal and feeling worse, a cycle. Family, if you are luck enough to have one like I did, is a great help here. Not nagging, but caring and concerned.

With depressions and anxiety, just coping is tiring enough. Trying to hide things, put on 'an everything is good' face, trying to do the best at work despite everything makes the whole deal exhausting, and it never lets up -at least for me it didn't.

What can I say - well if you are not being treated and I was you I'd see my GP in a long consultation and set it all out - and ask to be tested for depression and anxiety.

If you are already under treatment then go explain the problems, your current symptoms, the factors that trigger them -like things at work - and your tendency to slip back. Have a discussion as to how to improve he treatment - adjust it until it's better. Mine took an awful lot of changes and adjustment, but I got there.

You don't say anything about your situation, do you have a family? Is there anyone you can talk to who might understand and give support?

You've made a pretty good start in posting on the Forum. Why not have a look around and see others who have the same issues, and how they dealt with them.

In any case please post again and say what you think,

Croix

[BballJ]

Hi Marlow2,

Firstly, welcome to the forums.

Keeping motivation in anything is tough, trying to recover from a mental health issue like anxiety is even tougher, I like to think of it is a long journey and like any long journey there are bumps along the way, those bumps can be seen as loss of motivation... does it come back and you feel like you can tackle the anxiety head on, or has the lost motivation been on for some while.

One thing I try to tell people is maybe writing down how you are feeling on good days, day's when the anxiety is low and you feel about yourself, write down exactly how you are feeling, the mood, things that are making you smile and when the bad days and loss of motivation days hit, then refer back to it and then it's like a little pick you up so you know what it feels like to be happy and you will hopefully want to get back to that.

May I ask and I know Croix asked it above, what treatment have you had to help with your anxiety and are you perhaps seeing a psychologist or a GP about it?

Feel free to post back as much like, always someone here to talk too.

My best for you,

Jay

[Muddlee]

Hi Marlow2,

Warm welcome to the forums 🙂 What I do to get motivated is list my achievements right next to my bed (eg my exam results for last semester which actually weren't all that bad!), a list of 100 things to do (under arousal, commonly associated with over arousal/anxiety can be aided by finding things to do which over time increases level of motivation, enjoyment and interest), my GOALS for 2017 (one of them is going to a music festival for the first time), doing things with other people (usually when you're with someone you get less of an urge to give up something - or at least it's harder to give up lol), exercise (originally hated it, but give it some time and you'll love it) and healthy foods. Couldn't have come up with the end of that without my GP, they can give you so much advice on how to get motivated again. Seeing mine in a couple of days for a general checkup 🙂

Hope this helps!

Muddlee