The hardest part of living with an Anxiety Disorder, to me, is how to keep it hidden from people you don't want to know. My friends all know, but I don't want my colleagues to know. Some do know I have an anxiety disorder, but they don't know in what way it is controlling my life. And I don't want my boss to consider on firing me or something. Because it normally doesn't affect me in my work. I am a classic workaholic and when I'm at work I normally don't have any anxiety's (or maybe just a few..). But I'm scared that they will think it does and that that will cause me to lose my job... This might just be another anxiety tho...
The daily struggle with my anxiety consumes energy. But I keep on finding ways to keep the thoughts away. One of the biggest ways to shut anxiety's mouth (for me) is music. I've always listened to music a lot, but it was ALWAYS Linkin Park. At one point I started to notice the differences in my emotions when I listened to it. I found out that when I'm feeling a little off, down, sad etc. I shouldn't be listening to LP, 'cause that made it worse. Instead, when I listened to dance music, happy tunes and stuff, it would make me feel a bit better and the anxiety thoughts stayed away!
When I feel totally worse than that, LP music would help me because it made me let go of my emotions. I would get pissed off, angry or it would just made me cry. But that would make me feel better, and again, the anxiety thoughts stayed away.
When I'm having a really good day I can listen to anything. So most of the time I choose for LP music or the PT album (Mike Shinoda).
When I listen to music and do something in between, like taking a walk outside or do a puzzle, I don't give the little anxiety monster on my shoulder the chance of talking to me. Well, it sometimes manages to talk to me, but I just tell him to shut up, cause I don't believe him :-) I also listen to music when I go to sleep, so I won't think to much about the thoughts that cross my mind. My husband turns the music off when he goes to bed. Or when he is running late, he shuts down Spotify on my phone by opening it on his phone 😋
So, to the people who also suffer from anxiety's, go find out to what music you can and can't listen to with the different kind of moods you struggle with. Once you find that out, it might help you, the way it helps me.
My Spotify playlists:
On dark days
- Linkin Park (any playlist, I have my own)
On regular bad days
- 360 dance
- Happy tunes
- Breaks and funk by Mike Shinoda
On good days
- anything!! But I prefer:
- Linkin Park
- Fort Minor
- Mike Shinoda
- Breadcrumbs by Mike Shinoda
- This is Grandson
These are the playlists I listen to these days. But in a few weeks you might find a hardcore or SOAD playlist in my recently played list. I listen to almost everything 😊
For now, I'm feeling like shit, so I listen to my LP playlist. It helps me get through the day. On days like these I need to keep on checking in with myself to see how I'm doing and what can help me to get through the day. I talked to some friends today, took a walk outside and just listen to music all day. So I'm going to stop writing, grab my music and Sudoku puzzle and just relax for a bit. Tomorrow will be better.
