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Is ignoring your anxiety unhealthy? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by Cattail@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Really I'm just asking what's the best way to deal with anxiety, or if ignoring it to the point of ambivalence is unhealthy.

trigger warning: I do talk about anxiety and existential issues in my spoilers section

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After a week of doing edibles that are way too strong for me, my brain got a little rewired and my brain got rewired (nothing extreme just noticed how I feel about specific things have changed)

But I had a "time is a flat circle" moment with a my foster/adopted cat looking like my dead cat I had for 17 years and having to realize that I'm helpless to watch everyone grow old and die. Now that I'm sobering up I'm accepting it and moving on, but I think about "what's the best way to tackle anxiety"

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[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 month ago

You gotta learn how to surf it as best you can.

I'm not being flip. Anxiety, depression and all the related issues, they have a certain tidal nature. There's highs and lows. The key to living with it is to ride the worst waves until things settle back down a little.

If you ignore it, you get swamped.

Doesn't really matter what methods you use to do it. Breathing, meds, exposure therapy, CBT, yoga, whatever. You practice them when things are good, so you can stand on them when things are bad and make it back to shore.

I gotta warn you though, anxiety that's induced or worsened by chemicals is a shit ton harder to negotiate. You can't rely on your normal inner perception of your self. Normally, once you're used to anxiety, you can learn to recognize when it's going to spike, and that alone gives you some empowerment. But when it's external chemicals causing things to worsen, you can't feel when it's getting better or worse in the same way unless you also get used to that chemical and how it influences your anxiety. Which, seems like a pretty bad idea to keep using something that's making anxiety worse.