How I Let Go Of My Anxiety Today

I don’t share many selfies. I’m not really a selfie kind of girl. It took forever for me to get just the right photo for my author picture for my book/Facebook page/Author Central, etc when I published my memoir. I have always hated pictures of myself. Growing up with a mother who was constantly telling me to stand up straight, suck in my stomach, do something with my hair, etc. made me extremely self-conscious.

Yesterday, I was actually out and about, a rarity for me. I am agoraphobic, something I am working on quite diligently. I have serious anxiety about driving on highways as well. My husband called me and said he really needed me to bring him a change of clothes to work. It was his last day (he’s been laid off) and he had a last minute job interview with a temp agency and didn’t want to show up in stained jeans and his usual black tee. Getting to his job from our house requires me driving on a highway for 14 miles. Do you think I have it down to a science?

I’ve also not been feeling well for the past couple of days, which makes my anxiety even worse. He knows this, and immediately started backing up. He has a change of clothes in his Jeep, and pulled out the jeans, thinking maybe they would work. No dice, they are stained as well. His job entailed working on diesel generators, and accidents happened all the time. Some of them held Sky Draw, an airplane grade diesel of some sort, and that shit was worse than jet fuel. It costs something like $5000 a gallon, and was horrible for spraying out of units and stains worse than diesel. It also smells horrible. Almost every pair of jeans he owns is stained with that or regular diesel, or just oil.

I told him no worries, of course, I would bring his ONE pair of nice jeans, a white tee, and button up shirt. I wanted him to feel comfortable and confident in his interview. I am getting better at what we refer to in our house (we are a military family) as SITFU. Suck it the fuck up. No one says that in a derogatory way, it’s just a military thing.

It was a balmy and beautiful 77 degrees yesterday, so I decided I would let my hair down, literally, which I also never do, put the windows down, throw on my “fuck it all” station on Pandora (which would be Machine Gun Kelly if you care to know) and head on down the highway.

I was stopped at a light and caught my reflection in my phone in its holder on the windshield. I was struck by the fact that my hair was blowing in the wind, the blonde strands blowing this way and that, a look of contentment on my face. The song Remember This, by NF was on…OK Pandora, I will remember this, so I took a selfie. I was at a long ass light, I safely took a selfie with the phone still in its holder, no one was injured in the taking of this selfie, promise.

For the first time in a long time, I was actually happy with the result of a selfie. I didn’t add a filter and the only editing I did was to crop out the roof of my car. The ride there and back was uneventful, as in, no panic attacks, no speeding to hurry the trip, no wishing I could invent a transporter ala Star Trek and Beam Me Up Scottie right back home. I actually enjoyed the drive.

I think all of my self-care, mediation, Stoicism practice, and learning is paying off.

Eminem, NF, MGK, and Little Wayne may have helped, a little. :)

A sampling of my playlist if you’re interested:
Remember This: NF
In Your Head: Eminem
7 Years: Lukas Graham
See You Again: Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth
Hold On (Shut Up): MGK (I may have been speeding a little bit while this was on hehe)
Bad Things: MGK and Camila Cabelo
Him & I: Halsey and G-Eazy
Home: Machine Gun Kelly, X Ambassadors, and Bebe Rexha
Drop The World: Little Wayne and Eminem

If you liked this, take a look at other things I’ve written!

I would love to hear what you have to say, feel free to reach out in the comments, public or private. ❤