This is a bit different that usual, but I thought there is a chance this type of information could be useful to someone who might be cause in a similar situation as me, mentally, and if I can help anyone I would really like to!
Long story short, I've pretty much had anxiety my whole life, in every aspect of everything I do. I've broken down into a sobbing mess in front of my entire class at uni, and at college I used to throw up before presentations so bad I got sent home. Sometimes I cant answer the phone and I start to shake and my mouth dries up, sometimes I have put every single item back in a shop because I just can't face the cashier that day. It varies day to day, but most days there is still something.
To be honest, I think anxiety cost me a good degree, it pretty much affects everything I do or think about doing in my life. Some days I can probably pass as pretty normal, I can force myself through things, like generally when I've had a customer-facing job, it almost feels like I zone-out to get me through the day, my 'work character' I guess. But after a long day pretending everything doesn't make me shake I would go home and cry or something.
Maybe this is all irrelevant, why am I blabbering about this? Well, obviously I flew half around the world to a foreign country by myself, to live with a family I never met before who mostly speak a language I am faaaaar from fluent in, and that in itself is a pretty anxiety riddled experience.
BUT I think this whole thing has actually helped me a lot.
I mean, it's completely down to my exact situation. This could have easily gone the other way for me emotionally if I wasn't with a perfect family with a perfect job, and two cute poodles to pet whenever I feel stressed. So, I wouldn't say this is the best thing to do for everyone, but for me it just happened to be.
It's strangely relaxing, if I struggle to talk to someone new, it's shrugged off as a language barrier, and Japanese people generally become more patient with me, slowly helping me form sentences and not getting frustrated because I didn't know what to say. Often they will also just throw out every single English word they know to try and finish the conversation, and that's strangely comforting. Half of my anxiety is getting stressed because of how people react to me being anxious about something, and my experience with people in Japan is that they want to help.
I don't really think my anxiety will ever leave me, maybe that's because at the moment I just can't imagine doing things worry-free, but I suspect I will learn to live with things eventually instead of eliminating them completely. But my point is, coming to Japan was a huge risk which ended up (probably) in my favour. I've gained a lot of confidence being here alone, maybe I still haven't really made a lot of friends, that kind of close social interaction still makes me too anxious and eludes me, but apart from that various parts of my personality have greatly improved and I just hope this feeling continues when I return to England in a couple of months.
Sorry for this much more personal ramble, as I said at the start maybe sharing this kind of experience might make people consider doing something different and scary to help themselves overall! Who knows...
I have a LOT of posts queued up to write about a whole lot of different things, so normal viewing should resume shortly, either way thanks for reading my anxious waffle, please feel free to ask me any questions, and for now, またね〜 From Osaka!
To be honest, I think anxiety cost me a good degree, it pretty much affects everything I do or think about doing in my life. Some days I can probably pass as pretty normal, I can force myself through things, like generally when I've had a customer-facing job, it almost feels like I zone-out to get me through the day, my 'work character' I guess. But after a long day pretending everything doesn't make me shake I would go home and cry or something.
Maybe this is all irrelevant, why am I blabbering about this? Well, obviously I flew half around the world to a foreign country by myself, to live with a family I never met before who mostly speak a language I am faaaaar from fluent in, and that in itself is a pretty anxiety riddled experience.
BUT I think this whole thing has actually helped me a lot.
I mean, it's completely down to my exact situation. This could have easily gone the other way for me emotionally if I wasn't with a perfect family with a perfect job, and two cute poodles to pet whenever I feel stressed. So, I wouldn't say this is the best thing to do for everyone, but for me it just happened to be.
It's strangely relaxing, if I struggle to talk to someone new, it's shrugged off as a language barrier, and Japanese people generally become more patient with me, slowly helping me form sentences and not getting frustrated because I didn't know what to say. Often they will also just throw out every single English word they know to try and finish the conversation, and that's strangely comforting. Half of my anxiety is getting stressed because of how people react to me being anxious about something, and my experience with people in Japan is that they want to help.
I don't really think my anxiety will ever leave me, maybe that's because at the moment I just can't imagine doing things worry-free, but I suspect I will learn to live with things eventually instead of eliminating them completely. But my point is, coming to Japan was a huge risk which ended up (probably) in my favour. I've gained a lot of confidence being here alone, maybe I still haven't really made a lot of friends, that kind of close social interaction still makes me too anxious and eludes me, but apart from that various parts of my personality have greatly improved and I just hope this feeling continues when I return to England in a couple of months.
Sorry for this much more personal ramble, as I said at the start maybe sharing this kind of experience might make people consider doing something different and scary to help themselves overall! Who knows...
I have a LOT of posts queued up to write about a whole lot of different things, so normal viewing should resume shortly, either way thanks for reading my anxious waffle, please feel free to ask me any questions, and for now, またね〜 From Osaka!
No comments:
Post a Comment