by Chloe Moloney

I am addicted to thinking. My brain jumps straight on the express train to disaster – often jumping to poisonous conclusions that the worst is the only possible outcome. I have to admit, it has taken me close to twenty years to understand that my pattern of thinking is distorted, but understanding this in itself has proven to be the first step in fixing the incessant flurry of thoughts in my head.

I struggle intensely with this pre-conceived pressure to be perfect in a society which demands extraordinary amounts from each of us, at all hours of the day. This corrupt pairing between anxiety and perfectionism was a catalyst for my rocky perception of everyday actions and engagements. For a long time, I thought I was the only one who was making blunders until I realized that many of us make thousands upon thousands of them. But why do I feel so ashamed of the times where I have tripped and fallen? Living in this race to craft a textbook, picture-perfect life, I tended to sweep errors under the rug and keep them quiet.

From my experiences, anxiety and education have often worked in tandem with each other. This dangerous pairing has driven a bullying pressure and desire to try and achieve flawless results – when in fact, all it did was leave me burnt out and exhausted. Growing up in a highly-academic environment in the south of England, I had fabricated the fear of receiving bad grades into an almighty personal threat. During my teenage years, I would study and work for close to fourteen hours a day, wearing myself to the core and only leaving the house an hour a day to go to the gym. Even then, with every step on the treadmill I was going over equations in my head or running through my religious studies notes, listening to recordings of myself reading from my textbook. I hid anything lower than an A from my parents – primarily out of embarrassment and fear that that golden gates of an A would never open, top universities would then be out of my league and a reputable job in London would be a distant dream.

Ironically, the B I got on my glacier formation homework hasn’t had much of an after-life. When discussing what I thought was an unhealthy relationship between work and anxiety, a friend asked me, “Well, doesn’t it work?” I was taken aback to say the least, and a part of me was certainly offended, as though my anxiety was justified because of the good results which followed in its wake. In a way, my friend was correct. The fear of making mistakes certainly drove me not to make few of them, or at least attempt to be fault free. However, this fuel that I was pouring into my exhaust system was pumping out results that, while they looked good on paper, left detrimental effects on my day-to-day mental health. My sole focus became output: perfect grades, stellar job prospects and flawless results in whatever I did. And, as soon as I didn’t live up to that expectation, I felt like I had signed myself up for catastrophe.

I described it to my mother as blowing into a balloon. Each breath fuelled my anxiety in filling up my brain with worried and troubled thinking – and one day it had to pop – flinging bits of balloon all over my friends and family. It was a slow rise of twenty years before the balloon gave way, and before I realized that this problem was more poisonous than I had imagined or had ever realized. The pressure in my head reached a boiling point, literally leaving my brain feeling scalding hot and frazzled. This cataclysmic thinking to which I had subscribed myself had no external effects, nonetheless, it was a catastrophe of the most disastrous internal qualities. With the outside world remaining relatively unscathed, I had locked myself in this mental prison and thrown away my own key. I took any slip-ups extremely personally, hurting myself in the process as I identified with my shortcomings to the most intense degree. These limitations, which most likely deserved next to no value, wedged themselves uncomfortably in my timeline, itching to be noticed and ruminated over. Each mistake I made added to a tug of war with my desire to propel straight into the future while being stuck in the valley of my past and I found it increasingly difficult to live in the present day. Constantly paranoid and haunted by thoughts such as I wonder what might happen next, What if this happens? and Why did I do that?, my mind and body were operating in completely different spheres – my body functioning theoretically as it should, but my mind unglued and spinning out of control.

I recently listened to a podcast with Brené Brown, a researcher on vulnerability and shame. When asked what she would say in sixty seconds if all men were listening, she said: “Vulnerability is not weakness. It’s about the willingness to show up and be seen when you can’t control the outcome, and it is actually our greatest measure of outcome. So, show up in an authentic way and let us see your hearts because we know how lonely you actually are.”

A conversation I had with a member of the wellbeing team at my university shook this false grounding upon which I had built my identity. A simple question nonetheless, but it sent an all-mighty crack right down my middle, leaving me in shattered pieces in her plush leather armchair. “What do you do for yourself?” she pitched. I sent the ball right back and told her that I hoped to get a grad job straight after university, so I’m spending the next five months doing internships and gaining work experience, working as a reviewer and curator in my spare time. I shot her a small smile but she didn’t reciprocate – she seemed pretty unhappy with my answer, to be honest. Ultimately, she urged me to rethink my balance between input and output – I was not feeding myself with any emotional nourishment and I was running on empty, hence why I was burnt out and pretty much ready to retire at 20. I had run out of fuel.

I have had the pleasure of realizing that my flaws, and the vulnerability and shame which come hand in hand with them, are crucial. Without my blemishes, without tarnishing that perfect image I so desperately wanted to carve out of myself, I have no chance at all of growing and reaching my full potential. I think I am too quick to berate and criticise myself. I beat myself up and call myself names I wouldn’t dare to call anyone else. Instead of classing mistakes as something to avoid, fear and obliterate, I should begin to celebrate and take pride in my shortcomings. For every mistake made, I have the opportunity to learn a brand-new lesson which has the potential to enrich my life and guide me on the journey to becoming my best self.

This has not been an easy ride. Here are a few tips and tricks that have helped to alleviate my rough patches and have made this journey a little smoother:

Meditation

I try and take at least twenty minutes out of my day to meditate: ten minutes in the morning, and ten before I go to sleep. Meditation has helped to draw me out of living in the past, and focusing on all that we have – the present day. Meditating in the morning lets me to realign with what truly matters, and allows me to take time for reconfiguring myself before relating with others.

Fuel Yourself

My unhealthy input led to an equally as toxic output. I shifted my priorities and focused on improving myself rather than my results. For refueling myself and my emotions, I like to stick on a bit of James Taylor and go somewhere new – whether it be a different part of town or a new city entirely – ensuring that I step away from work and studying, in an attempt to rebuild myself from scratch. Additionally, spending time outside has allowed me to reconnect with nature and draw me out of my own head. Try to identify less with your outcome and belong to yourself instead.

Stop Comparing

I recently cut the cord with Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, due to the sheer amount of anxiety they were causing me, without even realizing it. The constant updates of what everyone else is doing with their lives made me re-evaluate my own in an overwhelmingly negative light. The cull of my social media accounts has lifted a weight off my shoulders, and seeing the world through my own eyes instead of a screen has proved to be absolute bliss. Yet, this only shifted my self-comparison to other aspects of my life – looking at their cars, their clothes or their jobs – shooting me straight back into a pit of inadequacy. Instead, I try thinking of three things I’m grateful for each morning, whether it be my family, my health or my job. Each time that I feel social anxiety creeping in, I simply have to remind myself of those three precious things in order to validate my life in its entirety. By transforming my feelings of insufficiency into gratitude for what I actually have, it has meant that the disaster train is running a little more slowly.

I have a newfound appreciation for what I used to call the ‘bits in between’ – those empty spaces and pregnant pauses in my day which used to be filled with fret and uncertainty about whatever I could possibly imagine might go pear-shaped. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ‘cured’ of anxiety in any way, shape or form – I’m simply trying not to take perfection as a minimum standard. These gaps in a busy lifestyle can be turned on their heads, filled with gratitude and peacefulness rather than a worry which eats away at me with every hour that passes by. Putting these three tips into practice has helped to take off these distorted lenses and see the world for what it truly is: not all bad, all the time.

Chloë Moloney is a student and writer from the UK. She is a staff writer and curator at Luna Luna Magazine, has written reviews for MookyChick, and has had a number of short stories published in online journals.