Not Today, Anxiety

A few weeks ago I checked Instagram and saw a new t-shirt on sale by a popular motivational and spiritual company. I’ve been a semi-regular customer of this company for years and I appreciate their merchandise. Wearing their shirts have been a great way to start conversations about my faith and sometimes I need the reminder to chill out and just “Breathe”.

It was an all grey shirt, and the letters are very small.  In the top corner above the heart, it says, “Not today, anxiety”. I scrolled past it, not really taking in the message.

My initial reaction was ambivalent. I didn’t really care for the shirt. It was just another feel good product.

But then, because I think about things a lot after my initial gut feeling, the shirt began to bug me.

We’re living in an interesting time when it comes to mental health. More and more, people feel comfortable talking about their struggles. This is great, and I’m glad we’re getting better at this. Unfortunately, our health care system is woefully behind in ensuring insurance will cover treatments like medication or therapy. There’s this awkward relationship of acknowledging anxiety, depression, etc is a real struggle for people, but not having resources to tackle it head on. People still aren’t educated on what exactly anxiety, depression, and other mental illness are. Depression isn’t just sadness, and anxiety isn’t just worrying.

I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression on and off since I was a young child. Being adopted, I don’t know my whole mental health history, but I know enough to know I’m at a risk for it.  I thankfully was adopted into a family with a Grandpa who had many siblings who struggled with mental illness. He was such a good support to his siblings and that in turn gave my mom a lot of knowledge about how to navigate the waters of treatment and seeking help.

But I remember as a 9 year old wishing I could just stop feeling anything and just disappear. There were a lot of long, dark days. I felt so alone and so sad all the time. I saw a therapist for awhile and took some medicine, which helped. In high school and then again in my early 20’s, I fell into a less severe depression.  As a kid, I worried about everything from my house catching on fire to my dog and cat getting swept away in tornadoes. Looking back on that time, it was definitely anxiety manifesting, but I just thought I worried a lot. Some of the worries were realistic, many were not. But my brain wouldn’t shut up. I would tell myself to stop worrying, that I was being irrational.

But just telling yourself to stop worrying doesn’t work. No matter how many times my brain goes into overdrive and I know my thoughts are irrational, I still wake up at 3 am, heart racing over something very minuscule, yet it feels so overwhelming and real in the moment.

And that’s what bugged me about the shirt. Just saying, “Not today, anxiety” is never going to cure me of anxiety or depression. I can say that over and over and still struggle. I will have weeks, months even, where I feel great. But it always comes back.

I can’t choose to not have anxiety. I sure didn’t choose to have it. Anxiety isn’t a mood. It’s not like the “Choose joy!” shirts. Yes, I can choose to work hard and fight against those feelings, but I literally cannot willfully change my brain chemistry (without medicine) and magically be anxiety free. It’s just part of who I am. And while my anxiety and depression isn’t very severe anymore, I know how awful and terrifying it is to feel that way every day.

It isn’t my intent to stop people from buying shirts like this or to protest a particular company. I still appreciate their optimism and positivity. And if a shirt helps you battle anxiety, that’s great! I just think we need to be sensitive to those who are struggling and not just offer a cute and upbeat “Not today anxiety!” as a fix to their situation.

We are all going through stuff. Sometimes motivational sayings don’t always work, but a little bit of kindness and understanding goes a long way.