"Having personally lived with anxiety, I can confirm: Sometimes it feels less like a bear, but more often, like battling a full-grown grizzly. The problem is this: Choosing to fight a 1,000-pound bear is the wrong fight when it comes to mental health. It's exhausting and time-consuming, and after all that effort, you're often left bruised, depleted, and wondering why the bear still hasn't gone anywhere."
"Growing up with unmet needs, emotional neglect, or unpredictability can wire a person for the survival states-fight, flight, freeze, or fawn-long before they have words for what's happening. In my own childhood, an unpredictable environment and an inattentive caregiver led me to become hyper-alert to nearly everything. Are my clothes ready for school tomorrow? What mood will they be in today? How do I stay invisible, agreeable, safe? How do I keep the peace?"
Anxiety does not need to be conquered, dominated, or defeated; fighting it like a 1,000-pound bear is exhausting and ineffective. Anxiety often persists as a whole-body state, lodged in both mind and body, and can feel like unending elevator music. Early life experiences such as unmet needs, emotional neglect, and unpredictability can wire the nervous system toward survival states—fight, flight, freeze, or fawn—producing chronic hyper-alertness. Signaling safety through consistent thoughts and behaviors helps downregulate the nervous system. Globally about 5 percent of people live with some form of anxiety. Mental-health adjustments require ongoing, nuanced practice.
Read at Psychology Today
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