A

A is for acceptance - it's how I overcame anxiety.

A for Anxiety is a weekly publication that takes an alphabetical journey through my life with anxiety.

A.

A good place to start. A beginning.

When I settled on the idea of A is for Anxiety, I assumed that the first letter of this challenge was, at least, in the bag. Surely it would be the namesake of this Substack - an introduction dedicated to the main character itself?

However, when I sat down to write, this no longer felt so good.

You see, while I need to start at the beginning, I must also start at the end; the end of anxiety’s pothole filled road. It’s here that I’ve finally got perspective - the lofty altitude I need to treat anxiety with the lightness and humour it deserves.

From up here, anxiety seems small, miniature. It’s an entire city, viewed from an airplane window - those skyscrapers of worry now tiny obelisks on the horizon.

It’s a place that I want to start this challenge from.

A place of Acceptance.

A is for Acceptance

For a long time, therapists have gently cooed, assertively demanded and sympathetically floated the idea of acceptance to me.

‘What if you try accepting you’re anxious?’ they’d say. ‘What if you stop fighting it and try living with it?’

‘Could you stop trying to solve your anxiety, Laura? Just for a while?’ they’d plead ask.

I’d stare back, dumbstruck.

Of course I couldn’t accept my anxiety. Why on earth would I want to accept my anxiety?

Anxiety was why, when I did a food shop, I had to wear giant sunglasses (lest the bright lights triggered a panic attack). Anxiety was why, when overwhelmed in a busy department store, I once held the hand of a mannequin.

Anxiety was why I’d stopped driving on motorways, going out for meals and taking the train on my own. It was why I experienced spells of derealisation and depersonalisation; why it felt like living was like watching a film.

Anxiety was why I always carried a bottle of water with me, alongside a packet of expired Valium and some anti-diarrhoea tablets. Anxiety was why I liked to sit near exits and had windows open on cold winter days.

It was why I woke up in the night with a racing heart and the distinct sense that I was about to be swallowed by a hole of inky, dark doom (that, or J.K Rowling was onto something with Dementors).

Anxiety was why I was there, in front of these therapists, paying £120 for each and every session.

And this was their solution?

Naturally, I refused. I left their offices, fists clenched and teeth gritted, ready to continue my battle. I would find the solution to anxiety, I would solve its equation. I’d find the tool to permanently erase it from my life.

I would not accept acceptance.

The Wrong Kind of Acceptance

On reflection, I’d obviously completely misinterpreted what my wise therapists had been suggesting (which, with retrospect, was unfortunate given their hourly rate).

This was not what they meant by acceptance.

Their version of acceptance didn’t feature resignation. It didn’t mean that I had to resign myself to a life dominated by adrenaline and cortisol. One filled with panic attacks and intrusive thoughts that I might, for some obscure reason, fall into a county lines gang and spend my life in prison (a thought triggered by watching just one episode of Orange is the New Black).

They did not mean that while some people got to live their lives anxiety free, there was simply a cohort of us that had pulled the short straw. A gang of sweaty, overthinking ruminators who had to lurk in the shadows of life, leaning against walls for reassurance.

Nor did acceptance mean that I had to be faux cheerful about my anxiety. I wasn’t expected to stagger through the throes of a panic attack - the faint threat of insanity hanging in the air - with a smile on my face. I didn’t need to clutch my chest or wipe sweat from my forehead, while joking about the fact that every single cell of my body was burning.

No, acceptance was neither of these things.

The Right Kind of Acceptance

So, what was the right sort of acceptance?

To understand this, I had to firstly understand what anxiety truly was - something that meant undoing everything I thought I knew.

Anxiety wasn’t, as I’d believed, an ailment somehow separate to me - something I needed to eradicate or cure. It wasn’t a cancerous cell, something that needed destroying, until no evidence of it remained.

Instead, it was - it is - an inherently important part of what it means to be human.

Anxiety is a behavioural response as normal as swallowing or sleeping. As predictable as excitement or having a wee.

Kick-started by a tiny, almond shaped part of our brain called the amygdala, anxiety is our threat response: a dot-to-dot chain reaction triggered when our ‘brain nut’ (for want of a better phrase) detects a possible threat to our wellbeing.

As a result of this alarm, anxiety’s Chanel No. 5 - that potent blend of cortisol and adrenaline - is released, causing deliberately distracting, but nonetheless predictable, symptoms. Cue a pounding heart, racing thoughts, tense muscles and a churning stomach. On the horizon, you might even spot doom approaching; a dark shape that eclipses the sun.

You’re now primed and ready to fight (or flee). Your body’s inner armour steeling itself for attack.

However, once this perceived threat has passed, these chemicals are quick to fade - your armour is dismantled and neatly put away until next time. Your amygdala steps down, and the more modern, reasoning part of our brain (the prefrontal cortex) takes back the reigns.

Peace is restored - your brain’s spin cycle has finished.

When Anxiety Goes Wrong

So, if it’s all so normal, so run-of-the-mill, why does anxiety feel so bad? So unpredictable?

These days, our threat response is largely redundant. Unlike our prehistoric relatives, we live in world that is generally safe - one free of predators, famine and loss.

However, our brains haven’t quite adapted to this change in environment. As far as they’re aware, we’re still dressed in animal furs and scampering around dark caves. They are therefore left to look for threats elsewhere; often finding them in the strangest, most benign, of places.

When we feel this threat response kick in, especially if it doesn’t feel appropriate (i.e. it appears in the middle of the frozen aisle of Tesco), it can therefore feel incredibly scary.

Rationally, you know there’s nothing threatening about frozen peas, yet you feel like Jason Statham in Crank. Everything feels a bit rage-y, a bit bulgy.

The result? We react to this fear response with - you got it - even more fear. Fear lumped on fear. Fear squared.

As a result, a loop of fear begins to form - our brains releasing more adrenaline and cortisol, in response to our fearful reaction.

It’s a tango that nobody really wants to be part - like a puppy looking in a mirror and barking at itself, convinced it’s confronting a snarling enemy. Neither side is going to back down and both are getting increasingly stressed.

Quickly, we begin to fear this fear response. We begin to fear fear itself. Each time we feel its arrival - some slight dizziness, a fluttery heartbeat, or a tingling hand - we lurch upright and panic; exacerbating our threat response even further.

Our loop of endless fear and panic continues.

Acceptance

It’s now that real, wilful acceptance becomes so important.

If our anxiety is fuelled by our own fear of it, let’s swap this fear for something much more powerful.

Calm, curious acceptance.

It took me a while to get the hang of this, and it certainly doesn’t mean gritting your teeth and enduring. Instead, it means that when you feel anxiety’s waters begin to bubble and foam, you musn’t jump to your feet in alarm. You mustn’t immediately sound the alarm.

Instead, you should watch and observe your anxiety - noting (with interest) how it feels. Describe it to yourself, if you must. What might it look like, what colour might it be, where is it located in your body?

Remember, this threat response is predictable - it will cause the same symptoms and follow the same pattern. It can’t get exponentially worse. Instead, it’s limited to the same circuit and the same bodily perimeters.

Trust the limitations of these sensations, this behavioural response, and turn to them with curiosity, rather than fear.

This newfound acceptance isn’t, of course, an immediate silver bullet. Initially, it felt like trying to meditate in front of the engine of a Boeing 747, or trying to style my hair in the middle of a hurricane. But it came.

Slowly - acceptance dampened the embers of anxiety’s fire.

Soon, my brain took note of my new curious response to anxiety. With a lack of fear being released, it soon learnt that anxiety, or fear, wasn’t a threat. That it needn’t dial 999 when I felt a surge of nerves. It stood down from high alert and healed - my once over-sensitised nerves now tamed and soothed.

It took nearly ten years and an eye-watering sum of money, but my therapists were right. Acceptance triumphed anxiety.

For more books or resources that discuss the importance of acceptance and curiosity when it comes to managing anxiety, look at Judson Brewer’s Unwinding Anxiety or any of the (internationally celebrated) books by Clare Weekes.

Interested in learning how to tame your anxiety when it comes to travel? Sign up to my Overcome Travel Anxiety course.

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Check out my blog, containing more mental health tips.