In order to tell you how I handle my Anxiety and give my tips, I need to start with explaining what I deal with. Mental health is so specific to each individual person yet it is super easy to relate and see similarities in different aspects of your daily struggles. As well, it can change just as you learn and grow as a person.

So let’s rewind to about 6 years ago.

I was a completely different person. I realized something was really wrong when I had gone days with minimal food and sleep and normal tasks like getting out of bed and taking the train to work felt like life or death scenarios. My diagnosis was major depressive disorder and I was put on antidepressants as my “cure”. I also started to suffer through multiple anxiety attacks a day which were, once again, “solved” by Medication. Don’t get me wrong, I think that medication can really help some people and it did what it needed to do for me at that time.

After about a year on medication, I started to feel a dissociation. Like I wasn’t myself anymore. I felt “happy” or in a good mood most of the time but it was much like an Instagram filter, I knew it wasn’t real and it made me feel not ok. There was the Candice that willfully got out of bed every morning, enjoyed her day at work and put a smile on while interacting with her coworkers. And then there was me. The person who still, for whatever reason, wanted to lay in bed from day to night doing absolutely nothing for the fear of not ever being good enough was still there.

I hit a low point. The darkest, deepest, depths of my depression almost swallowed me whole. I needed help.

I found a healthcare professional who helped put me on the right path to getting better. He not only listened to me and validated how I was feeling, but he gave lots of tools to put in my armoury so I could fight against the big, mean Depression monster.

Depression never goes away.

There is not a permanent cure. However, there are many things you can do to become a “high-functioning” person.

My current mental state still goes through lots of highs and lows and I am constantly learning how to deal with those moments in a healthy matter. Even now, while living my dream and getting opportunities to live and travel in some amazing places, I still have days, weeks, months where doing simple tasks is very difficult. I still make many mistakes and fall into some old habits, but I am proud of myself for doing my best to grow.

I would love to share what I do that helps calm me down in certain situations or things I do that help pull me out of a dark funk. I recommend taking a moment to step back and connect your mind and body to learn what it is that you need and to identify when you need help

So this is me in a nutshell. Far from perfect and forever changing. I like these journal-style entries, I think I’ll keep doing more of these. I had some great ones on my blog before so I might try to find and publish them again. For now, thanks for reading and talk to you again soon.