This is one of the hardest topics I am gonna write about because it’s deeply personal and I think it’s high time I let my thoughts out and share it publicly. People who are dear to me already know about this in some form and they have been wonderful in supporting me through highs and lows and I am forever grateful to them but overall the journey to understand and manage anxiety can never be generalised and specific to every individual. And this is my own story
Over the last few months, I have been digging through my family history and it seems like anxiety disorder runs across generations. Although they don’t have modern medicine like us to put a name on this but in one way or the other, some of my family members experienced this in their lives. I could use the word suffer but that feels very antagonistic towards the feeling
My grandma and my mother both suffered health anxiety growing up, especially my grandma. She conceived 10 children and three of them succumbed to infant mortality and my best guess is that’s the trigger. As she started to grow old, she became very protective of her kids. Every twitch, pain, ache, she used to run to hospital to get things treated. And this anxiety has been passed onto my mother
While I was growing up, I remember spending significant amount of my time wandering around hospitals. If I remember it correctly, I think I suffered from some sort of lung infection which is common in kids but my mom was extra careful. Every cough, sneeze or fever, we used to run to the hospital and I think most of my childhood, I ended up gulping a lot of medicine including several antibiotics. I wasn’t that sporty either but I guess harsh surroundings especially unhygienic conditions around me and being young and all, the immune system became stronger and stronger as I grow old. I got better physically but emotionally I carried the anxious gene. It took me a while to realise this.
Apart from health anxiety, I also developed anxiety towards uncertainty. people who know me well know that I have always been very risk averse and the reason for that starts from childhood. our financial means are quite low and on top of that high interest debts start to crush the peace in our family on a daily to daily basis. while most kids wish for a new toy or something, I used to wish for a day where a random stranger don’t show up at our door step and starts pestering us for money. That feeling still continues to this day where my heart rate increases everytime a random stranger shows up at my door.
I took over financial responsibilities of the family when i was 21 and It’s been a decade of highs and lows. I cleared out all the debt, bought an apartment in India for us, helped my brother pursue his higher education while supporting the family on a monthly to monthly basis. Now, I feel a bit free because my brother started to share half of the responsibility and financially, we have nothing to complain about
But emotionally, the last decade had its moments. there were times I felt so alone and that I have to do this all by myself. Sure, mother and father did their best but the needs and wants didn’t match with their income hence I have to do most of the heavy stuff. Imagine you are in your 20s working hard but only most of your reward ( earnings ) end up to take care of the family. Don’t get me wrong. I am not complaining about it. The privileged life I lead right now is due to the sacrifices my parents made for us so in a way, this is my way of thanking them. But emotionally, it’s still hard on me. Not because I have to support them every month but thinking about the consequences what would happen to the family If I take a break from my job or even lose it for few months. Every time I build up my savings account, there’s a need here or there which puts a dent on it and the cycle repeats. Finally the cycle broke couple years ago since my brother started to share responsibility and my income increased significantly. But during the first eight years of the decade, I barely took any risk. kept doing a very steady job, calculated every move of mine very well and boy, that was taxing. I left so many interesting opportunities in terms of entrepreneurship just because I couldn’t afford the risk and the fact I was going against what I love to do definitely put a toll on me. Despite having the financial means, I still worry about the family and me in the case I stop working. Not rational at all.
And the third, the societal pressure of me finding a partner. I am 31 years old and If you have to describe me, my values are a blend of European and Indian. I love my individualism but also deep respect and gratitude towards the collectivism from India. As a product of this melting pot of cultures, It has its own charms but definitely has its caveats. It took me some time to get a clarity on what I want in terms of relationships. I want to raise a family with the woman I love but over the years unknowingly, I have become more selective. I have met some wonderful people over the years but nothing turned into something long lasting. I don’t complain about it because it’s my choice to let go off some people who really liked me so I don’t have right to complain when the other does the same. I respect individual choice and freedom. But this is all hard to explain to my conservative and orthodox parents. For them, relationship / marriage is a contract where we match people together and let them figure out things on their own as the time progresses. This goes completely against my core beliefs and principles. Me exploring and at the same time managing my parents is like walking on a tight rope and it’s been hard on me emotionally and physically
Combining all of these things along with intense work year ( I have been working with a startup for the last one year ) created a cocktail of emotions which I cannot keep inside anymore and it keeps busting out now and then. Instead of treating the root cause of these issues, I started to apply patch work to the effects and that was unfruitful.
While growing up, I was always told that a man needs to be tough or at least he needs to act tough. He cannot cry, express his feelings and in a way a part of me concurred with these narrow minded ideas for a very long time. I used to keep everything within and act like everything is normal. My coping mechanism was look at all the things I have achieved and experienced but completely ignore all the hardships under the pretext that everyone goes through this and it will go away.
I realised that it doesn’t go away and it just keeps adding up layer by layer. over the years, I read a lot about philosophy, consciousness and human psychology starting from the classic works of nietzsche, marcus aurelius and to modernists like Popper, Becker, Sam Harris. philosophy is messy and confusing and everyone has their own opinion on things. It’s neither correct nor wrong and it can never be generalised. the more and more I read about things, the more and more I got confused. It felt like an abyss and you are drowned in lot of information and there’s no way you can build a framework to make sense of it. Lots of contradictions to each other and nothing that can be applied to practical life.
That’s when I discovered Naval Ravikant and his tweets. He talks in length about practical philosophy and through him I discovered the works of Kapil Gupta. In a way, Kapil embodies buddhist philosophies and things started to fall in place in my head. But Kapil work is not to be taken easily. His content is concise but the more you try to make sense out of it, the less you make progress. Here are the biggest questions that everyone goes through their life
- what’s the meaning of life? what’s your purpose to get up everyday?
- what’s happiness and how can a man achieve the ever lasting happiness?
There might be more important questions but these two stuck out quite a lot. I will answer them in my own way based on my understanding and sincere / serious search for truth
Instead of doing patch work to my problems, I have decided to understand and observe the root cause of my anxiety. no solutions. just understanding. where it arises, when it arises, what bodily movements / feelings I go through when it happens. instead of running away from it, I am gonna stand in front of it and face it. This is Exposure. Exposure to the things which makes you uncomfortable. Exposure to understand your fears / worries. Exposure to come closer to the truth one step at a time. As Kapil puts, any solution to the problems lies deep inside the problem itself and I strongly believe that.
Life itself has no meaning. Anything that’s mortal has no meaning and our purpose of life is to experience every moment we are alive to the fullest until we perish. Nothing more, nothing less. The way you would experience depends on the individual. My choice is a form of Ikigai and slow living. Ikigai means “The reason for being” and slow living means being mindful about every moment you are awake. I love what I do and I would like to do it as long as possible at the pace I am comfortable with.
Happiness, Joy, Sorrow, Sad, Anger, Rage these are all the emotions that created by our mind. The idea of self is an illusion your mind has created for you and it makes you a puppet in its show. It take seriousness and sincerity to go above and beyond to realise what’s real. we don’t need happiness. we need freedom. not freedom of the mind. freedom from the mind. Existence is the highest virtue and probably the only real thing in this world and consciousness itself is an illusion that our mind created. I understand these words but I myself gets lost because these are the things that are easy to say but hard to make sense. My journey continues.
If you are expecting that there’s a four step process to manage your anxiety, you would be wrong. There are no steps. Those are prescriptions and what works for me is not gonna work for others. But here’s what I am doing to manage things
- Don’t run away from the effects. Expose. Most of the time, it turns out to be nothing. This creates a positive reinforcement cycle with your mind
- Be gentle on oneself. Let emotions be. Bad or good. Breathe
- Slow living. Every activity you do, be more present. Don’t rush against the clock. No prize for first place winners
- Write. Writing helps you to explore your thoughts seriously
- Build a mental framework. The body goes to fight or flight mode usually when there’s no mechanism to handle things and you need to minimise that as much as you can
- If you can, do something you love. Read about Ikigai
- Share things. Yes, share a lot. with friends and family. It’s not for sympathy but more to let things out
- Be active
- Eat healthy and reduce your caffeine / alcohol consumption
- Explore the world with genuine curiosity. Try out new stuff frequently
- Mindfulness. Box breathing, Pranayama. Practice holding your breath for 2-3 minutes
- And last but not least, learn how to let things go. The more you free yourself from effects of uncertain events, you get step closer
These things might change in the future. More additions or probably change the whole perspective but that’s okay. the only constant thing in this world is the change and I embrace that.
I didn’t polish this nor I intend to. I would like to keep this raw, fresh without any modifications because the moment I start to modify, It becomes a piece I wrote for others. No, I wrote this for myself and one’s thoughts are always messy