So a lot of you will know that anxiety is something that has plagued my life for longer than I care to remember, ever since I was a kid I have been haunted my a sick feeling in my stomach, sweaty palms and an inability to speak, leading to panic attacks of me sat breathless, unable to speak or breathe properly in a fright on the floor.

One thing I've learnt in coping with anxiety, is finding out my triggers, what makes me anxious, what triggers a panic attack etc, and alongside this, learning my behaviours when I am feeling anxious, and helping me and other people notice when I might need taking aside and having a minute. Learning these behaviours has been hard, and accepting that this is how I have learnt to cope and trying to unlearn bad methods is also difficult, but has taught me a few things. So today I thought I'd share my learnt behaviours of anxiety and hope some of you might relate.

Ignore How I'm Feeling 

Projecting 

Paranoia 

Unable To sit Still

Stop Speaking 

Anxiety is something that has wrecked my life for a while (and a while I mean my whole life lol) and is something I've spent a lot of my time and life trying to deal with and find ways of coping with it. I like to think that at 21 I have some rough idea of my triggers, of what to do when I start to feel anxious and how to deal with my anxiety, but really I'm just in the muddle of it as anyone else, but I have learnt some coping methods and want to share them with you guys too. (I'm practicing them as I write this as I've currently just ran out of the gym feeling overwhelmed and anxious, oops)

Finding Your Triggers 

I've mentioned this in my previous post How To Help Someone With Anxiety/Panic Attacks  that finding your triggers is one of the more important tips with anxiety, it's always helpful to know what is causing your anxiety and what is triggering you to feel anxious in situations. For me, I don't like overly crowded places when I'm feeling anxious already, sometimes I'm fine and sometimes I get very overwhelmed, it's also hard for me to cope with new places and new people, I turn quite shy and quiet until I've settled in somewhere and tend to feel very anxious until I've soothed.

Listen To Your Body

I recently wrote a post focusing on body image and my childhood eating disorder, (which you can catch up on here) and often I find my mind wandering to those days, but recently I've been reading Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, which feautres a chapter on her struggles with disordered eating and I found myself sobbing, remembering my own struggles and how often they pop into my head. 

I developed anorexia when I was 11/12 years old, barely into secondary school and found myself at my lowest ebb, starving myself and self-harming to deal with the thoughts I was dealing with. I would count my calories that I'd consumed throughout the day and figure out how much time I'd need to spend on the exercise bike we had at home to work them off and finally be thin enough to be beautiful. But you see that would never happen, because I would never be thin enough, be pretty enough, be worthy enough in my eyes. 

" I started going to mental health services when my mum saw my self-harm scars one morning before school and they diagnosed me with anorexia nervosa,  a serious mental illness and eating disorder where someone who is a healthy weight or underweight  thinks they are much fatter than they are and stops eating or reduces food intake to lose weight. Anorexia can affect anyone of any age or gender, and often have a very distorted view of their appearance, seeing themselves as much bigger than they really are and have a deep fear of gaining weight. You don't necessarily have to be skin and bones and the usual picture of someone with anorexia to be struggling, this can be an internal battle with food in your mind that gets your diagnosis. "