My definition of anxiety ✹ revisited
In this series, I rummage through the Headless Greg archives, find an article from my past which I feel deserves a second lease of life, spruce it up a little and reshare it. While writing Flying Solo - an essay about navigating life independently as an anxious overthinker - I got to thinking about how much more knowledgeable about how my brain works I am now, compared to when I was younger.
This train of thought led me back to what I consider to be my mental health origin story - the first article I ever wrote about anxiety. Back in 2017, I had just started studying at art school and was still figuring out how to define and discuss my anxiety…
Over the past couple of months, since I started studying illustration at art school, I have discovered there is one subject which art students love discussing: mental health. Brain chemistry is the hot topic on everyone’s lips.
I have heard the statistics - 1 in 4 students suffer from mental health issues while studying at university - so this shouldn’t have shocked me. But, in all honesty, it did a little. I am so used to people tiptoeing awkwardly around the subject of mental health or avoiding it entirely, that tackling the topic head-on feels alien to me.
Alien can be good - very good, in this case. I want to feel more at ease taking part in these discussions because I know how important they are; I want to get comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. So I’m leaning into the discomfort to push past it.
Images from Wilson Strange, a mental-health-themed book I created at art school
‘Anxiety’ means different things to different people; each anxious person’s experience is unique. Let me explain my definition of anxiety…
For as long as I can remember, I have had a multitude of oddities in my thinking which are constantly trying to dissuade me from socialising. My brain has an annoying habit of convincing me that I don’t have anything interesting to say or that no one - not even my friends - wants me to be around me. For me, anxiety isn’t about struggling with social situations when I am actually in them, it is about overthinking social situations before and after they happen.
My anxiety was at its worst the last time I left education. I wanted to go straight from college to university but this plan was derailed when I was rejected from all of the courses I applied to. I ended up working in a job I hated, doing very little socialising and not creating anything at all. By the end of the year, I was in desperate need of a change.
As luck would have it, I had a couple of friends who were feeling equally restless. Wanting fresh scenery and new experiences, we did what so many lost twenty-somethings do - we travelled abroad to find ourselves. We rented an apartment in Barcelona for a couple of months, just around the corner from a friend who we knew could introduce us to nice people and cheap bars.
We used the money we had earned in the jobs we loathed to pay for the trip which I am aware is an extremely privileged position to be in. Don’t worry, I am not about to suggest that the way to cure mental health issues is travelling around Europe. The setting was beautiful but it was not the answer to my issues.
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For as long as I can remember, I have had a multitude of oddities in my thinking which are constantly trying to dissuade me from socialising.
Greg McIndoe
While in Barcelona, my friends and I started talking about our mental health more than ever before. We had the sort of friendship which didn’t require any tiptoeing. We dove straight into the deep end. During our weeks in Spain, more and more of our once-secret thoughts spilt out, and we sat together examining the thoughts which had been trapped inside our heads for so long.
The more we talked, the more it became clear that, although we used different terminology to describe our mental health, there was clear overlap in our experiences. There is nothing more reassuring than hearing your thoughts come out of someone else’s mouth. There were obvious similarities in how our brains treated us - and they were not behaving well.
If you are picturing me and my friends sitting sadly together and having miserable conversations about how our brains bully us, think again. Instead, imagine us laughing hysterically at how silly our brains can be over a glass of cheap sangria. That’s a much more accurate picture. Laughing at your own thoughts makes them feel so much smaller and more manageable. Belittling your anxieties - like they so often belittle you - feels empowering.
These discussions led me to take the first step in improving my mental health: realising that my brain was open to change. I had been experiencing social anxiety for as long as I could remember. Along the way, I had accepted it as a personality trait; a solid, immoveable part of my core which couldn’t possibly be tampered with. I wasn’t dealing with it, I was letting it grow.
Image from Wilson Strange, a mental-health-themed book I created at art school
I see my brain as having two sides (I know brains biologically have two different sides but I am talking metaphorically). One side is where all my logical thoughts live while the other houses all my anxieties. Whenever I receive an invitation to a social event - whether that is a wholesome picnic or a wild party - the anxious side automatically says: absolutely not. I had to start training the logical side to ask: why not? And when it persisted, keep questioning: Really though, why not? In reality, what is the worst that could happen? You’re being silly. I hadn’t questioned my anxiety in so long, it felt unnatural to but the discomfort was necessary to restore some balance.
My brain arguing with itself may sound absurd to some. For those with similarly strange brains, however, I suspect it will make perfect sense. My anxieties had been running riot for far too long and it was time for them to simmer down. I’m not sure there will ever be complete harmony inside my head but the logical side has learnt to put up a much stronger fight.
After Barcelona, we spent some time travelling around France and, on the final day of our trip, I got an email saying I had been accepted to study illustration at DJCAD in Dundee. I now knew what my next chapter would be. As I looked forward to starting art school, I felt relieved to have developed a better relationship with my brain. I still felt nervous but a little trickle of confidence had seeped into that anxious core, reassuring me that I could handle what came next.
My experience with anxiety isn’t over. I suspect it never will be. But I am proud of how far I have come. As mad as it may sound, I am pleased with how good I have become at winning arguments with my own brain.
A present-day note:
Since writing this article, I have become much more comfortable discussing mental health, both online and in person. I have benefitted immensely from hearing other people’s mental health stories. And I hope others have found some comfort in my story.
By sharing the strangeness of our brains, we remind each other that we all struggle sometimes. No matter how lonely you may feel, you are never alone. It never hurts to remind someone of that.