When I get stressed out, I turn to Pinterest.

When I realize that I may have sent that email a little too hastily, or I’ve written a blurb or some kind of poem that I think now is just so juvenile, or I take myself on a guilt trip by thinking about how much I may be wasting my days and/or nights, I turn to something that requires no brainpower whatsoever. I turn to Pinterest.

I remember when I would prepare my things to go to a coffee shop for my regular “writing days” a few years back, and I would pack my computer and its charger, a notebook and a pen, and some headphones to drown out the overall noise of the coffee shop. While packing my things in a backpack or tote, I would also prepare myself with the fact that I would not be able to stay at the coffee shop for as long as I wanted to. I knew that by the end of hour two or even halfway into hour two, that I would start to feel this bubbling-up sensation—which I now know to be anxiety—and it would start in my hands, then my torso, and fill up all the way to my head, and then I would experience what felt like every possible emotion and feel every possible thought, all at once. The thoughts would vary, but they’d usually stick with the classics, such as:

“You’re too stupid to write anything of substance,” or
“No one wants to hear what you have to say anyway, so why even start writing?”

…and then some jabbing comments about myself or how I looked would be peppered in as well. With all of these thoughts bombarding me and overwhelming emotions rising up within me, I would find myself paralyzed and unable to continue with what I was writing. So, I’d tell myself, “It’s okay, I’ll just go on Pinterest—” and add in the lie, “it’s what I wanted to do anyway.” So, for the next thirty minutes or so in an attempt to subdue the thoughts and wait for that bubbling sensation to subside, I would scroll through the pictures, pinning some and clicking on a few. I always felt so disappointed in myself for somehow allowing this internal timer to go off without me setting it, alerting me that I had to get the hell out of there, now, and taking me away from doing something that I loved.

It wasn’t until recently, when I was talking with my therapist, that I tried a mindfulness exercise. I told her from the get-go, in our very first meeting, “I have intense anxiety and depression, and because of this, I pull my hair out. And when I pull my hair out, I feel even more anxious and depressed, which then keeps the cycle going. This cycle seems to be doing a great job of keeping me from actually living in my life, and I feel as though I’m just simply surviving.” We talked more about this, what my childhood was like, what new things I was discovering about myself, and the different circumstances life was throwing at me, good and bad. There have only been a few people with whom I’ve felt like I can openly talk about how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking, and she was beginning to feel like a new one I could add to the list.

After I debriefed her on my life up until that point, she asked if I knew what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy was—ACT for short. I said no, and she said that it’s pretty much mindfulness exercises. I do yoga pretty regularly and I’m also in my head at least 90% of the day, overthinking almost anything you or I could possibly think of, so I thought that this would be an easy task. I agreed to try it, so she got out her book and told me to get comfortable and close my eyes. I had told her that I wanted to work on my anxiety because it had been the thing that was most troubling to me—and what kickstarts the hair-pulling and depression—so she flipped through a few pages and began reading a prompt. She told me to think about and try to feel what it’s like when I am my most anxious self. She told me to imagine those feelings and those thoughts and to picture them all as a single object. That bubbling sensation came back with ease and had begun to spread from my hands, to my torso, to my head, and it all just tumbled back and forth, back and forth, gaining momentum within. I did what she said, and for some reason, I pictured a hideously-stitched sweater as the embodiment of my anxiety. You couldn’t see where one color stopped or started—it was just all one big clump of sweater. I was wearing the sweater and it was incredibly baggy on me, yet it felt tight on my body to the point that I was being enveloped in a possessive hug. I weirdly knew that if I tried to resist the hug, that the sweater would just grow tighter, heavier. Seeming to hear my thoughts, my therapist reminded me, “Sit with these feelings, whether good or bad. Don’t push them away.” So, I sat with them. The uncomfortable thoughts and feelings came, and I sat with them and listened. She gently told me that “No matter how difficult or unsettling these feelings are, no matter how much you want to shove them to the side, just remember that these feelings cannot get larger than yourself.”

“…these feelings cannot get larger than yourself.”

For years, I had been going to different counselors who were all trying to help me delve into my past, talk it out, and then find coping mechanisms for when I wanted to pull my hair and/or felt depressed and/or dealt with anxiety. They all tried getting me to find “other ways” that I could distract myself from what I was feeling, so I’ve tried using fidget toys, obsessively exercising, and even actively “switching my thinking” by telling myself that I don’t have to be feeling this way, that I could simply change my way of thinking and the other harmful tendencies would dissipate as well. Personally, these tactics just didn’t cut it; they would help to lessen the intensity of the feelings slightly, but no matter how hard I tried to push away the negative thoughts, they kept coming back, as powerful as ever. After four or five failed attempts at medications and therapists that tried to shove religion and replacement activities down my throat, I resolved to supplements and a different therapist. The supplements have been an ongoing trial and error but have overall been a positive addition, and the mindfulness exercises that my therapist has gone through with me are now a tool that I use to help me when anxiety, depression, and the urge to pull my hair come back. Trying to shove my negative thoughts and feelings away and pretending like they didn’t exist did not help me in the least. But sitting with them, acknowledging them, and realizing that they will never get bigger than me is how I’m starting to be able to do more than just survive.

Reagan Fleming