I Have Anxiety (So What?): The Unapologetic Guide to Overcoming Your Anxiety

By Wes Woodson

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders are the most common of mental disorders and will affect almost 30 percent of adults at some point in their lives. Author Wes Woodson's I Have Anxiety (So What?): The Unapologetic Guide to Owning Your Anxiety

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: May 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637302477

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I Have Anxiety (so what?)

I Have Anxiety (so what?)

How to unapologetically own your anxiety

Wes Woodson

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2021 Wes Woodson

All rights reserved.

I Have Anxiety (so what?)

How to unapologetically own your anxiety

ISBN

978-1-63676-804-5 Paperback

978-1-63730-238-5 Kindle Ebook

978-1-63730-247-7 Ebook

Table of Contents

Stop Pretending

Acknowledging

You’re Not Crazy

Hey Google, What’s Anxiety?

They Don’t Want You to Talk About It!

1-800-273-8255

Reflecting

Why Do I Feel This Way?

The Kids Are Not Alright

Taking Action

What Do I Have to Do?

Welcome to Anxiety School

Making the Proper Adjustments

Get Self-Compassionate!

Helpful Resources

Acknowledgments

Appendix

To Mom, Dad, Shannon, Mikey, and Bentley. Thank you for being my dream team.

God doesn’t bless who you pretend to be, He blesses who you truly are

Unknown

Introduction

Stop Pretending

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been living a double life.

I’ve lived much of my life behind a mask. There was the Wes everyone knew—open, high energy, funny, and always smiling. But then there was the version of myself that I only knew behind closed doors. The more I contemplate this distortion between the reality I portrayed and the reality I actually lived, I started to think of myself as a swan.

Yes, a swan.

When I was four years old, my grandmother used to bring me to the Boston Commons during summer vacations to watch the swans. I became one of the many spectators glaring at the brilliant, effortless stride of each swan. My eyes were glued as I watched them glide back and forth effortlessly across the pond. I learned their ability to glide on the surface was only possible because of their feet chaotically flapping underneath the water. And as I became older, I realized I, too, was flapping just to stay afloat.

My flapping came in many forms. For instance, I would take on too many things at once, doubt myself constantly, shake nervously, and bite my nails profusely. No one knew I was going through this, just like the spectators didn’t know what was happening underneath surface of the water for the swan. I was gliding in the eyes of the world, but in my mind and behind closed doors, I knew I was treading water, just trying to stay afloat.

When putting this book together, I wanted to finally set the story straight. I wanted to create something that would set both me and my readers free from the things holding us back from truly living our lives. I didn’t want to be seen as the swan gliding effortlessly across the water with his legs secretly flapping under water, just trying to stay afloat. I was tired of being a walking illusion and living a double life. I wanted to break free, but free from what?

Anxiety.

I wanted to break free from my anxiety—the one thing keeping me from living an authentic life. It made me suffer in silence while worrying about the things I couldn’t control. I believe that in life we reach a point where we can only take so much of one thing before we’re forced to make some type of change for the better. We can only take so much abuse, so much dread from that job, or so much sadness in a relationship until we are forced to make a change for the better. Whatever the better may be, we seek it out because we truly believe that if we don’t change, our very life as we know it loses a sense of purpose. For me, that point came when I was twenty-two years old, staring at myself in the mirror of a hospital bathroom.

I had just hospitalized myself after surviving a failed suicide attempt. While staring into the mirror in that hospital bathroom, I saw the version of myself that only came to the surface behind closed doors: anxious, depressed, ashamed, and embarrassed. But this story doesn’t begin in a hospital bathroom; instead, it begins two nights earlier, sitting in the back of a police car as two police officers stared me in the face.

Damn, I’m about to get arrested, and my parents won’t bail me out.

That’s all I could think about as I found myself living a Black man’s nightmare: being questioned by the police.

I’ve tried to dismiss much of that night as a blur, but I can’t. It’s not because I have a good memory or anything; I just couldn’t fully wrap my head around what happened in the first place. It was a February night during my time studying at my dream college. It was like I went from having all the normal stresses of a college student—feeling like the world was rapidly spinning, making it hard to find any sense of balance—to then being frozen still. That February night, my entire world froze, and my heart froze with it.

Can you tell us what happened tonight, Wes? asked the officer sternly while shining a flashlight in my face.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, I didn’t commit a crime that night, nor was I drinking. In college, I was never really a drinker. Maybe I’d sometimes enjoy a drink or two, but getting to the point of black-out drunk was never my thing. That night wasn’t any different, especially since the arguably biggest day of my college career started the next morning. I needed to focus, get energized, and be ready to field questions from the college’s administration, then play party host later the following night. Before I go any further, allow me to explain why I was stressed out of my mind.

I was the typical college student. It was my last semester of the year, which meant nothing but coasting from class to class and party to party. Besides, I had everything a college student could ever want: steady grades, a girlfriend, friends, some money, respect, and happiness. On second thought, I had everything anyone could ever want. I was finishing my last term as the president of the school’s Black Student Union, and I had just started making a profit from the clothing company I had started two years prior. However, despite all of that good, there was an underlying feeling of anxiety.

"How am I gonna keep this up? What if my girlfriend and I break up after I graduate? What if we break up before I graduate? What if my business fails? What if I’m not the president that the Black community needs me to be?"

That internal voice, also known as the self-critic, was becoming louder than any voice around me. At that point in time, I was leading the effort of trying to secure specialized housing for future students of color. The process involved getting signatures of supporters—both alumni and current students—and giving a lengthy presentation to the school’s housing board.

Simultaneously, the Black Student Union was planning our biggest event of the year. In honor of Black History Month, we planned to throw a large-scale party on campus, inviting hundreds of students from different schools across the state. Our goal was to put our school on the map and make it known that we were not just a Predominately White Institution. Obviously, that ambitious goal required a lot of coordination, planning, cross communication, and fundraising, which all started and ended with me. Although I had a team helping me bring the vision to life, I understood the leader always feels alone somehow. To my luck, both the party and the presentation were on the same day. Therefore, with all of that going on, naturally, I was nervous out of god-damn my mind.

It was like the self-critic in me was trying to prevent me from accomplishing anything I set out to do, and I continually had to fight that voice. It can be a lonely battle, which is why I didn’t really tell anyone. It was a battle happening inside of me, and I felt no one could understand. It left the invisible scars of sleepless nights, trouble breathing, loss of appetite, and being emotionally distant.

The pressure was building, and I could feel my anxiety levels rising with it. The self-critic was screaming, You’re not gonna be able to do it! You’re going to crash! Sometimes, to quiet the voice, we need to get away from whatever or whoever is making the voice loud in our heads. We must take a step back from our work and do something to get our minds off the worrying. That’s why on that February night—the night before my important presentation and the biggest BSU event ever—I went out and attended my friend’s birthday party.

However, I didn’t go alone. About a year and a half prior to that moment, I had met a girl. We both went to the same school, and she gave me the one thing I’ve always worried about losing: attention. Naturally, I quickly felt what I thought was love. I became convinced, almost from the moment I met her, that I was going to marry her. She was kind-hearted and the type of person who liked to party, so she sometimes brought me out of my shell. She would constantly tell me I was too blessed to be stressed, which I must admit, was the thing that pushed me out that night.

So, to the party we went, hand in hand. When we arrived, the atmosphere was calm; there was a chill vibe in the room with people talking to each other near the walls and drinking casually. I made myself into a wallflower and stood against the wall next to my friend’s fridge. I surveyed the room, observing the scene of regular, college-style partying playing out right before my eyes. Everyone seemed happy, relaxed, and contained while they played beer-pong on a homemade ping-pong table propped on someone’s dresser.

Watch your elbows! someone shouted as the game went on. For those of you who aren’t seasoned pong players, you’re not supposed to put your elbows past a certain point when trying to throw the ball into the cup. If you do, it’s considered cheating. Everything was loud, but I was quiet and on edge, thinking about how I wanted the next day to go. There was so much on my mind—maybe too much on my mind.

I imagined that the BSU executive board and I would present to the school’s administration cleanly and concisely, just as we’d practiced a hundred times over the course of the last two weeks. The more I sat there thinking about the presentation, the less I cared about the party. I was ready to leave. Looking back at that moment, I know I was experiencing symptoms of anxiety; I was worried about the potential outcome of the following day, which was taking me out of the present moment—so much so that I’d rather leave than stay. As I was getting ready to leave, I was unexpectedly stopped by a forceful, uncomfortable, and undesired grab between my legs.

What the hell?

I turned to see who had groped me, and it surprised me because I didn’t even want to recognize the face. It was a person whom I trusted and adored dearly. But that night, they had turned into a monster.

Chill! He doesn’t like that! someone shouted.

Oh no, someone saw.

Honestly, I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran in fear of public embarrassment with my anxiety leading the way. That night, as much as it pains me to admit, I became a victim of domestic violence. I hadn’t started that February night alone, but I ended up alone in the back of a police car with the door open and to two police officers staring me in the face. Moments before this moment, I had left the party in tears and called my mom, who then called the police.

Mr. Woodson? Can you tell us what happened? one officer repeated.

The events of that February night continue to play repeatedly in my mind like a sports highlight reel. Sitting there, in the freezing winter cold, I didn’t know where to begin. I stuffed my hands in my pockets with my head pointed down. I was ashamed. More importantly, I was embarrassed.

The events of that night made little sense. Actually, nothing made sense. How could this happen to me? What would people think if they knew? At the moment, I was afraid of people finding out what happened. But the more I think about it, I was really more concerned with people finding out about the version of myself that only came alive behind closed doors. What if people knew about the real Wes—the Wes who struggles with anxiety?

It took me over ten years to realize that men—especially men of color—don’t openly talk about anxiety, never mind trauma. Instead, we sweep it under the rug like dust in hopes of never being seen as weak or