Getting it wrong. That's one of my triggers, as I learned this morning.
I need to back up here, to give you at least some chance of working out what on earth I'm talking about.
Anxiety began flirting with me a couple of months ago with, it seems, a view of forming a long term relationship. I was unprepared and initially struggled, fighting back, becoming anxious about being anxious.
A couple of weeks ago, when a date with anxiety left me breathless, I realised that what I was doing wasn't working. I am asthmatic and panicking about breathlessness is pretty much guaranteed to give me an asthma attack. I changed my tactics and started to pay attention to each bit of my body and how it was reacting to the anxiety. Fluttering around my wrists, heat in my cheeks, tightness in my chest - with each sensation I noted and acknowledged, the anxiety lesssened. I call this being 'mindfully anxious' and, for me at least, it helps. It doesn't stop the anxiety coming; I feel anxious almost every day. It just helps me to feel less threatened by it, to accept it as something that comes and goes, mostly randomly, that I can deal with.
It is mostly random, but I have identified a few triggers. I discovered a new one this morning, the getting it wrong thing. But I need to back up again, because the getting it wrong happened after I anxiously responded to a message about one of my crochet patterns, because that's another trigger; messages about my crochet patterns make me anxious. So yesterday, I opened a message on Ravelry, with anxiety sitting companionably on my shoulder, ready to start with the fluttering and tightening as I read about some confusion with my instructions and a possible issue with the pattern. I responded straight away, knowing that once I'd dealt with it anxiety would lose its balance and fall off my shoulder, for a while at least. But I missed something, didn't take time to check and my reply was unclear and not terribly helpful. No surprise that there was a reply waiting for me this morning.
That was an hour ago and although I am sure that I've solved the problem, the anxiety is still there. It feels like cold hands pressing down on my chest. It wants to prevent me from getting on with anything else and just surrender to the panic. I won't. I will continue with my current design WIP and if that doesn't work I'll make granny squares.
Crochet always wins.
And I should add, please, if you are someone struggling with one of my patterns and need some help, please please please let me know! I am a big girl now and a little squirt like anxiety shouldn't get in the way of anyone asking for advice, clarification or help.
