anxiety

Present and Future

noniramicitia

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I’ve lived a good portion of my life afraid of the future: worrying over getting homework in on time, getting into a good college with the right major, what sort of career I wanted, budgeting for rent and paying off loans, making grocery lists in my head, etc.

I knew, logically, that living in the future was a great source of anxiety. But I never quite realized until now exactly how much I was doing it. It all seemed so natural, because it had been instilled in me from a very young age. Make sure to plan, to save, to look forward.

I learned to be acutely aware of any and all potential consequences of even the smallest action. I held myself back from creating because I wondered if anyone would like it or if it would sell. I didn’t take opportunities because I was afraid of missing out on something else, or not being able to do it justice. I worried constantly of whether or not I was making the right choices to make my life what I wanted it to be–or if I even really knew what I wanted it to be.

So was it really any wonder I ended up the anxious wreck that I finally became these last few years?

They say to live in the moment, but so much of that advice also revolves around a lot of mindfulness practices and New Age stuff that just doesn’t resonate with me. But over the last couple of days, I’ve been more consciously mulling over my habit of living for the future.

I’ve decided it’s stupid. I know I won’t be able to shake it off entirely that easily, but I’m going to try somehow. Because life is too short and who knows what’s actually going to happen in the future, regardless of what steps I take. Obviously, I have to keep in mind “will I still be able to eat if I do X” sorts of things, but for the most part, I want to try and focus on what fulfills me now. Whether that’s quitting something that’s stressing me out instead of hanging on for potential future opportunities or getting a new tattoo doesn’t really matter.

What matters is that I’m learning to make myself happy again. And I can’t honestly believe how long it’s taken me to get back to that. Here’s hoping I can keep working toward it.

Not an Imposter

noniramicitia

(Trying something new and cross-posting from my biz blog instead of linking)

Been a
while since I’ve blogged, due to a lovely soup of exhaustion, busyness,
and anxiety. I’m not going to apologize for that, but I am going to take
a look at some of it. Because reasons.

I have two major projects in the works for this business right now:

  • An e-course on spirit work
  • A planner designed for us outcasts/spoonies/neuro-atypical folks

I’m
super excited about both of them (and I’m planning on making them both
digital, so no one has to pay exorbitant shipping), but every time I
open the files to work on them I get hit with huge waves of
anxiety and imposter syndrome. Who am I to instruct people on how to
create healthy, fulfilling relationships with non-corporeal beings? I
can barely keep my own life together, why do I think I’m qualified to
design something to help others be more organized?

The short, honest answer is that it’s my anxiety that doesn’t think I am.

Just keep swimming. Wait.  I
have over a decade of working with non-corporeal entities under my
belt. I’ve read other peoples’ accounts and had lengthy discussions with
other spirit workers. I’ve searched for resources that aren’t
culturally appropriative or homo/transphobic and don’t just gloss over
the issues inherent in dealing with spirits (and found none, btw).

I’ve
struggled with anxiety and depression and the overwhelm that comes with
trying to look at life in chunks of big goals. I still don’t really
like looking at life “five years from now” or whatever because I don’t
know where I’ll be. I need something small and easy, not huge and
terrifying–and I know I can’t be the only one.

Logically, I know
I’m “qualified” to create these things, and that they’ll likely benefit
other people. It’s just hard to remember.

Pretty much, imposter syndrome is a bitch and the only way to kick its butt is to keep moving forward.

 Even
though it’s terrifying. Even though anxiety and the world at large is
telling us that our work isn’t important or we’re not good enough. Even
though it’s so incredibly hard to believe in ourselves.

Imposter syndrome and anxiety lie. Big time.

 – Nonir

P.S. If you have anything in particular you’d like to see in either of these offerings, please drop me a line! They’re both in development and I want to make sure I’m giving you things that will actually be interesting and useful. 

FFXV Headcanons: Chocobro Badbrains

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I’ve seen a lot of fics and drabbles about Prompto’s anxiety, but I feel like he’s not the only one who deals with some neuroatypical issues. So, some headcanons about all of the bros’ bad brains and how they deal with it, with hints of OT4. (This got really, really long; fair warning.) 

Noctis

  • Definitely struggles with depression
  • Occasional existential crises about who he is beyond being the Prince of Lucis, since that took priority during most of his childhood and the development of his sense of self
  • Generally handles his issues by sleeping until he feels better
  • Noct seriously hates admitting he’s depressed or talking about it
  • Sometimes he asks Gladio for extra training to distract himself, when he has more energy than normal
  • Gladio always knows exactly why Noct’s asking and tries to sit him down for a talk instead
  • Noctis glares until Gladio gives in
  • On very rare occasions, when things are especially bad, he’ll just sit beside Ignis and rest his head on Ignis’ shoulder with his eyes closed
  • Ignis always knows what this means and will sit perfectly still until Noct decides he can move again, then makes a point of cooking one of Noct’s favorites for dinner
  • Not nearly as good at hiding it as he thinks he is and it takes the other bros a while to realize that babying him and doting on him does more harm than good
  • Which leads to a couple of awkward moments in high school, when Noct runs off to some secret hiding place in Insomnia to just get away from his friends suffocating him and everyone freaks out
  • Prompto was the one who found him first and just crawled into the bushes to sit with him in silence for a while, though it took all his self-control not to freak out when Noct started crying
  • They wound up hiding out together and talking about their various issues for hours, until it started raining and they slunk back to Noct’s apartment
  • Where Ignis and Gladio were frantically organizing a search party with half the Crownsguard and a handful of Glaives because Noct had never disappeared so completely and for so long before
  • Noct sheepishly apologized and was swept up into a huge hug with Ignis and Gladio squeezing him half to death
  • He slept a full twenty-four hours after that

Prompto

  • Generalized anxiety is his unfortunate jam
  • He’s anxious about everything all the time but has learned to cope with it by being unbelievably optimistic in the hopes that someday he’ll believe his own cheer
  • Also struggles with self-harming tendencies, but not necessarily the super-obvious ones
  • For example, he doesn’t cut or anything, but will sometimes scratch gently at his wrist, and often uses food as a subtle punishment for himself when things get particularly bad
  • Ignis is the first one to notice that Prompto often either denies himself food or gorges on stuff he doesn’t normally like
  • When he tries to gently probe for information, Prompto initially tries to brush it off
  • But he finally admits to it when Ignis catches him trying to feed green curry to his chocobo after a couple of particularly awful battles
  • After that, Ignis makes a point of sitting down with him and talking any time he notices Prompto attempting to punish himself
  • Physical contact helps ground and calm him most of the time, and once he trusts the boys, he’ll hold hands or snuggle up as often as possible, especially when something’s piquing his anxiety

Ignis

  • Ignis is the master of hiding his own anxieties and mental issues, for better or worse
  • He’s the type to completely bury everything he sees as problematic or inconvenient under his duties and responsibilities and literally working himself so hard he has no room to dwell on them
  • Seriously, this man puts everyone else’s wellbeing so much higher than his own, he’ll literally be cuddling Prompto and cooking Noct’s favorite foods and reading aloud to Gladio all while trying to stave off his own panic attack
  • Of course, when the bad brain hits, it hits hard
  • He has a mix mild generalized anxiety, OCD, and hyper-responsibility, so he takes everything personally even when it’s not his fault
  • So when things go wrong, he winds up secretly freaking out and beating himself up for a long time and doesn’t really know how to talk about it with the others because he feels like he should be able to handle it on his own
  • He winds up chewing his nails and cuticles all to shit as both a part of the OCD and as a shitty coping mechanism, which he hides and tries to stop by wearing gloves
  • It doesn’t always work and he’s ruined several pairs of good gloves by unconsciously chewing or picking at them when he’s freaking out
  • Gladio’s the only one who saw Ignis’ issues before they became a near-constant presence after Altissia, and he always tries to help Iggy calm down however he can
  • Cooking generally helps, but when he spirals, Ignis’ hands tend to shake and he can’t hold steady enough to make the pretty knife cuts he prides himself on, which only makes things worse
  • When it gets that bad, Gladio will come up behind him, gently hold his hands to keep them from shaking as he cooks, and kiss Ignis’ throat and cheeks over and over until he can breathe easier
  • Ignis is also a master of silently crying himself to sleep when the world gets too much
  • He just really can’t stand the thought of burdening anyone else with his own issues

Gladiolus

  • Gladio’s the kind of guy who staunchly denies he has a problem until someone shoves it in his face with undeniable proof
  • He has some anger management/emotional repression issues to begin with and develops PTSD after Insomnia falls, which only gets worse as the roadtrip goes on, between all the crap these poor boys deal with and Gladio refusing to talk about it
  • Oh, and don’t forget those pesky low self-esteem issues he denies exist even though he was taught that his life meant nothing next to Noct since he was a kid (why do you think he’s so gung ho about that massive ego and flirting with everyone and generally showing off?)
  • He’s not quite as bad about trying to take the whole world onto his shoulders as Ignis is, but he does still have tendencies toward self-blame for things that aren’t his fault, especially in regards to Noct’s safety and Iris’ life
  • Which is part of the reason he gets PTSD after the fall of Insomnia–blaming himself for not protecting both Noct and his sister, the loss of his father, and losing everything all at the same time
  • Gladio’s issues generally come out in anger, frustration, and physical lashing out
  • He feels absolutely awful afterward, but in the moment, he just can’t control himself because he never learned how to deal with intense emotions properly
  • Maybe surprisingly, Noctis is the one who first puts the pieces together and forces Gladio to sit down and talk about it
  • The talk doesn’t really go well and Gladio winds up punching a boulder until his knuckles are bloody and crying in front of his prince
  • Once Gladio slumped to his knees and starts sobbing, Noct scooted closer and just wrapped an arm around him and they sat in silence for a while until Gladio could start stringing words together and awkwardly trying to work through his feelings
  • It helped a little, but Gladio was still uncomfortable actually talking about it, especially with his prince
  • So Noct talks discreetly with Ignis and convinces him to try and help Gladio find some better coping methods
  • They try some things on the downlow, pretending everything is pretty much okay to keep Noct and Prompto from getting concerned, and eventually hit on Ignis reading aloud to him and giving him something else to focus on
  • After some trial and error, they realize that poetry from the Lucian Romanticism phase seem to work the best and Ignis started stocking up on poetry books everywhere he can find them
  • Eventually, Noct and Prompto catch on, but keep pretending not to know to avoid upsetting Gladio–with the exception of helping Ignis track down books, and they both memorize a few to mutter to Gladio at choice moments, catching him by surprise

Bonus: all the boys together

  • These boys are all so close, their issues can accidentally exacerbate each other just as much as they can help
  • There have been several times when one of them goes off (generally Prompto or Gladio) and the others all spiral, trying to help or keep it together
  • The absolute worst time was when Ignis hit rock bottom and couldn’t stop chewing on his hands and completely freaking out
  • None of the others knew what to do, so they wound up kind of awkwardly piling in the tent around Ignis and holding his hands so he couldn’t chew his nails and Gladio read all the poetry books and Prompto cuddled everyone and Noct kept almost dozing off and they were all an absolute wreck
  • But they made it through together and were all super careful around each other for like a week afterward

weird things anxiety causes you to do:

noniramicitia

reblogable-memes:

  • go 40 minutes without blowing your nose when you have a cold so you don’t have to loudly blow it in front of a group of people
  • use extremely dull pencils because you don’t want to sharpen them because that is also loud
  • not order what you actually want to eat because people might think it’s strange
  • not wear the clothes you want to wear
  • wear the clothes you want to wear and then spend the whole day worrying that everyone is judging you
  • put down every accomplishment you have ever made for fear of being looked at as different
noniramicitia

Tfw someone leaves a negative note on the first part of a project and your anxiety decides the only appropriate course of action is to read the comment twelve times and self-destruct the project in question because it’s obviously an awful idea even though other people said they were really excited about it.

Image noniramicitia

This is my “about to launch a new product” face. Magic on Ice: Five Pop Culture Spells Inspired by #YuriOnIce is coming soon to #Etsy and #Amazon! Spells to ease #anxiety, increase #confidence, help you reach #goals, and more, all inspired by the Yuri on Ice anime. I might look contemplative and slightly evil, but I’m super excited to share this little e-spellbook! #magic