Sometimes your thoughts can be worse than the actual circumstances surrounding you. If you’re like me, you know what it’s like to spiral. And by spiral I mean, this: 

“I haven’t finished my notes for class yet this week. Oh my gosh I’m going to fail. But I don’t feel like doing them, I’ll be fine. But I need to or I’ll fail and won’t be a nurse. Then I won’t be able to do work in the clinic in Haiti. Then everyone will think I’m a failure. It’s fine, I’ll be alright. Can the people around me tell that I’m having anxious thoughts and spiraling? Just smile and engage and they won’t know. No one can know you’re stressed. You have to be strong so that when others are hurting and need your help, they’ll come to you because they don’t know you’re hurting too. If I just ignore my stress it will go away.” 

That’s not even the half of it. Some days I feel so much joy and thankfulness for life, then there are days where I can’t sit still for even a second because if I do, my thoughts start to race and begin to consume me. Today is one of those bad days. For whatever reason, I can’t keep myself from spiraling and rethinking every moment in my life that caused me stress. I am rethinking conversations that I had months ago and worrying that I should have said things differently. I am picturing myself up on the stand in the court room and experiencing every ounce of anxiety that I felt then. I keep reminding myself of all I have lost and gone through these past two and a half years. And although I am feeling all of these emotions and cannot seem to break the cycle of unwanted thoughts, I can’t help but push them away and worry more about the people around me rather than my own mental and physical health.

I wish that I could love and take care of myself half as much as I feel the need to do for others. I feel like I have more of a purpose when I am helping someone else. I get to put all of my struggles aside and focus on fixing someone else’s issues. As much as I think this helps me, I’ve started to realize that it may be causing me to spiral even more. If we don’t love and take care of ourselves as much as we do others, how can we be fully equipped to help them? Maybe the best thing we can do is take a break from constantly fixing others problems and work on ourselves so then when others need us, we can be fully present.

These past few months I have started praying more than ever before. It’s become so natural to me, that whether I’m closing my eyes to go to sleep or I’m driving, I just start to talk to God like he is physically there beside me. Although praying does help me destress and relax, sometimes I just get so frustrated that God doesn’t just make me feel better on the spot. I know that’s not how it works, and he works in ways that we sometimes don’t see until years later, but sometimes it just sucks. 

So to anyone who struggles with anxiety and frustration when you don’t feel that God is answering your prayers, you’re not alone. Take care of yourself first so that you are fully equipped to take care of others. God will always answer your prayers and comfort you when you need it.