Dealing with Anxiety Part Two

These past few weeks I became riddled with unexpected and frankly frightening anxiety and depression that knocked the wind right out of me. I stopped writing a novel I've been working on for a year, I stopped eating, I wouldn't write a blog. I felt like a fraud. How could I write a blog about being positive when I wasn't anything near being okay?
But here I am right now because I went from being immobile to actual functioning human being that feels hope.
I am incredibly blessed to have a support system more solid than rock. I now understand those whose only solace is drugs and alcohol. When people don't get the help they need, then escape becomes their solution.
God, am I lucky to not be living in the Dark Ages where people like me would be locked up and forgotten about.
Besides going to therapy, I have some things that I've used this past month that has soothed me that I suggest to those fighting the same battle that I am.

1. Get a massage. Talk to the message therapist and just be candid and open. It's not a cheap option so I digress...
2. Donate blood. I really wanted to feel like I was doing something good and spontaneously I decided to drive over in a snow storm to go to a donation center. It was so oddly therapeutic for me. When I'm in the chair bleeding (sorry that sounded weird), I think about the people who need help. When I think about how what I'm doing is going to help people, I feel good.
3. Watch Good Will Hunting. Just trust me with that one.
4. Hug every damn person who will take a hug. I must have sat holding my grandma for half an hour when we had our holiday dinner. Nothing feels better than hugs.
5. Take a hot bath. My therapist told me that scientifically, when you take a hot bath you get psychoamnesia. Which means your stresses literally go away. (I want to spend my whole life in a bathtub)
6. Get something you can wear that reminds you to be strong. I know that I am not always going to feel bad. I also know I won't always feel good. So to prepare for the bad times, I wear a Lion ring, a cross necklace from my dad, and a bizmuth pendant from my sister. They're emblems of strength.
7. Sing your heart out. It just feels good to belt Christina Perri's "Human".

I have faith that you'll get better.

Fly with Time, Julia.