“I definitely see this in other people who are very type A, very control oriented, very black and white thinking, all or nothing. And so maybe if you are some of these things, anxiety is part of your picture.” - Dawn Calvinisti

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Overcoming Anxiety with Dawn Calvinisti

Welcome to Imperfection in Progress, a podcast for ambitious women who are people-pleasers, perfectionists, or procrastinators. Want to feel less stress and more joy in your life? Then this is for you. I’m your host Dawn Calvinisti.

I’m Dawn Calvinisti, the host of this podcast and today I’m going solo to share my story of anxiety disorder that at one point ruled my life. Today I run multiple businesses, live with my husband, 3 kids, and 3 chihuahuas in Guatemala and rarely deal with anxiety.

You can learn more about my at www.pursueprogress.com

I hope by sharing my struggles with anxiety and its impact on my daily life and business, it will encourage you to prioritize self-care and seek support from those who will lift you up and help you through this time in your life.

Now onto the episode.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Dawn Calvinisti: Hey, welcome to the podcast. This week is a little bit different. It's really my first solo full length episode, and I hope that it really benefits you in an area that I think is super important, especially because I do see this with people pleasers and perfectionists and procrastinators not always in a clinical sense, but definitely it hangs out there.

So this month we are focusing on anxiety. Today, I'm going to share a little bit about my story with anxiety. It's a journey that was over many years. I definitely had very limiting anxiety and I definitely do not experience hardly any anxiety anymore, except for what seems to be appropriate. And I want to give people who deal with this, first of all, hope that there is Life on the other side and even life during the journey.

And I hope that throughout this month as you hear the other people that are going to be speaking on the podcast, you'll feel that as well. And if you're not somebody who deals with a ton of anxiety or it's not, clinical, it's not a disorder, Then even if you experience times where you're just super stressed and you go to anxious mode or you get really worried over something that the tools and the skills that we talk about will be things that you can use and implement to help you through any of those circumstances.

I also think if you're a mom, if you're a parent, if you are even just in close contact with nieces, nephews, grandkids, and you notice that anxious tendencies in little people in your life, then hopefully you can take some things away from this as well that can help you help them to experience less of this type of anxiety and know the tools and resources to calm it down.

And I think that's one of the things that I most Hope will happen is that this can be expanded on and passed down because I had no resources and no tools When this first started in my life, and I know that was just the time we didn't know a lot of things And so I really want this to be something that can help those who are listening in many many capacities So first of all, I want to mention that May next month is mental health awareness month.

And so this month in April and next month, we're actually focusing on just two areas that are under mental health. This month is anxiety. Next month we're talking about ADHD in adults. And so I hope that this benefits you and that even if, again, you don't deal with this, I am sure people who do.

Partially because 19. 1 million adults in the U. S. ages 19 to 54 deal with anxiety disorder of some sort. And 301 million people in the world deal with anxiety. It is the most common mental disorder. Some of the things that are underneath this would be considered panic attacks, generalized anxiety, agoraphobia a specific phobia.

for that. social anxiety disorder, PTSD, obsessive compulsive disorder, separation anxiety. So there's a number of things that are classed under anxiety disorder. And another thing that I think is super interesting is that 23. 4 percent of females are experiencing anxiety disorder, whereas it's only 14. 3 percent of males.

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[DAWN CALVINISTI]

So it's much more prevalent in females than males. Also 31. 1 percent of U. S. adults will experience anxiety disorder at some point in their life. And of people who deal with anxiety disorder, 22. 8 percent find it seriously impairs their life, 33. 7 percent finds it moderately impairs their life, and 43. 5 percent have mild impairment from anxiety disorder.

And the other statistic that I think is important is that 13 to 18 year olds, 31. 9 percent of them experience anxiety disorder. So that's a third. in that age range. Part of what I want to say today is really just my own journey. And I think even before we start, I want to say, just a bit of a disclaimer.

I am not a medical professional. If you need help, if somebody needs help dealing with anxiety, speak to your caregiver. This is not in place of good, solid medical help and support. This is just to bring awareness. and to maybe give some tools and ideas of ways that you can help support yourself or others if they're dealing with this.

And also to be aware of what it is like to be dealing with an anxiety disorder. So on this week's episode, I'm going to share a bit of my journey in a couple of weeks. I'm going to share the tools and the tips and strategies that I have used and that I continue to use in helping myself with anxiety, helping others deal with anxiety and cope with anxiety.

So my story really starts when I had no idea that this is what it was. When I was very, very young, I would wake up in the night and I would just have a feeling of absolute dread. And I was really young. I would say the first instance that I can actually remember, I was maybe Oh, six years old. So it might've been happening before that, but that's the first instance that I remembered.

And I woke up in the night and I just had this feeling of dread, like something horribly, horribly horrible was about to happen. And I didn't know what it was, but it was going to destroy everything, ruin everything maybe hurt everybody that I loved. And it was just this impending sense of doom and not being able to get control of my mind, my body, my heart racing, my thoughts in my head.

And of course, being that young, I couldn't explain that to my parents. All I could do was cry and be afraid. And it just seemed like I was having a nightmare, I'm sure, to them. And I'm sure that's how it looked. But in reality now, on the other side of it, I realize that's where panic attacks started in my life.

And if this bothers you to hear this, if this makes you anxious to hear this episode, I understand. And if this is not time for you to hear it, then don't listen to this episode. It's okay. Or come back later. But I do want you to know, I don't stay in this place. I am in a very healthy place now. And maybe if you experience anxiety, and what you want to hear is that there's hope that you don't always have to be there, then maybe you do want to listen.

So I just want to give you that permission to let go of this episode if it's not for you right now. From there, really throughout my childhood. I really struggled with separation when my parents would leave to go out somewhere and I was left at home up into probably being 12 or 13 years old. I would panic completely when they had to leave the house.

I was okay after I was distracted. So I was okay after a while, but it was the kind of separation that you would maybe see in a two or three year old, but it was still happening for me at that age. And again, I didn't know what that was. So this was not something that was talked about. Mental health wasn't talked about, like none of these.

Things were talked about and anxiety certainly wasn't a disorder that people knew what it was or had to find it or talked about symptoms or ways of coping and for me, it really probably just kind of stayed a bit dormant would sneak in and out at different times of stress, but nothing to the degree I had when I was really young.

It wasn't until after my first child that it showed up again with full out, waking in the night, be panicking being really, really afraid. And so I have to say, this is also the time, and if you've listened to other episodes, you know that there's been times where I've been such a perfectionist, such a people pleaser.

And so the process over the last, probably 15 years or more of unwinding that unraveling that and getting layer by layer peeled back so that I am not feeling that I'm operating in those places that is so different today, but when anxiety was striking in my 30s. in my early 30s, that's when perfectionism and people pleasing was also the most dominant in my life.

And I definitely see this in other people who are very type A, very control oriented, very black and white thinking all or nothing. And again, you've heard this on the podcast, you've heard about these types of things, but anxiety also was part of my picture. And so maybe if you are you know, some of these things, anxiety is part of your picture, or maybe it's not, or maybe just sometimes it shows up.

And again, it doesn't always have to be panic. It could just be replaying something over and over. That was one of my go tos, how I could have done it better, how I should have, what I should have said, maybe what it, should have looked like at the end of the day, feeling like a bad mom. If I raised my voice, if I got angry, if I was upset with my daughter, if I didn't have patience and then replaying, like maybe I shouldn't have been a mom, maybe I'm not cut out for this.

I'm not, I'm doing a disservice to my child. Like just again, all kinds of thoughts and the standards to which I was holding myself as that perfectionistic woman were impossible to live up to. And so that would again,

And so this went on for a number of years in my 30s probably two or three years until after my second child was born and it was really, really bad. And I had I had seen a mental health professional before I had my kids because of just feeling like, Something was, wasn't right. Like my brain wasn't right.

It raced too much. I would overthink. I would go to negative thoughts all the time. I couldn't see the good side of things. And so, on suggestion of somebody else who just said, maybe you should just check if there's something going on with your brain. And I was very grateful for that suggestion because I'd never, never even thought about it.

spoke to a mental health professional, a doctor and went through a screening process. And during that screening process, one of the things that was asked was, have I ever stayed up all night and been unable to sleep and could have stayed like that for two or three nights in a row and just, keeping busy, never really relaxing.

And I responded yes to that. And part of what that indicated to the professional was that This was an indicator of bipolar, but the reasoning behind was never asked. So I was put on medication for bipolar symptoms and yet I didn't know I wasn't bipolar. The reason I stayed up and didn't, sleep at night and could do that for a couple of nights in a row and didn't relax was because if I went to sleep, I was afraid I would have a panic attack and so I wouldn't sleep and I would stay busy all the time to keep from being bipolar.

Going down that spiral because I was running from anxiety and running from being afraid and yet I didn't even know it was anxiety I didn't know that was the term for it.

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[DAWN CALVINISTI]

And so it wasn't until after my second child was born and I heard somebody like this is so silly to me now But wow, what a what great timing I heard someone on TV talking about Anxiety and their experience with anxiety and their journey and the things that she was saying about how it was displaying and how it was her heart racing and not being able to, to get control of her thoughts and feeling like Like, butterflies in her stomach and then, her, her stomach going crazy and having to race to the bathroom and having this severe sweating and like tingling in her body rapid breathing and restlessness and trouble concentrating and all these things that she was mentioning and suddenly the lights went on and I realized I have anxiety. This isn't what I'm experiencing. It's anxiety. I'm not bipolar. So I went back to my health professional and I spoke to him and I told him what I had seen and I expressed what I was feeling again.

And he agreed. It had nothing to do with bipolar and we talked about why originally it was diagnosed as bipolar. And he recognized, no, that the reason that I, wasn't sleeping was the anxiety. And yet he had put me on medication for bipolar. And it did ease the anxiety for a time, eventually it stopped working, but it did for a time.

And so I asked him, well, how come that helped me? And he said, because that particular medication also can help with anxiety. So that made a lot more sense to me. And because there were options of dealing with anxiety in ways without using medication, I wanted to try that first. And so I was open to medication, so I'm, I'm not going to speak on that at all.

Again, I'm not a health professional in that sense. I did have the option. I knew that was always an option. And so as I started to. read more and investigate more and, check internet, which was, then totally normal and usable, which it wasn't when I was young. Then I started to understand, okay, there are a lot of options and ways that I can approach this.

And some of those were first just recognizing the thought that would come, or the very first body symptoms that would come before the feelings of anxiety. Sometimes it was recognizing that anxiety was a just there when I woke up in the morning and kind of just stayed throughout the entire day.

And sometimes it was recognizing that, this was a rougher day than others. And I am going to share a lot of the tools and techniques on an upcoming episode of Anxiety. But I don't want to make this super long. So I do want to tell you that some of the very first things that helped me were number one, knowing that it was anxiety.

Anxiety. having an actual label on it so that I could choose what I wanted to do and how I wanted to approach it. Number two was recognizing that anxiety wasn't going to hurt me. Like, yes, we know a lot more now about the, the problems that anxiety can cause as far as sleep and physical health and all of that.

But the reality was, I could choose to allow it to happen and be okay with it happening without running and being afraid that it was going to happen. And that was probably one of the things that was the most beneficial because every time that I was afraid that, Oh no, here comes the feeling. Oh no, here comes the body symptoms.

Then it would just ramp up and ramp up and I would go into a spiral. But when I started to tell myself, yep, it's anxiety. Yeah. It's coming, but you know what, it goes away, so I just need to write it out just that thought itself started to minimize the severity of the anxiety and minimize my ability to just be Be worried all the time, and it started to calm the body symptoms because I was starting to say to my brain like, you're still safe.

Even if you're experiencing anxiety right now, you're still safe and it's okay. You're here in your home. You can go and make yourself some breakfast. You can have a cup of tea, you can sit down. and relax. I definitely couldn't have read a book or, focused on work or anything like that. My brain was definitely too busy kind of spinning in circles and that was a harder thing until I really got a better grasp on anxiety.

But it let me know that I was safe and I think if Anxiety is something that comes up for you or even just worry, right? Something just happens and you get really worried or you're very anxious even for something that's legitimate Maybe one of your children hasn't come home yet and you're worried and they were supposed to call and they didn't call Even just being able to say to your brain, it's okay You're that's not in your control right now, sit down, relax, or walk around the block and put on some music, but doing something to allow your mind to feel like it's It is taken care of that you personally, your body personally is not in harm's way and to continue to move your mental state and your body at the same time into a better place.

And so for me, that was, I guess, the start of coming out of very severe anxiety. And I will tell you, if you're somebody who experiences. Anxiety to a severe degree. I understand at, at one point I was afraid to leave the house. I would really limit my time out of the house and keep it very, very private.

I guess specific, like I would just make it that it was for exactly this long. We were not stopping anywhere else on the way or on the way back. It was just get there, do the thing that needed to be done and get home. It limited my social going out and coming back and being around people. So I know what it's like to be severely limited by anxiety, but I also know what it's like to recognize that anxiety is in your mind.

Anxiety is created by your mind, and in some strange way, anxiety is created by your mind. to try to keep you safe. So if you can start to speak to your mind about the fact that you are safe in this moment, you are okay in this moment, you are capable and you know consciously aware of your surroundings and everything is okay right now with you.

You will find your mind will start to relax and calm and your body then will follow behind. We know that our thoughts create our feelings. Right? So our thoughts come first, our feelings come second. So if we can allow that to, allow that to soothe our minds, then you will find that anxiety starts to back off and be less extreme and less prolonged or at least that's my experience of it.

And I hope that that can serve you well until we can talk more about some other tools and techniques and things that I found that really helped me and others over that. So for today, the thing that I most want to encourage you with is that whatever you are dealing with, there are options and there are others around you to support you.

And if I can leave you with one thing is there is still a stigma around mental health. And there certainly was a feeling of shame and even guilt. Like I, I should be doing this better. I should, I'm an adult. Right? Like this shouldn't be happening. Why, why am I not capable of getting control of this, of managing this?

And so don't stay in that. Talk to somebody that you trust, somebody that cares about you, right? I wouldn't just randomly tell everybody your mental health your state of your mental health, but I think it's important to share with people around you that are close to you. and connected. This is what's going on.

This is what I'm trying to figure out. So that they're aware and they can support and help you. And they don't always understand, right. The, the feelings or it's not rational. It's not reasonable. And so they may feel like, we'll just don't think that way. Just let it go. Just don't care so much.

That's one of the ones that I used to hear. Just don't care so much, but that's not who we are. Right. So it's not that they need to fix it or need to find a way to cure you, right? That's not what it's about, but being able to have one or two people in your corner. Who just get when you say like, I'm having an off day.

I could use a walk. I could use a distraction. They just get it right. And they can help support you and help you calm yourself and your mind and your body as you're working your way through it. So I highly, highly encourage you not to keep it all inside. Every time that we, keep something hidden, keep it in our kind of shame bucket, it only crawls out, right?

It only seems bigger and harder and more scary. And we try to shove it down even more. And that just accelerates and exasperates the whole situation. So find somebody that loves you and supports you and cares for you and have a conversation. And if you need. More help, right? Find a therapist, go to a mental health professional and talk about it.

Don't do this on your own because there is hope and there is help. And there's so many resources now in comparison to what I started with, that there is such good. News for those of us who deal with mental health. And so I hope that this has encouraged you. I hope that you'll come back and hear the episodes that are coming up with our professionals and other people who have dealt with anxiety and my other episode on some tools and tips and techniques that you can use.

And I will see you next time. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, follow us, share this episode with somebody that you know needs it. And we'll talk to you soon.

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

Thanks for listening to today's show. If you found value in what you heard, please share it with a friend and rate and review us on whatever platform you listen on. It really helps get us out to other women who could benefit from listening. Check out our show notes for details from the show and to connect with me or our guests. Want to continue the conversation? My website is www.pursueprogress.com or DM me @pursueprogresswithdawn on Instagram. 

Until next week, pursue progress no matter how imperfectly.

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Private Podcast Deep Dive on Anxiety: https://www.pursueprogress.com/deepdive