Anxiety’s Super Power

Have you ever gone to bed not thinking about who likes you or who doesn’t only to wake up the next morning feeling like you’re not like by a single soul?  Or do you ever feel like everything you do, you’re just going to suck at? Does the phrase “I can’t do it” go through your head when you are attempting to complete a task. it’s anxiety, and it casts a shadow of doubt on every step we make, at least I feel like it does.

Anxiety, signs and symptoms.

In my experience, it can creep up on you like a mental monster in the night. I’m just going along, minding my business, then BAM! A thought scurries across my cortex like a mouse running from a cat. It just randomly tells me I’m not good enough. That’s anxiety, an unwanted partner that has invited themselves down The Road To Mental Wellness with me.

By times, anxiety is so influential in my everyday life, that I start to slip into my other road trip partner, depression. Depression takes control and says, “We’ve had enough!” and hits the kill switch and takes me out of commission. A lot of times I lack the motivation to get out of bed, little lone travel down the road to wellness. I just can’t handle the everyday riggers of life and the anxiety voice all at the same time.

Signs and Symptoms of depression.

There is a silver lining in all this mental mess. For me, it comes in two forms; Cognitive behaviour therapy and Mindfulness. Both of these are very different approaches to better mental health nonetheless, they are very effective. Mindfulness teaches one to stay in the moment, to be present. and cognitive behaviour therapy helps identify inaccurate thoughts and how to deal with them.

Anxiety is all about being stuck in the past or ruminating about the future, once I realized the key elements that set my anxiety afire, I could recognize the key elements that were starting to invade my mind. When I start to feel like no one likes me, I now know that this anxiety talking (cognitive behaviour therapy). and I then I regroup and refocus, staying in the moment that I am in (Mindfulness).

I may be nowhere near where I need to be at the moment, but using these fundamental tools help me overcome the angst I am feeling when I am in places I have control over or nowhere to retreat to.

So, If your struggling and feel like you’ve tried everything, give therapy and mindfulness a try. They may very well be the tools you’ve been looking for.

if you are suffering from PTSD or another mental illness, please reach out. I thank you for your service and you are still worthy and mean something. I believe in you!


If you are struggling please go here: Crisis Services Canada

Want help fund my book? donate: GOFundMe – The Road To Mental Wellness – The book


You may also enjoy: Slowly Walking My Way To Mental Wellness.

Contact me on my Facebook page: facebook.com/TRTMW

Check out my friend’s blog here: anewdawnaa.com


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Post-Traumatic Stress Tested In Real-Time

In three days it will be exactly one year since I was forced off of work due to mental illness. If you take the time to read through my blog site, you will undoubtedly start to see how long and difficult The Road To Mental Wellness can be. I hope that you can also see that despite the long and arduous battle, it is, without question worth the struggle to keep moving forward.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
You know, PTSD is a hell of a thing, the nightmares replaying the most horrific scenes in my head while I attempt to sleep can write off the rest of the night and even the days to follow. Fear of leaving my home, my mental made prison can really keep me in a perpetual loop of avoidance. I see potential emergencies lurking around every corner.

So, after all this time making myself scarce, sometimes for a week or two at a time,  only braving the world to see the people I am closest to or to sit down a discuss mental illness with other suffers, I decided to volunteer my time to help a political candidate in their bid for office in the federal election. 

I decided this because I need to start to gauge my tolerance in what is essentially a work environment, I felt honoured to be asked to help. and I thought, “What a pressure-free way of testing the waters”. This prospect excited me because all I want to is move on with my life and get to a point where I can manage well enough to walk among the working world regularly. 
Sadly, this social integration experiment is not going as well as I had hoped. Ever since I’ve started,  my startle response is at a constant high and I’m overwhelmed by the exposure to others bustling about. Overly loud vehicles rumbling by, just outside the office door, tear my already dwindled concentration away from what I am doing and my most triggering thing of all, sirens, lots of sirens. There is so much constant stimulation that I tire so quickly.

How to reduce stress in the workplace

At the end of most days, I am left in such a state of hypervigilance that I remain awake most of the night; this only compounds everything I have mentioned above when the next day rolls around.

My saving grace? The fact that I am a volunteer, I can do as little or as much as I can tolerate, I take full advantage of that flexibility. But, we all know that the working work demands one to be on all of the time, something that I simply cannot do. Testing out my PTSD symptoms in this voluntary environment has taught me that.

I will get there though, I will persevere and I will win the day… You can too, just keep working towards a solution that works so you can be productive and feel like your winning your mental disorder war.

if you are suffering from PTSD or another mental illness, please reach out. I thank you for your service and you are still worthy and mean something. I believe in you!


If you are struggling please go here: Crisis Services Canada

Want help fund my book? donate GOFundMe – The Road To Mental Wellness – The book.

Trauma Specialist, Dr. Jeffery Hosick: jeffreyhosick.com

You may also enjoy: The Mental Health Work Injury Called PTSD

Contact me on my Facebook page: facebook.com/TRTMW

Jonathan Arenburg2 Comments

Another Battle For The Mentally Ill

For those suffering from a mental health condition, everyday life can feel like it’s as demanding as much out of you as a head of state. The storm that we call mental fog rolls in, slowing one’s ability to think and the ability to perform slows down to a crawl. I’m usually spent before noon. This exhaustion can impact motor coordination and as a result, it can cause one to fumble and struggle with even the simplest of tasks.

For those on the outside looking in, it can appear as though those with mental illness are clumsy and natural underperformers. Sadly, at least in my experience, we can be the brunt of many jokes and sometimes, verbal hostility. I admit, our partners and other loved ones must find this very frustrating living with one who mentally stumbles often…. Trust me, I understand that frustration.

I don’t know what your experience is like when mental fog  dominates your mental faculties, but I end up getting just as frustrated as the people around me, its a tough go, trying to figure out where you left your keys or trying to repair something, only to lose track of what the steps are to complete the task. these things frustrate the shit out of me. They also require more energy out of me.

Recommended reading

This rapid burnout is yet another battle for the mental health community because it’s a very common symptom the mentally well-minded simply can not see. With all the symptoms of mental disorders being that of neurological origin,  I’m not sure you can get others to understand this illness to a degree that would lend itself to the level of that it understanding requires.

That being said, mental illness and its symptoms, whether you see them or not, are as real as the sun in our skies. It’s in our nature to make judgements based on what we are observing in any giving moment however, we all need to ask ourselves, “What Does what I am seeing actually mean?”

Understanding mental illness

If you know someone with mental illness and you see them struggling, its because they are; they are struggling to keep pace with the rest of humanity. So please be kind, they have probably been made fun of because of they efforts to push themselves only to mess up the tasks they are doing, they are tired; tired from being sick, sedated by their medications and tired of the stigma of mental illness.



if you are suffering from PTSD or another mental illness, please reach out. I thank you for your service and you are still worthy and mean something. I believe in you!

If you are struggling please go here: Crisis Services Canada


Want help fund my book? donate: GOFundMe – The Road To Mental Wellness – The book

You may also enjoy: I am vulnerable: I’m good with that.

Contact me on my Facebook page: facebook.com/TRTMW

Jonathan Arenburg1 Comment