Overcoming Self-Judgment of Anxiety
Over the last few years, there has been a cultural movement to remove the stigma that surrounds mental health and therapy services. Celebrities and public figures like Chrissy Teigen and Kristen Bell have been open about their struggles with postpartum depression and anxiety. They’ve shared about their experiences in therapy and how talking with someone has helped them.
While the openness of people in the public spotlight has begun to normalize the discussions surrounding mental health struggles, in my conversations with friends and colleagues and in my work with clients, I have found that many of us still hold self-judgment and shame over our own struggles with anxiety and depression. As I’ve talked with other women, there are three common narratives many women seem to believe about themselves and their mental health that make acceptance of one’s anxiety and depression extremely challenging.
Unrealistic Comparisons
While social media can have incredible benefits, like connecting us with friends and family who live far away or getting to peek behind the curtains at the lives of people we admire, it can also be a barrier for our own self-acceptance. We can easily compare ourselves to other women or moms we see posting their perfectly curated images and statuses. We see how happy they appear to be and assume that behind that image is a life devoid of struggle.
We then reflect inwardly on our own struggles to feel happy, calm, or at peace in our own lives and think there is something wrong with us because we don’t feel the way other people look in their pictures. We end up judging ourselves based on a comparison with an unrealistic and often unobtainable image.
We see a mom post a picture of herself smiling and playing with her happy baby in a room that is extremely organized and decorated to perfection, and then we look at the piles of dishes on our counters, the mounds of laundry that have been piling up for a week, and our little ones who haven’t allowed us to put them down for even five minutes without screaming…and we think that there has to be something wrong with us because our lives do not look like that other person’s photo.
We judge ourselves for not living up to a picture that behind the camera had a housekeeper, or a night nanny, or a mess of toys just out of view. It is important to remember that the images we see shared online are literally a snapshot of a moment and do not show the whole real picture. We don’t see the moments when that same woman cried alone in her bathroom because she felt like she is trading her career for motherhood. We don’t see the moments when that same mom is up in the middle of the night, overcome with anxiety and unable to sleep.
If you find yourself judging your struggle with anxiety or depression because of the images you see of another woman, reminder yourself that she isn’t showing you the whole picture, and behind that lens are hard times that she isn’t sharing.
“I should be able to fix this myself!”
As women, we often pride ourselves on our ability to multitask and do it all. We can make the kids lunches for school while on a call for work and ensure that everyone is out the door on time, dressed and with all their gear for the day, without missing a beat. When a problem arises, we find a solution and get to work to fix it without asking for help. Yes, we may be absolutely exhausted and wish we had more help than we do, but tell me I can’t do something and I’ll show you just how wrong you are!
Asking for help or support can be challenging for us because we worry about what others will think of us, or stress about burdening someone else. We “suck it up” and just move forward, no matter how great the burden is that we are carrying. So, if we find ourselves feeling depressed or our anxiety feels out of control, we apply that same mentality of “I should be able to just fix this on my own.” We don’t want to admit that we are struggling and that we’ve exhausted all of our own methods to get ourselves through these thoughts and feelings. So, we judge ourselves for not being able to work ourselves into a solution.
We don’t tell others that we haven’t felt happy in months and that the things that used to bring us joy don’t interest us anymore. We hide away that we feel out of control of our thoughts and that we don’t want to feel on edge all the time. Opening ourselves up to share with a friend or even an anxiety therapist about our experiences feels scary because it’s admitting, “I need help.” But that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with trying to work through your depression or anxiety on your own, but when the tools or methods you’re trying don’t seem to be helping, it is okay to say that you need support.
“Needing help means there’s something wrong with me.”
The last narrative that I’ve noticed is common among women is a culmination of the first two. When we are comparing ourselves to someone else and then judging ourselves for not being able to “fix” our own anxiety or depression, we begin to tell ourselves, “I’ve failed and there is something wrong with me.”
When we see other women speak up and share about their experiences with depression, we praise them for their openness and are inspired by their stories, but we struggle to offer that same acceptance toward ourselves. We judge ourselves for wanting to work with a therapist for anxiety counseling, even though we don’t know what else to do. And if we are recommended to take medication to help our anxiety or depression, then we tell ourselves that we have REALLY failed.
The interesting thing is that if one of our best friends told us they were seeing an online anxiety counselor or were taking medication for their depression, we would provide nothing but unconditional compassion and support. We would praise them for their willingness to seek out help and their openness for sharing with us about their struggles. Yet, we struggle to turn that same acceptance and compassion toward ourselves. We may still seek out the support of a therapist, but in the back of our minds, we are judging ourselves and holding ourselves to a standard that we would never hold our friends to.
We need to notice the narrative we tell ourselves when it comes to our own mental health. Do we give acceptance to others who may battle depression, but expect ourselves to always be happy, no matter what? Do we support a friend who is seeking out therapy for her anxiety, but tell ourselves that if we need to talk to someone then there is something wrong with us? Just because you may need the support of medication for your depression or are in a place that talking to an anxiety counselor weekly helps you find relief, this doesn’t mean that you have “failed” or that there is something “wrong” with you. It just means you need some extra support, and that is okay!
As you shift your internal dialogue from “There’s something wrong with me” to “It’s okay that I need some additional support,” you’ll begin to find that your relationship with your mental health will begin to shift. You may find that the tools and strategies you’ve been working on with your therapist begin to work differently because they are viewed with self-acceptance rather than self-judgement.
Undoing these narratives we’ve created can be hard work, but with awareness of our own judgements, and with our willingness to be open with our friends and family, and even a therapist, we will begin to find that the shame and negative self-talk will be drowned out by our radical self-acceptance.
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Other Mental Health Services Offered By Ashley Comegys, LCSW
I provide online therapy services for women with anxiety in Louisiana, Hawaii, and Colorado. My online counseling services include individual counseling for women, online anxiety counseling, online therapy for grief and loss, online depression treatment, online counseling for military spouses, online therapy for moms, and online trauma therapy for women. Please contact me to learn more about the ways I can help you as you in online therapy.