One Thing at a Time: Baby Steps at Thirty Something

Lindsay Anderson 

Mental Health & Wellness ​Associate

​Each year I begin with hundreds of overzealous thoughts that I will have everything put together for the new fiscal year... And yet, thirty plus years later I find myself again and again taking breaks and starting over. I have crippling Generalized Anxiety Disorder which leaves me with high blood pressure, migraines, panic attacks and a lot of irritability. So, to give myself a long laundry list of tasks is not even believable. Now here I am again (standing in the need of prayer) taking it One Thing at a Time: Baby steps at Thirty Something.

Years ago, as I sat inside of a Mental Behavior Center group therapy session, a therapist told us extremely jarring “No matter how much you tell people how you feel they will never understand. You must baby yourself everyday”. And from the stares in the small 6 group session she could tell that we were all confused. She explained that to take care of yourself you must put yourself in a baby like routine. Just as a baby must take a nap, drink water and a balanced meal for growth we must continue to do the same thing. 
 
I never took that advice literally until my world began to fall around me. Back in 2014 my anxiety had reached a tipping point, I was sleeping two hours a night and drinking three to four cups of coffee a day just to stay awake in the daytime. So, once I left my banking job of five years (I was almost laid off) I was beyond depressed and hopeless. I packed up my life the little bit of what I had left and moved to South Carolina. Except it was a bandage to cover up the real issue. I was experiencing a depressive episode and I was nose deep in it. My depression became worse and one glass of wine to go to sleep at night turned to drinking one to two bottles of wine a night. Not only was I not taking care of myself my body was not taking care of me. 
 
I still ignored my behaviors; I still ignored my habits and it took me until the end of the summer to tell myself I needed help. It was not easy, but at that moment I totally understood what that psychiatrist meant to baby yourself. The first step was scheduling an appointment with a therapist. This was always the hardest step for me to make, because as much as I like to talk, I hated talking to therapist. On days when I did not want to go, I made myself do it. I stop communicating with people that triggered my anxiety. I began drinking more water. I set alarms for everything that I needed to do. I started keeping notebooks, sticky notes, pens around just in case I wanted to get my feelings out on paper. I began to really take care of myself.
 
That is the thing with self-care, it does not have to be an over the top celebration it I can be one small step every day. Although using the terminology “babying” may seem childlike, it can help anyone even non mentally ill consumers get through the most miniscule situations. For some reason there is a notion that once you become an adult your last priority is ensuring your mental health is intact. And even at this age I still struggle with taking my life on beat at a time. I am still learning how to un-train my mind to think I must run on a continuous schedule. And as a mother that adds an entirely new nuance. 
 
When I take smaller steps, I have clearer thoughts and I can work to my fullest extent. I know when to stop and I know when I need to become more aggressive. I am still taking baby steps because that is something that I will have to do for the rest of my life. So, I can truly say that you have the best of me. And I can truly say that I am ready to fully serve this community. Here’s to being thirty-something and taking baby steps, the best advice I ever received.
 

Lindsay Anderson

Lindsay Anderson is the founder of Consciously Coping, a mental illness advocate, and the creator of #transparencytuesday. As an African American woman who is clinically diagnosed with bipolar disorder, PTSD, and generalized anxiety disorder, sharing her success and struggles within the mental health community is an honest passion.
She is also a non-traditional second-year collegiate scholar, studying Biology and minoring in Applied Mathematics. Her future goal is to become a research scientist in the field of computational neuroscience to understand behavior dynamics. She has been featured on ForHarriet, No More Martyrs, and Neilsen Holdings, LLC.  @IG ConsciouslyCoping