I haven't been around as much as of late, but I still get notifications in my inbox daily and often come in here just to have a read and poke around.
My anxiety (mostly health/cardiophobia) is very much under control right now (without meds, for those of you needing hope in that department) and the lack of constant mental taxation has allowed me to take a step back and contemplate different aspects of anxiety in general.
One thing I've noticed is that a lot of you cite employment, living situation and money concerns in your posts. As someone who has had an absolutely brutal 36 months financially (working for a start-up can be sweat equity, basically) I can certainly relate. I remember my own anxiety really acting up when money was low or non-existent over the course of the past year. Strangely though, I have/had HEALTH anxiety, and in Canada money is not a concern when it comes to health, as we have full medicare. (For many of you though, I imagine there is a very real link between health and money, and that's a horrible "extra layer of shit" to add to an already extremely difficult situation.) So why was my health anxiety always on fire when funds were scarce? It was a head-scratcher.
Eventually, I started thinking about cavemen. I thought about fight or flight, and how cavemen and cavewomen needed to stay on their toes and all that stuff we've been told multiple times. They had necessities: food, water and shelter. We also need those things to survive in our day, but very few of us could get by on that alone. I mean, if you take those words at face-value we're talking about something over your head as "shelter", not a 4000 square-foot house. I've concluded that for us, money is as important as food and water, if for no other reason than we perceive it to be. Living without financial "comfort" - which is to say: you can afford anything important that comes up and don't have to log into online banking before passing through the grocery checkout to avoid embarrassment - is extremely difficult emotionally.
Additionally, hope comes into play here. When you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel regarding finances, relationships, things you don't like about yourself physically...there can be a real sense of panic to remedy the situation, even though you don't know where to start.
And so now you're in this "state". Every day that's passing is coming off the total you have left on this Earth and every day is a piece of utter shit.
You're poor, so you have no freedom. Even if you wanted to make a positive change, you can't afford to. How will you move on from your verbally-abusive boyfriend? How will you move out from under the thumb of alcoholic parents who still treat you like you're 12? How will you treat yourself to a spa day or some new clothes to feel some self-confidence and make a new push to find a better job? Well, you can't.
I'm not for a moment suggesting that money solves everything. It absolutely does not. But it's nigh-on impossible to start curing yourself of anxiety if you have a financial doom-cloud hanging over everything you do.
If money is a concern, do everything in your power to fix that as much as possible first. Give yourself a cushion. I'm not implying it's easy - if it were I would not have been living on credit cards and leftovers for the past 3 years. If you're stuck at home anyway, hating life, hating yourself and unable to do much of anything, focus on what can make you money. Instead of sitting in a corner with a box of Kleenex feeling sorry for yourself, read about business on the internet. Learn everything you can about a hobby that could turn into a business - even if you don't see how it could. Having interest in something automatically makes you better at it. I can't promise that just liking photography will result in you being a 5 star photographer who is booked for events until 2023 - but maybe you can be a re-seller for photography supplies, or teach photography to kids, or sell Photoshop actions/filters online. Open an Etsy store, sell doilies. Do whatever the hell you like, and don't get discouraged.
I think you'll see that for the vast, VAST majority of you, having $5,000 (which is not even much!) in the bank is easily worth as much as a drawer full of pills or a shiny new boyfriend who puts up with your shit (for now).
Please feel free to discuss, or correct me if I'm wildly off-base here. I wish you all the best of luck.
). Bear in mind that most people who die unexpectedly from diseases do so because they weren't vigilant about their health. You don't have that problem because you are actively thinking about it and being on alert, so there is no chance that 30 years go by and you all of a sudden have Stage 4 breast cancer. Knowing what you know now, which is that you're genetically predisposed to breast cancer, means you should do everything you can (within reason, again) to reduce your odds of getting it. Eat vegetables (I know many Filipinos don't!), get enough sleep, don't eat too much red meat and fat, don't smoke, etc. Get checked out so you have a foundation to build from. Get to a place where you know that right now, as of today, there is nothing that will cause you to die from disease. That's step one. 
Just looking for some advice here. I have been going nuts trying to figure out what to do.
New here. Where to start?
New here/ First Post! 
Does anyone else notice things starting to spiral around evening? Any advice? 
Just some Monday humor to start the week
