Anya Surnitsky, LCSW
Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator, Certified Clinical Trauma Professional Level II
About Anya Surnitsky, LCSW | Licensed in PA, DE, ME, MD, WI, NJ, & FL
Do you feel like it’s your job to manage everyone else’s emotions (so no one is upset, no one is “mad,” or hurt)?
Welcome. So many people I work with feel like they walk on eggshells in close relationships. They don’t like it, but they’re afraid to upset the apple cart. Maybe you identify with that— feeling like it’s better if you deny your own feelings, thoughts, or opinions to "keep the peace.” Keeping the peace on the outside leads to chaos internally, or what some would label anxiety.
When you realize there is no “adultier adult” coming
Life can feel/be unrelenting and overwhelming when you’re trying to take care of everyone everywhere. The weight on your shoulders may feel physically and emotionally heavy, creating desperation for relief from the constant demands on your time, energy, and focus. Unwanted behaviors may start to creep in when you feel trapped, unsafe, and a need to control all the things. Aka— more wine, restlessness, interrupted sleep, binge watching, scrolling, emotional eating, etc. Do you ever look around and wonder when you became the adultiest adult you know?
Most likely, you didn’t learn to deal with these feelings growing up— instead, the message was: GROW UP. Be the adult now. Figure it out, get over it, stop being weak. Adapting to that may have led you to seem aggressively capable of all the things in your life. Capable? Yes. Unlimited capacity? No. Also, when did having feelings and emotions become exclusive to children? Why do we assume emotions are messy (read: bad) and childlike (cue the apologies for crying)?
Because you can’t escape from all of this to open an animal rescue, you’re here, looking for an answer. You can feel, heal, and deal— on your own timeline, without having to categorize age groups for emotions, without having to apologize for being you, without having to justify or defend.
Maybe it’s not that bad…
The tendency to minimize, dismiss, and explain away the upset is so strong. Many feel they don’t deserve to feel sad, anxious, or overwhelmed, because: what if someone else has gone through something worse? Or— other people have gone through this and “they’re fine.”
However…
Hope is a function of struggle. People with the highest hopefulness have the knowledge that they can move through adversity. —Brené Brown
The fact that you are here now reading this means that you have gotten through your own flavor of adversity, even if you don’t feel particularly successful. Even if you feel awful. We can work on transforming the messiness that you may feel after the dust has settled into something more workable. You are resilient even if you don’t feel like it. You have survived, but perhaps the tools you used to survive are not working anymore. That’s totally ok and makes sense. While it’s a cliché, it is true: you can go from surviving to thriving.
The initial goal is to address the items that will deliver initial relief. Sometimes, that is just being seen, heard, and understood. Sometimes it’s some recommendations and action items. Whatever helps you to feel better the fastest is what I will suggest. With trauma healing, the caveat is that working slowly is the fastest way. Everything will depend on you, your history, and what works for you.
Unsure if you can really “do” therapy?
This might be the biggest obstacle: the thought that someone might know you need help is worse than not getting the help you need. Therapy is private and confidential, by law. Is it someone else knowing you “need help” or is it admitting it to yourself? This is not a battle to win or lose. This is a partnership, a courageous journey. Vulnerability is strength, not weakness, and research confirms that.
What is BETTER?
You CAN feel better. You can feel more in charge of your own life and less reactive to the circumstances around you. As you gain clarity, your anxiety will ease. As you address underlying feelings, your confidence and sense of empowerment will flourish.
A lot of people say, “I just want to be happy.” Happiness is great, but it’s often an elevated emotion that may not be sustainable on a daily basis. “Better” is contentedness, fulfillment, satisfaction.
Many people, over the course of regular therapy, start to realize the absence of worry, tension, physical symptoms, and dread (to name a few), as they become more accustomed to an increased sense of calm, resolve, ease, and peace.
What you feel is valid FACT: Mental Health is not Mental Illness
Photo by Polina Zimmerman
“Comparative suffering” and doesn’t help anyone feel better. Someone who has gone through something (possibly) worse than you has no idea that you are denying your own feelings and suffering for them. If our brain and nervous system interpret the event as traumatic, then it is. We all cope with events differently. We learn how to pretend and wear the “I’m fine” mask expertly. Ironically, everyone else looks “fine,” but they may feel just as unsettled and anxious as you do.
Your feelings and how they are affecting your daily quality of life are valid and real, regardless of what others have endured. Extreme stress can trigger many mental health symptoms–even ones you think you might have conquered. Furthermore, the stress can also exacerbate physical health issues that you already struggle with (possibly echoing past traumatic experiences).
A lot of people resist therapy because they are afraid of being labeled as mentally ill, crazy, or someone with issues they can’t fix themselves.
Mental health is a big umbrella that covers mental well-being, mental illness, and mental injury. Let’s compare this to physical health. We have physical well-being, a medical illness such as hypertension, diabetes, hypothyroidism, or an injury such as a broken limb, burn, cut, etc. that needs to be treated and heal.
Therapy (with me anyway) addresses all of the above, depending on each person’s needs. A main goal of therapy is to improve overall well-being: physical and mental. Some people do have a mental illness such as major depression or bipolar disorder. Those labels refer to internal neurological processes that require medication and therapy to treat (I do not prescribe medication).
If you’re feeling extra anxiety right now due to these circumstances, you are not alone. If you’re feeling lost, depressed, nervous, unsure… there is nothing wrong with you. You’re not a failure if you feel spent. Done. Empty. Drained. Burned Out. You are human, and you have a certain capacity.
I cannot tell you it will all be ok; I don’t have a magic wand to make the anxiety disappear. That would be odd anyway, since some level of anxiety right now is normal and expected. You don’t need to cope with anything like anyone else; your life and experiences are your own. Your healing can be too.
Photo by Vie Studio
A client recently reflected on relief from anxiety saying: “The more I can trust myself and know who I am, the less anxious I feel about everything else.”
Most people come to therapy because of a mental injury imposed by the world: injustice, abuse, work performance, stagnation, a traumatic incident, or relationship struggles. The external factors that inflict harm do sometimes interact with our internal makeup to complicate things— the same as our physical health.
You do not need to meet a certain level of criteria to come to therapy and work towards a greater sense of overall well-being. The most important requirement is the interest in and commitment to your healing that produces the best outcomes.
Image courtesy of #oprahdaily
Here is what I know for sure
Pretending you’re ok only works for so long. Being there for everyone else and not yourself wears you down. It’s a cliché by now, but you do have to put your own mask on first, literally for COVID, and figuratively. When you are trying to pretend it’s all fine, you are probably trying to avoid disappointing people, trying not to “burden” others with your feelings, or trying to make everyone “happy.” One person said recently, “I have to keep it together so that my mother doesn’t worry." If you’re tired of being the strong one, the one who has to manage everyone else’s feelings, or the one people “don’t have to worry about,” let’s chat.
Twisting yourself into a pretzel to avoid disappointing others is an impossible feat and ultimately self-destructive. We want to believe we can control others’ emotions, opinions, and moods, but we can’t. No one dies from disappointment, but you suffer each and every moment when you are making choices according to others’ expectations instead of your own values.
When you aren’t free to be who you are where you are, you are more likely to experience anxiety, sadness, constriction, and loneliness.
When you stop hiding, you take the first step towards freedom.
However, being seen can be terrifying. It’s vulnerable. That’s why our mind may want to usher us back into the shell. This restarts the cycle of hiding, avoidance, fear, and shame.
Brené Brown says: Show up, Be Seen, Live Brave. e.e. Cummings says: It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
What do YOU say?
The hustle to be perceived as {insert superlative here} is never-ending. You really can't win or get ahead; it's just a deceiving slippery slope of perfectionism. Never feeling like you can live up to the expectations (whose expectations are they… anyway?)
Perhaps you run on a subconscious belief system that goes something like this: If I can avoid the pain and shame of judgment, criticism, and rejection, then I will be safe and things will be under control.
So where does this leave you?
Caught in the hamster wheel of trying to please and perfect while avoiding negative perception, criticism, and judgment.
All the avoidance means that you’re actually hiding your true self in fear of not being accepted.
Your self-worth depends on how much you feel like you belong in a certain place.
You want to get your needs met, but don’t know what they are nor how to ask. That would be selfish.
You feel burned out and exhausted too often. The weight of the world is getting too heavy.
You CAN learn that who you are now is enough. As is. Can you imagine how you would feel if you could soften into self-acceptance, knowing you're enough? To be able to rest when you’re actually resting or still (instead of your mind racing all over the place)?
The Avoidance vs. Leaning In
I know you are smart, strong, and resourceful. Because you've probably already tried to figure it out yourself. To outrun it, outsmart it, out-hustle it, out-think it, out-everything it. IT being the pain and shame.
You are not a failure because you can't figure it out or fix yourself as you've become accustomed to doing for everyone else. That doesn’t mean you should continue to avoid and push away the hard feelings.
You may be embarrassed that you've waited so long and that you should have figured this stuff out by now (it's like believing you need to lose weight and get in shape before joining a gym). There is no "right" way to address your past, but the right time. If you are here and contemplating therapy, I'm glad you're exploring the nudge that your time is now.
No More Pretending
You don’t have to pretend you’re ok if you’re really not. The pretending, covering up, and hiding is a betrayal to yourself, and will likely increase your anxiety. No one gets through life unscathed; It's just not realistic.
When you get wounded by what life throws at you, it is possible to heal, versus just slapping on the temporary band-aid (denial, alcohol, work, food, sex, avoidance, intellectualizing, etc.) that doesn't heal anything-- it just covers it up.
The secret is: if you surrender to the vulnerability of working on this with support, you will feel and be so much stronger.
TRUTH
We all want to be seen and heard for who we are, as we are.
Here’s the thing though— if you’re hiding and pretending, no one can see you, no one can hear you.
Permission to Change + Perfectionism Recovery
You have permission to exhale and attend to yourself. You may not connect with the idea of being a perfectionist because you don’t necessarily need things to be perfect. Unexpectedly, the avoidance of failure creeps into perfectionism territory through our feelings and behaviors.
You are ready…
>> To consider living a life that is not all about hustling for worthiness.
>> To challenge the way things “have to be” or the rules.
>> To believe that you are not responsible for making other people happy.
>> To stop feeling obligated and indentured to others, knowing that you will be able to communicate with grace and kindness about what you want.
Time to Exhale
When you’re anxious and stressed, you may hold your breath a lot. I hope that when in session, you feel that you can take a breath and let it go, feel safe, and be free to be you. Therapy goes better when you feel comfortable, safe, and supported. It’s a place where you can say the things you cannot verbalize anywhere else.
The secret to sucess is not becoming something else or changing something about yourself you don’t like; success is about becoming who you really are, showing up as that person, and feeling content in that place. That is success. Our (you and me) job is to help you find, see, and live into what is already within you.
As Seen In
