This was me last week.

Amongst all the happy smiling faces and photos of my epic travels, this photo resembles how I actually felt most of the time… and most of the month for that matter. I suffer from anxiety. And although as I write this post and I’m feeling pretty darn good, I know it’s not permanent and that my anxiety could resurface at any moment.

So yeah… The struggle has been REAL yo. 

Most people wouldn’t ever know, because I do everything in my power to hide it. It’s always been sooo important for me to try to be strong and brave and happy and joyful and a good role model… Because it’s those things that I am always promoting to you!…Like the importance of positive thinking and living in the moment and being kind, and enjoying your surroundings and having gratitude…. Because when people (like you) come to my blog to read my stories and posts, most of the time I would assume you come for a little sunshine to brighten your day… amiright?! 

But I have to be honest and say that I’m actually not happy all the time, and life is not amazing all the time – even though that’s what I mainly write about. And sometimes all that fluffy self help stuff just doesn’t work. Yoga and listening to calm music and reading self help books and meditation retreats and drinking all the wine isn’t even enough to soothe my most frayed nerves.

Some days I am defeated and incredibly fragile, no matter how hard I try.

Jessica Allossery sitting in reflection, managing anxiety

Like many people, my anxiety comes and goes… but I’ve had it for many years and it’s increasingly gotten worse. For some reason, the more than I am accomplishing in my career as an independent musician, the more stress I am putting on myself. The past month has been one of the worst yet. I’m talking panic attacks, not sleeping, restless mind and that horrible feeling of being constantly on edge. All this travelling (as amazing and beautiful as it is) doesn’t help. The time zones, the tight airplane seats, the not sleeping. It’s bad bad bad. It’s gotten bad enough to the point that I’ve enrolled in therapy sessions for the first time. They are helping, but not taking away the root cause.

I realize that I’ve gotten myself in this situation. I honestly didn’t even think about how hard it would be on my body to live as a travelling songstress & independent artist. I thought I’d be used to it by now. I also thought that since I’d be living my dreams, it would all be OK, and that I’d be able to handle everything the world has to throw at me.

But alas, my body is telling me to sloooowww down.
I have done everything in the book to try and make myself feel better, but maybe all I really need to find balance is sleep and time.

Calm and peaceful moment during an anxiety relapse

And by the way…since I’m being honest in this post…I have struggled with odd ailments my whole life. Things like gastritis, cystic acne, rosacea, itchy leg syndrome, seborrheic dermatitis, reynauds, stomatitis and countless other things flare up from time to time to make my life a little less sunny. I’ve also found out that nearly all of these ailments are related to a weakened immune system that has been compromised by stress and anxiety.

????**Red flag Red flag** ????
Stress? Anxiety??
pfff…That’s my middle name.

My life is not perfect. I’m not perfect. I’m not always happy all the time and life isn’t always great all the time… even though that’s all I’ve been showing to the outer world on social media. Life can’t be great all the time, cause then we wouldn’t be able to realize how good life is, when it actually IS good! I’m having a lot of struggles, especially at the present moment and admittedly, all these recent symptoms have made it feel like my mind is failing me. The build up of stress and not sleeping, in addition to weird things happening to my body, make it hard to stay strong all the time. The reason I haven’t shared all these things publicly because #1. I don’t want to depress my amazing fans and #2. I like being the very happy musician who brings joy and light and love.


But it’s not all 100% real.
???? sorry to bring the bad news ????

Even though I am in the most beautiful place and living the best life I could ever dream, I’m struggling to cope right now, because I don’t feel like myself and I’m upset that I can’t feel better.

Anxiety recovery journal and self-care setup on table

So that’s what’s going on.

I don’t mean to write this post to make you feel shitty or make you feel sorry for me, I just wanted you to know what’s going on behind the scenes. I know I will be ok, and that this feeling is temporary. I know that I will feel better eventually, but right now it’s one day at a time.

I am very fortunate with what I have in this life: Amazing supportive family & friends, the best boyfriend ever, a career I am passionate about, fans who do more for me than I even do for myself. What I’ve been able to do (bringing my career on the road), has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs and beautiful adventures. Right now, I’m just trying to be honest with myself and with you, about what’s actually going on. I am human just like everybody else, and I have a lot of rough days, even doing the things that I love the most.

Anxiety recovery journal and self-care setup on table

So that’s that. Thank you for reading and for being a listening ear. I guess sometimes life can get really hard, even when I know I’m safe and everything is ok. I will be exploring some options to try and balance my adrenaline and cortisol naturally, and try to get back on the path of the being the best me that I can — which is less = stress and more = calm.


Ahh what a life that will be.

xoxo

Anxiety recovery journal and self-care setup on table

PS. An update on the anxiety & find out what measures I’ve decided to take to help manage it

PPS. Have you experienced anxiety too, and just want to feel better? Share some of your own thoughts and similar situations that you’ve been in by commenting below. Sometimes just talking about it and opening up a dialog can help the subconscious cope with stressful situations. And we’re all human, here to support one another, so spill away 🙂

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Mar 1, 2018