Designing with High-Functioning Anxiety and CPTSD
Designing can already feel like a whirlwind of I did it, and I need to do more. Mix this in a blender with self-doubt, harsh self-critique, and an I-can-only-help-myself attitude. Designing can become a struggle. Add the weight of anxiety and the emotional destruction of nails into that blender; you might as well rip it out of the wall socket and shatter it onto the floor of your personality.
Functioning with these mental inhibitors, let alone designing, can be a daunting task. Speaking from my personal experience, I learned first hand the daily threshold I had to cross to complete projects or interact with clients.
Before officially seeking help for what would become my diagnosis for high-functioning anxiety and CPTSD, I would go out into the world feeling like everyone walked in my shoes. Even when meticulously picking apart conversations and feeling intense hypervigilance. It never made a difference to me. My CPTSD was a foreign concept, and any form of severe anxiety was only something people with serious mental issues exhibited. My ignorance was a cloudy day that hung over my head endlessly. This cloud would follow me in my work, school, social life and swallow me whole in critiques and group sessions. Even after forging some level of confidence and arrogance that I was always right about almost everything. There were little glimmers of push from those around me.
Even when I often felt powerless with my thoughts and careless of my words and actions. The mind frame I had developed — not out of my concoction — but the experiences I had been through, was enough to push me over the edge.
A memory I remember so vividly of this was a simple conversation with a client. In our first interaction, I was swimming in my thoughts. Every word she said was like a recording in my head, methodically playing each criticism and questioning every statement, defenses tightening up. Even as I leveled with the client, I was the professional and defended my suggestions because I knew better. I was arrogant. Although I usually chop experiences like these into learning moments, it was hard to imagine myself like that.
During my diagnosis, I started realizing how this mental cloud would creep into my workload. I would endlessly procrastinate projects in the inevitable attempt to think of better ideas, but always feeling like the thing I created was useless. My anxiety, stress, and distrust would rain down on me like a thunderstorm; I would get swept up by my thoughts.
Designing for others felt more like a chore than a passion.
Until I officially sought help, I recognized why I had felt distrust and denial. I started undergoing self-realization and understanding how I interacted with others. To say it was never a struggle would be a knife in my back. It was painful to give up my trust in normal-ness, to pull my mind away from me. I had to look deep. I had to ask myself, Why did I say that? How does my personal manner make people feel? How could I listen more?
I had to understand myself.
We all often tell ourselves it is okay to fail. But allowing yourself to heal after that failure is a whole other world.
Even after months of therapy, I still question myself. Questioning interactions with clients, co-workers, and peers isn’t something out of the norm. To some people, this might be tedious. But in time, my conversations and interactions started becoming meaningful. I started controlling my triggers and allowed criticism into my life. What once felt like bullets now felt like a subtle rain on my mentality.
As my design journey continues, I’m progressively learning how to and teaching moments. I’m seeking other ideas and responding in constructive ways. I’m learning to trust others. Not to say I trust everything that comes my way, but I listen rather than speak.
For those wanting to learn more about CPTSD and High-Functioning Anxiety, I would advise you to read more from Kayli Kunkel and Dawn Bevier both write great in-depth blogs on CPTSD and High-Functioning Anxiety.
