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I’ll first say that even though I am a RN and have some medical background, I am obviously not a psychologist or psychiatrist! But I wanted to share my experience with you all regarding my anxiety and how I started to recognize it. If you’re in a similar boat, I hope this post makes you realize you aren’t alone and can possibly help you identify anxiety if those are the feelings you’re experiencing.

I’ve never thought I would be one to take CBD, or really anything for anxiety for that matter. And not that there is anything wrong with it (Stephen has been open with you all that he takes a small dose of a daily anti-anxiolytic and I think it’s great that he does what he needs to do), but I have just never been one to be anxious. Even before I took my nursing boards, I wasn’t particularly anxious. I always thought “I prepared the best I could and if I pass the first time, great. And if not I’ll just retake the NCLEX.” Point being is, even in situations where some anxiety is extremely appropriate, I was never really one to get any.

Well, almost four years ago I fainted when I was at work (at the hospital) and landed on my face, fracturing my jaw in 3 places. I was out of work for a few months and when I went back to work I was having anxiety attacks on the regular. Not even just at the hospital, but they would also randomly pop up when I was at home, running errands, etc. At first I didn’t know what was happening because I had never felt anxiety, and since that was the case I obviously never had full blown anxiety attacks. I remember explaining to Stephen one day how I had been feeling and he was like, “Babe, it sounds like you’re having anxiety.”

If you’ve never felt true anxiety before, I think it can be hard to recognize at first. When I was having those attacks at the hospital, I knew I was having them there because it was where I had experienced that trauma and I was anxious about it happening again. I feel like for a long time I tried to diminish what happened because it could have been “so much worse” but clearly it was traumatic enough that my subconscious was not down for it happening again lol. My jaw was wired shut for 6 weeks, and I had about 30K worth of dental work from numerous teeth being shattered when I fell. Oh and I had a broken arm too. Anyway, at first I didn’t know what was happening when I started having anxiety. I mean the anxiety attacks themselves were pretty clear but it initially showed up in more subtle ways. All the sudden I would just have this pit in my stomach. I would feel nervous for no reason. Sometimes my heart would start to beat really fast. Sometimes I would start to feel dizzy. It was an overwhelming feeling of uneasiness. It didn’t help that whenever I would start to suddenly feel this way, my mind would then go into “don’t faint mode.” I would be then so worried about passing out that it would exacerbate the anxiety even more.

The first several months after I fainted, I would feel this way on a weekly basis and have these full blown attacks when I was at the hospital–I’d have to leave the patient’s room and run into a bathroom to catch my breath. Not fun, and made me feel even more uneasy since I worked in an ICU and I couldn’t always “just leave” the room. I told myself if they continued for another month I would go see a therapist because I couldn’t go on having these random attacks. Coincidentally though they subsided, and for the next year or so would just happen periodically. After a couple years, these “big” feelings/episodes of anxiety went away, but I would notice that once in a while I’d feel that sense of uneasiness. At this point CBD wasn’t popular so I didn’t really feel like I had many options in terms of taking something for it. I hated the episodes but they were so infrequent and didn’t seem to have a trigger, so I didn’t want to take something on a daily basis.

Well, towards the end of last year I stared feeling anxious more frequently. Again, I wasn’t having the huge anxiety attacks like I was after I first fainted, but I was feeling that sense of uneasiness often enough that it was starting to interfere with my life more than I liked. It’s still hard for me to pinpoint what caused them. If I’m really  honest with myself I think it was making the transition out of nursing. I was feeling very nervous about sharing that decision with you guys (which looking back I don’t know why because I should have known how supportive you would have been), and even though my blog has been my main source of income for a while now, it was still scary taking that “official” big leap. Especially with Stephen starting Triq, as the only person bringing in income for us for that last 4 years, I felt (feel) a lot of pressure.

So last December I finally started looking into CBD because I thought I might as well try it and see if it helped with these feelings of anxiety. I’ve been taking it everyday since then and I can honestly say the feelings of anxiety are much less frequent. I’ve been taking the brand Equilibria (one soft gel in the morning and then the drops at night) and I really like this brand. One of things that initially sold me on them was that when you purchase you get a consultation with a Dosage Specialist. It’s really nice having someone talk to you about what your goals are with CBD, what your experience has been after taking their CBD for about a week, etc. They are really knowledgeable and made me feel really comfortable. This blog post isn’t sponsored but taking CBD has definitely helped so I wanted to share. (Ps. If you try Equilibria, you can use code “claireguentz” for 15% off).

I used to think anxiety only happened when people would have full-blown anxiety attacks, but anxiety can show up a lot of different ways and it can be really sneaky. If you think you may have a little anxiety or maybe just too much stress in your life (they can go hand in hand) I would definitely look into CBD, and it always helps to talk to someone. Not saying that you need to see a therapist per say, but talk to your spouse, friends, family, etc. For me, just verbalizing what I was feeling helped me process it and it felt less scary when I could just say aloud “I’m just feeling kind of anxious right now.”

I hope this post was helpful and thanks for letting me share my experience. If you want to continue the discussion or share below in the comments  I would love to hear from you 🙂 xx C