Starting a business was amazing for my mental health in general. I had purpose. I had long-term goals. I had plenty of things to keep me in the moment. The stress from other people – politics, compromising, lack of credit, lack of support – disappeared overnight. I loved creating things, making decisions, planning, setting everything up, learning new things, and levelling up my existing skills.

But the one thing that did get worse was my anxiety. I’ve always struggled with depression more than anxiety, generally speaking, but after starting a business and my depression decreasing to very manageable levels for the best part of the time, anxiety started to rear its ugly head again.

What would I do if something went wrong? What was the worst possible thing that would go wrong? Why would it continue to work? Why would it work out for me? What if we got a bad review? What if someone was really unhappy and went on a rampage? What if a competitor stole all our customers?

So my anxiety shifted from being people-based to being business-based. And, as always when I feel anxious, I ramp up the work I’m doing. Work is really helpful for activating the logical parts of my brain and quietening the emotional ones…at least until I started running my own business. When I started that, it was like a double-edged sword that simultaneously calmed me down and made me more anxious at the same time.

Social media was one of the main sources of stress, but it was also one of the main places I needed to spend my time. Ugh.

It’s still something I’m struggling with, but I’ve found that sticking to certain types of work really helps (as does closing Facebook and Twitter for a while). For example, writing blog posts or courses is very therapeutic for me, as is creating images or editing photos. Working on website pages can also help, as long as it’s something not too involved.

Unfortunately, with the business I have, taking a break from the internet at the moment just isn’t possible. And the voice in my head telling me I should be working all the time doesn’t help. Recently I’ve been using Scribd to read business books, and that’s really helped me, because it calms the voice in my head down but isn’t too strenuous or stressful. Same goes for watching business shows on TV. There’s still a balance needed there, to make sure I’m still taking enough action and not switching to spending all my time consuming/learning, but it’s definitely time well spent.

I’ve tried different kinds of medications as well as natural cures, and none of them have benefited me. The only things that work are solving the root issue or distracting myself. Since I’m pretty sure all business owners get anxious about their business in one way or another, pursuing a “cure” seems unrealistic, so I’ll settle for mitigating where possible. Of course, it doesn’t help that one of the underlying causes of anxiety is ruining my business with my anxiety!

So it’s a case of just riding it out, being kind to myself, looking after myself, and realising I’m just my own kind of superwoman – not actually superwoman, but just surviving life one day at a time. And that’s good enough.