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Dave Cummings's avatar

I can totally relate to this. Especially the past few months. The company I was doing graphic design for the past decade was in the middle of massive, massive layoffs back in the fall. I took a voluntary severance in November, thinking I’d find new work before the severance money runs out. Flash forward to now, where it seems like all I attract are scammers posing as job recruiters, I tried finding work in non creative fields (which I didn’t want to do, because I’m afraid it would be the end of my creative career) only to be rejected, either because of not enough experience in what they want, or too much experience in other fields. during that time, one of my cats died and my daughter broke her arm ice skating, and I’m still trying to comes to terms with my dad’s declining condition since he was diagnosed with dementia. Running was always my stress reliever and since October, I haven’t done that, I’ve been so focused on trying to find work (I’ve come to the belief that LinkedIn, Indeed, and zip recruiter are horrible with finding design or illustration work) that I neglected to take care of my mental health. I Normally have good blood pressure, on the lower end of normal, due to my running. I took my blood pressure a month of so ago, finding it to be much higher, which only serves to shoot my anxiety up even more.

The past week, I’ve forced myself to go for daily runs again, to train for a half marathon in May. Perhaps getting that structure back will help all the other crap fall back in place. That said, I am so thankful for my wife, who has been so patient during this.

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Melissa's avatar

I appreciate so very much your vulnerability and transparency in this share. Watching you live on Behance, I would have never guessed you suffer from any of these issues. I too have suffered from debilitating anxiety while raising children and catastrophic worry. One never know what someone else is going through. I am so happy you have found ways to cope and retrain your brain, it is no easy feat! One thing that I have learned from therapy as 2 mantras: “where is the proof and evidence?” (Of the irrational fear) and telling myself “there is no emergency”. This has helped me get through 100s of panic attacks over the years. When I had breast cancer in 2020 (a lifeline worry I had anxiety about) all my anxiety stopped- “because the anticipation and anxiety of getting it was no longer there, I had it.” Since I faced my biggest fear, battled it and won I have realized how much time I wasted “worrying” over the years and now can live in the moment so much more bc I know each day is not guaranteed. Keep sharing and creating, and I wish you the very best with your serenity!

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