Note: This is not me saying that I cannot do my job, that I'm using anxiety as an excuse to do it poorly, or that I need sympathy. Because I can do my job, I'm a human and trying to do the best that I possibly can, and I don't need my mental Illness to get me sympathy points. The idea behind this article is to try to talk about how our mental health affects the things that we do every single day, including our jobs. I also am aware that anxiety is different for every person, and some points in this article are not true for every single person, but they are true for me.

I call my anxiety my "anxiety brain" and my rational thoughts my "normal brain" because sometimes I can sit down and distinguish which brain is telling me the truth and which one is lying, but my anxiety brain usually does the talking during my shifts.

The first thing that I've learned about it is that it feeds off of comments that help me to believe that I will never be enough. As a waitress, I have also concluded that there are some people that you can never please. And my anxiety brain loves that because it fuels a fire that should be put out. As someone who is already a big people-pleaser, not being able to make someone happy is a huge L.

The second thing that I have learned is that my anxiety produces a borderline fear in any situation that I don't believe normal people have. For instance, I'm afraid that I'm going to get fired. All of the time. I wonder if this one little slip-up is enough to make my manager tired of me. And nothing, I repeat NOTHING is worse than a customer asking to see the manager.

I know, *insert name*, that you have asked to see the manager. But there's nothing that they can do, other than telling me that I made a mistake (that I probably already know about) and tell you how they might try to fix it.

When something small goes wrong, I become afraid of disappointing not only the customers but everyone else working around me. From what I've learned so far, a restaurant is like a well-oiled machine. And there is no room for errors. But sometimes, yes, I make errors. My anxiety turns those small errors into very large errors in my head very quickly.

Sometimes my brain goes into tunnel vision where I can only focus on all of the mistakes I've made, and continue to make, which turns my tiny mistake into something that my brain obsessed over for no reason. So, as you can see, it all spirals downward and it's extremely hard to get out of. Some might say I look "frazzled" when this happens. If only I could pull out a yoga mat and some lavender oil in the middle of a dinner rush and relax, but sadly I cannot.

The third thing that I've learned with my anxiety is that the mean comments hurt. And I know that's normal for everyone, but I become fixated on them. To my normal brain, mean comments feel almost like getting tapped on the shoulder, but to anxiety brain, it feels like a punch to the stomach. Comments like "the service sucked today" really make me feel like I actually suck as a human and it becomes a part of my identity for the day or the following week. Sometimes I label myself as a bad waitress because a few tables become unhappy with me.

I've been told to "brush it off" several times, but my brain does this thing where it can't. Sometimes, I hold myself together in front of customers and bawl when I get home, and sometimes I cry in front of them. It truly depends, but their words cut deep and only add to my fear of getting fired.

At the end of the day, my anxiety brain and my normal brain will always be at war. And my anxiety brain usually wins. But I do have to realize that our God gives my normal brain and my anxiety brain some grace every single day, and we have to give some to ourselves too. Even if the anxiety brain isn't that happy about it.