Traveling While Anxious
TL;DR: My anxiety affected me every single day of our two-month long honeymoon, sometimes to the point of complete emotional breakdown. But being open and honest about it helped us have a great time anyway and we have the photos to prove it!
I have dealt with anxiety off and on for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I had many years of consistent anxiety and depression that I worked very hard to manage. By my mid-twenties, I had successfully worked my way through depression into a much healthier and happier person. And I still had anxiety, but it wasn’t really something that I needed to contend with on a daily basis.
The last few years have been the most stable and fulfilling of my life. This last year in particular has been incredible, with so many huge life events happening all at once. I got engaged, I got married, I traveled for two months on a whirlwind European vacation, and I moved across the country because my partner landed his dream job. All of that is great news, but the excitement, the state of flux, and the uncertainty about the future triggered my anxiety in a way that I can’t remember it ever being triggered before.
Living with this level of anxiety is one thing, but traveling with it is another. And since this blog is dedicated to our travels, I thought it would make sense to talk a little bit about what that experience was like. The reality that gets shared through Instagram is all rose-colored highlights, but if I’m being really honest, I had more bad days that good ones during our megamoon. It’s hard to admit you’re not enjoying something that you are supposed to be enjoying. And because I had so many great days and did so many amazing things! Good things happened every single day – I sometimes just spent a lot of those same days crying.
I had a day in Cambridge when I was feeling too scared to leave the house. I had an anxiety attack in a cafe in Tbilisi because there were too many options for breakfast. I became convinced I was dying after getting stung by a sea urchin in Greece. And almost the whole time we were in Mondello I was completely overwhelmed by the task of ordering food.
Chad was the one constant I had throughout the trip and he was the most understanding and supportive partner. If I have any advice to offer about dealing with anxiety while traveling it’s to find a travel buddy who will be there for you without judgment. Or, at least be willing to ask for help when you need it. Sometimes it was helpful just to share my fear, worries, or feelings out loud. It certainly helped to be honest and explicit about what I was experiencing, especially because it often had nothing to do with what was actually happening in any given moment.
When all was said and done, I could not be happier that we decided to travel for as long as we did and visit all the places we visited. It was a once in a lifetime trip and I am beyond grateful that we were able to pull it off. And although I will continue to look back on it as one of the best experiences of my life, I think it’s important that I remember how hard it was too. And maybe that makes it even more rewarding – because I was able to find ways to make it work, even when my mind and body were very much against me.