How Being Financially Independent Helped Me Manage My Anxiety Disorder.
Controlling Your Future By Your Finances.
When I first took a step to my former college campus as a freshman, in 2016, I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Depression. It was hard to navigate a college, 400 miles away from home surrounded by new people, and a new anxiety disorder. I felt judged by others by not taking the medication route, to not understanding my triggers, or constantly not being able to power through my mental health, when I was learning it while learning my curriculum for classes.
I relate to many individuals daily finding themselves newly diagnosed with anxiety disorders because of COVID. I completely understand the fear and struggles of managing a new disorder when everything around you feels different. Learning how to be the best person mentally, when chaos is everywhere, is very difficult. According to Healthline, 20% of individuals whom were diagnosed with COVID, saw an increase in anxiety, depression and dementia.
COVID let to breakdowns, which easily left to a change of routine, boredom, and your anxiety taking over your brain. At the same time, COVID led to lessons on how to manage my anxiety. It led to understanding how toxic New York hustle culture is. Living in the city that use to never sleep to chase the next project, the next accomplishment, the next opportunity, to just show to others you have a great work ethic. A culture, that makes you feel as if you always aren’t doing enough, that you can’t afford to take mental breaks, and constantly worried about your professional brand.
When all of New York had to take a pause, it taught me something about my anxiety. Even though it increased anxiety overtime, due to the anxiety of the future. Taking breaks after being let go from employment, decreased my overall anxiety from the last 5 years. Having the savings and investments to finance myself to take a break before seeking employment, was vital.
I was able to create a system, hear my mind and health before making decisions. Saving and investing to help fund future breaks, that I will continue to incorporate into my daily lifestyle as the new normal comes to terms. Taking breaks from LinkedIn, and not feeling the need to constantly include myself in a digital rat race. To just live life.
Below, I have listed financial tactics, I have used in my personal life, that make me feel financially independent, to take care of myself. To rewrite the rules, of what a working professional looks like, to something that works the best for myself. One of the greatest things that have helped me is having a fund for my mental health.
Having A Mental Health Emergency Fund:
Anyone whom has a mental disorder, I recommend saving or investing for a mental health emergency. How many months of expenses you should have saved up will depend on what you believe is best for you. Having one separate from a regular emergency fund, will allow you to dip into it without feeling conservative about the emergency.
I found having a mental health emergency fund has let me save for mental health breaks throughout the year. By lowering my monthly expenses and living below my means, I can take 1–3 months off per year, I can address my health. Or know that when an employment contract ends, I can take a break for myself, before re-entering the workforce.
For others this can look like have a disability insurance. Disability Insurance covers almost everything for disability, while disabled with the insurance you will receive up to 60% of your current salary. Some employers provide disability insurance. If your employer does not, policy genius provides an easy way to for everyone to access to disability insurance. You can learn more here.
Working Low-Anxiety Orientated Employment:
Another way to lower your anxiety intake while being a working professional is not being afraid to take roles that cater to your anxiety. Instead of trying to hustle and bustle employment opportunities that are going to pay you the most amount of money, finding employment that compliments your anxiety, will make working less stressful.
Depending on your anxiety disorder, positions you may take may be different. A person with social anxiety may take more remote work that doesn’t rely on much interactions with other humans like a software engineer or a web developer. Someone like myself, with generalized anxiety disorder may take more accounting. That allows my mind to stay busy and focus on other things, so I can’t get anxious. You can find other examples of low-anxiety employment here.
Taking Temp or Contract Employment Opportunities:
For myself, I find that temp or contract employment that is six months or less works best due to the flexibility it provides. I can work an employment opportunity for 3–6 months and then after the contract ends, take 2 weeks- 1 month off before I start seeking new employment opportunities.
Taking time for myself has allowed my anxiety to actually lower. Using funds from my mental health emergency fund allows me to feel okay taking the break, knowing I can financially afford it. My mind can focus on self care, traveling, or doing things for myself, before I give my energy to another employer. I feel less apart of the rat race of the city, and more of someone living life.
Working Towards Soft-Retire or FIRE:
You may not seek to use the mental health emergency fund every year, like myself, and may want to work towards Soft-Retiring at a young age. Soft-Retire is working part-time or doing the work you love while having enough finances to cover majority of your day to day expenses. Living below your means, and lowering your expenses, you can invest and save more, so you can work less.
My personal goal is by 40 or 45 to be able to soft-retire. This will allow me to work on projects I love to do and not feel financially tied to my interests. The rat race of working in America can get stressful and anxiety of the future is inevitable. Although, there is actions we can do to prevent that from occurring, we can do small things to control how our future looks like.
Nerd Wallet explains into detail about FIRE here.
Downsizing Your Lifestyle and Removing Loans/Credit Cards:
Having debt or loans that make you a slave to a lifestyle, also can increase your anxiety. Your so focused on keeping employment, and making any amount of money so you can try to make the fire smaller. If you have debt, making your plan on how you will financially pay it down, considering interest, can help manage your debt.
In addition, if you are in debt, do not use any credit cards or add to debt, unless it’s refinancing your current debt to lower interest rates. Adding to the fire, by increasing your debt, can make the idea of becoming financially free from a system, even harder to overcome.
If you have any questions of what paying off debt and downsizing can look like for you, I recommend checking out this Motley Fool article, here.
Designing Your Personal Schedule As A Working Professional:
In the 21st century, with technology and media, we have been able to transform what a working professional schedule looks like. There is a lot more room for challenging the social status, and building your life to help you the best way possible.
Reflecting what works best for you and not comparing your life to others will help you the best. As long as you are able to pay for your necessary expenses, or remain happy, you shouldn’t worry about what anyone else decides to do.
Not worrying about what employers will think about that gap in your resume. Stop worrying about what your experience or skills say about you as a person. Or networking with hundreds of people a day to hit a goal that doesn’t make you happy. To stop feeling the need to be a perfectionist. To live life solely for yourself, and understand your personal needs.
