Welcome to the blog — thanks for venturing here despite the most clickbait title I’ve ever deployed!

As I write this, I’m not even a full week past finishing my first year as a clinical student at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Also at the time of this writing, it’s 2:13 a.m., and I’m facing the third in a series of restless nights since finishing classes.

If you’ve ever lived with someone in graduate school or someone who’s taken on any significant change in their life, you know no one in the household is left unscathed. In an attempt to spare my partner from my midnight neuroses, I came out to the living room, accidentally waking my precious pug, an innocent bystander (save a few puppy toots) in this quest for self-betterment.

What Keeps You Up at Night?

Social work in general and my school’s social work program in particular demand self-awareness and self-reflection. Not the kind of information gleaned through a weekend meditation getaway or a one-time inventory of one’s past missteps. Rather, an ongoing engagement in critical analysis of one’s own thoughts, actions, feelings, and statements is instilled as a tenet of what it takes to be a good, or at least not harmful, practitioner.

This is hard for anyone, but especially for an anxious person!

The Balancing Act

Anxious folks tend to overthink things already. The balance between self-awareness and the ability to simply live life has to be negotiated (ie, alternating between petting my afflicted pug and writing this post with any level of coherence).

I find myself struggling with many aspects of this balance. For example, today (technically yesterday), I attended a symposium on criminal justice reform for my part-time gig at the university. From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., my job was to cover the event for social media — taking photos, teasing quotes and soundbites out of hour-long panel discussions, videoing live footage, writing captions…etc. It wasn’t just an event I attended, but in many ways an event I internalized.

Just because I left the building didn’t mean I left the event behind.

Self-Reflection Vs. Self-Centering

I’m so grateful for the privilege to be able to pursue a master’s degree and engage in events like this. As I’ve yet to figure out a balance between self-reflection and simply existing, that privilege and engagement follow me home and into bed. Tonight, I worried about a question I asked the keynote speaker, Marlon Peterson, a prison abolitionist and formerly incarcerated advocate. Based on a recent paper I wrote for a class on treating suicidality, I asked Peterson if he had thoughts on addressing suicidality in recently released prisoners.

Later in the event, another white woman (I know, I know, we’re everywhere) essentially asked what she could do to advocate for people of color negatively impacted by policies despite constraints on her own finances and time. This question was not well-received by Peterson, who shared that he was burdened by the woman centering herself and asking for advice on how to help (and how often this happens in general). He went on to encourage self-examination when a savior complex or self-centering emerges in situations such as these.

So, naturally, tonight, my anxious brain decided to obsess over what was wrong with my question. Did I approach something academically that has real-life implications for this man (and for myself as well, due to a familial connection with the prison system)? Did I unintentionally trivialize his experience? Did I ask him how to fix the problem? By obsessing over these questions, am I somehow centering myself in an issue at which I am not the center?

They say humans can experience what feels like a long, narrative dream in a matter of seconds. I think the same must be true for an anxious inner monologue, because what took me minutes to write above covers only a fraction of the thoughts keeping me awake.

Dabbling in Distance

Before the insomnia, I tried to transition into the weekend and leave the weight of the event behind by inviting my partner on a walk along one of Houston’s bayous on this mild May day.

As a verbal processor, my natural instinct is to word dump onto the nearest willing victim. But this time, to spare my partner from more talk about social work, and to give myself a break from life as a grad student, I went against my go-to coping style and opted to simply attempt to exist in nature.

Throughout our walk, I suppressed urges to bring up weighty talking points and criminal justice reform ideas I encountered during the day. It was very hard to disconnect and distance myself from the event, but it’s something I’d like to try again! Maybe someday, with practice, the thoughts won’t come back to haunt me once I’m under the covers.

Baby, Don’t Leave Me Alone with My Thoughts

In 2019, probably more than ever, there are higher expectations surrounding self-awareness. And this doesn’t solely apply to social workers or mental health professionals. As a glance at any of Rachel Cargle’s Instagram post’s comment sections demonstrates, verbal missteps are not tolerated in some settings. This can keep an anxious or self-reflective person up at night, but it’s not something that can be shied away from.

If you came here hoping for an answer to the title question, I apologize for letting you down. In lieu of actual practical advice or help, here’s one of my favorite songs that illustrates the importance of self-soothing and management of anxiety in today’s age, lest you wind up leaning on a “human shield”.

Other than that, I can only offer this: a promise that if I ever figure out how to manage the anxiety of self-reflection and “woke”-ness, I’ll share it right here. It’s my hope that in time I can grow to accept that I’m doing the best I can to do more good than harm in the world, and maybe that acceptance comes with a quiet mind at night.

If any strategies have worked for you, or perhaps more importantly not worked, please drop them in the comments below. Then obsess about how you could’ve written them better.