A few years ago I was thinking about my experiences with anxiety. I didn’t have a word for my anxiety until my early 20s when I just began to understand what it was I was dealing with. But thinking about it, I have memories of anxiety and mild OCD from the time I was a little girl. It showed up in gymnastics when I was suddenly too scared to flip and couldn’t tell anyone what I was really thinking, even though I’d been flipping everywhere for as long as I could remember.⁠
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It showed up in high school with friends when we made different choices. My anxiety about our different choices held me back from developing some friendships that I later regretted missing out on.
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As a young mom I dealt with the typical anxiety, but on overdrive. I stayed awake excessive hours worrying about the safety of my babies or in following years worrying about everything being perfect for them with friends, sports, etc. It permeated my life.⁠ In my mind I knew the worry was excessive, but I couldn’t make the thoughts stop.
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Once I realized what it was and had a name for it, I knew I had to do something to learn to work with my anxiety. I knew it wasn’t going away, and I didn’t want it to morph into something bigger.⁠
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I learned to talk about my anxiety. I learned to identify it when it reared it’s ugly head. I learned to accept the people that care about me suggesting some things I did might have been driven by anxiety. All of these things I had to learn and be okay with in order to work with my anxiety.⁠
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In thinking about my evolving experiences with anxiety I realized I wanted to design pieces that other people could wear every day to remind us that we are never alone.
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Check out our Mental Health and Still Collections.  I continue adding pieces to these because this means so much to me.💙