Moving abroad is no easy feat. Saying goodbye to your family and friends and dealing with the culture shock can be difficult. I moved to the United States when I was 19, and it was one of the hardest things I have done. The uncertainty of settling abroad was extremely anxiety-inducing for me. I'm soon moving to yet another country, and from what I've previously experienced, I now feel more confident moving abroad. In this blog post, I'll share some tips for coping with anxiety when moving abroad. 

Over the years, I have been able to cope with my anxiety much more effectively than I did when I was younger; however, there are still plenty of times when my anxiety has affected my self-worth.

Not long ago, my therapist asked me to think about my anxiety triggers. I thought about the multiple triggers that lead me to feel anxious, and I realized that one of them is illness, whether it is my own or that of someone I care about. 

A couple of years ago, I was in your place: anxious, nervous, and extremely stressed out for my very first therapy session. Countless questions were running through my mind, like, "Will my therapist judge me?", "Will they understand where I'm coming from?", "What will happen in the first session?", and "Will my therapist think my concerns are stupid?" Being anxious about your first therapy session is normal. As someone who grew up surrounded by people who thought that therapy was for "crazy people," I was extremely clueless about therapy and didn't know what to expect.

Something that I have learned about my anxiety is that it won't go away. It has been something that I have coped with since I was a teenager, possibly even earlier than that, and it is never going to go away. But there are things that I can do to lessen the effects of anxiety.

Over the years, I have learned so much about my anxiety, not only through formal education but also simply through taking the time to analyze what I am going through. Some might say that this is just a part of dealing with anxiety -- the overthinking and the constant overanalyzing of what you feel, think, and do. But I think it has also been helpful because it has helped me recognize my triggers and anxiety symptoms. It has also helped me figure out things I can do that are helpful for me. One of those things is leaning into my anxiety and accepting the anxiety instead of running away from it.

Something I've learned about my anxiety is that sometimes, instead of being consumed by worries about the future, it is possible to be overwhelmed by the past to the point that my memories trigger anxiety symptoms.

My name is Shubhechha Dhar; I'm a writer and the new author of "Treating Anxiety." Through my blog posts, I hope to create a safe space for everyone struggling with anxiety to feel seen, understood, and heard. After being diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, I spent a year in group therapy and learned coping techniques that helped me thrive with my disorder. My life's purpose is to use my writing to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health.

One of the hardest things that I have found about dealing with anxiety is the second-guessing that happens when making decisions. It becomes so hard to make decisions because I find myself wondering if it's the right choice or the wrong choice. Then, when I make a decision, I second-guess it and question whether I should have made a different choice. The problem with that is, even if I had made a different choice, I would still question that one anyway. As a result, my thoughts will spin out of control, and my anxiety will overtake my logical thought process.

When you are chronically anxious, one of the effects you might often deal with is feeling exhausted. Depending on the situation, if I have experienced a very stressful situation, I tend to feel exhausted when my body starts to wind down from the physical effects of stress. And so, I might find myself quite fatigued from anxiety, but at the same time, I might have a hard time sleeping as well, also because of anxiety. So it becomes a cycle of inadequate sleep and anxiety that seems to be never-ending. Then, if I haven't gotten a good night's rest for a long time, what I find is that I deal with the effects of fatigue. This includes having a hard time concentrating and having a hard time focusing. I also find that it affects my memory, and it affects my mood as well. Ultimately, fatigue can affect me in several ways.