Unraveling the Tangled Web of Women's Anxiety: Stories of Overcoming and Empowerment

Join Jenny with her friend Jen this week as we embark on a candid exploration to uncover the nuances of managing anxiety amidst adolescence, navigating adult life, career uncertainties, and societal pressures. It's stories like Jen's, raw and unfiltered, that we unravel in our latest episode, casting light on the tangled web of anxiety that many women find themselves caught in. From the echoing chambers of childhood fears to the complex symphony of adult expectations, join us as we traverse the powerful narratives of overcoming anxiety with the help of therapy, medication, and a supportive community.

Transcript

Jenny Benitez: 0:03

Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of SteelRoses podcast. This podcast was created for women, by women. You're hearing Jenny again today. Welcome back to the show, and I'm really excited I have my friend Jen on this recording with me today. Welcome, jen.

Jen: 0:19

Hi Jenny. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here and be talking with you today.

Jenny Benitez: 0:25

So Jen and I met professionally and, over the course of working together, became friends. I'm super excited for her to be here. We're going to talk a little bit about something that we talked about in season one a bit, but again it's something that I think hits all of us and will hit resonate with a lot of you. But we're focusing in on anxiety and how it affects women today. So, jen, I just want you to give the audience a little bit of your point of view and just your experience with anxiety and how you've managed it in your life.

Jen: 1:01

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, jenny. So first I want to say I'm just an every other woman trying to live her life, trying to do the absolute best I can and, like many women, I am someone who's been suffering with anxiety for, honestly, I would say, my entire life. I started having anxiety as a really small child, and something that you can't even recognize that it's happening. You know things like crying before going to school, just being upset about, you know, being put into situations where you're with a lot of people and it's something that you don't know how to explain when you're a little kid, and it would manifest itself with, you know me telling people I have stomach aches, I don't want to go to school. Today, you know I would be making up stories about, you know, throwing up because I felt so terrible and I felt like there was a weight on me every single day going to school especially, that I would try and do anything I could to get out of it. I just felt every day like something horrible was going to happen. And you know, trying to be a little kid and you're just trying to grow up and you're trying to have friends and do all the normal things that everyone else does. But you just have this like hit in your stomach, in this weight, in this pressure on you, where I was like why do I feel like this? You know, why do I want to cry all the time? And I just I feel like something horrible is going to happen to me every day, whether it would be a teacher yelling at me for something or getting a bad grade on a test, or having a kid at school say something mean to me. Like every single thing made me think that something horrible is going to happen every day.

Jen: 2:56

And that's really how I went through all my elementary school years. I really, I really, um, I remember I would sit in the bathroom when I'd be getting ready for school and I just showered, and now I'm drying my hair and I would just cry. I'd be bawling my eyes out while I'm drying my hair because I wanted to sort of like drown it out. So everyone in the house didn't know what was happening. So I would do it while I was drying my hair because I just needed to get that out, because I was just panicked about having to go to school, about what bad thing could possibly happen to me, and that was just a wait on me every single day and you know, I went through school and it was getting worse and by the time I was in middle school it was getting very bad and I was upset all the time going to school.

Jen: 3:58

I missed a lot of days of school, mostly because I didn't know how to express what was happening to me and I would just say, yeah, I don't feel good, even though physically, like, I didn't have a cold, I didn't have the flu, like nothing like that was wrong with me, but I just couldn't be there. And then it really came to a head when I was in freshman year of high school and I was out for probably a week because I had a really bad asthma attack and so I was out of school. And then the idea of having to go back to school was just too much for me at that point and I was like I can't, I can't do this. And I started to have these really bad panic attacks about the idea of going back to school. And finally my mom said to my dad and my parents were divorced she's like I can't, I can't do this anymore, like we need to get her some sort of help. You know we can't. She's crying all the time. She can't go to school.

Jen: 4:56

So what happened was I ended up staying out of school for probably two, three months that I didn't go to school and I had like a teacher or somebody come to my house and do lessons with me because it was just too much for me. So I started to have to see a therapist and that's when I started on medication and it started to help me a lot. Like being on medication helped me a lot and it was something that my mom wanted for me. My dad not my dad was the kind of person that did not really believe in psychiatry, didn't want me to be on medication, you know, kind of begrudgingly had me see a therapist, but really didn't want me to be a therapist. And I, for the first time, started to feel better. The medicine was helping me. I felt so much happier, you know, the anxiety was less, I wasn't feeling as depressed and I saw.

Jen: 5:58

Just, I saw the loveliest woman. She was so sweet and kind and taught me some things that I still use to this day. She used to say to me that we're gonna we're gonna play out the situation and she'd be like what are you afraid of? And I'd say, well, you know, I'm in school, I'm afraid of failing a test, failing a test. And she said, okay, well, now we're gonna play this out. What happens if you fail the test?

Jen: 6:25

And I was like well, a test, you know, maybe I end up failing the class down the line. And she's like okay, and then what happens? I was like if I fail the class now I have to repeat the grade. And you just played out all the way down until basically I had myself not getting into college and like living in a gutter. I played out this whole scenario of what happens if I fail a test. And then she had me go okay, now let's step back. Do you think that's realistic? Do you think that's something that's actually going to happen to you? And I was like I can see her coming from. No, I do not actually think I'm going to end up living in a gutter, but that's how it felt to me. So she was like do you see how crazy it is to think that failing one test is going to upend your entire life? Yes, I do see that.

Jen: 7:15

So we would do things like that and we would do little things, like if I'm feeling anxious or anxiety, she would have me try and put a number on it, like oh, that feels. I feel really anxious. You know what's this out of? A scale of one to 10? Oh, this one's like a seven right now. So this is kind of a big one, and she would have me almost like separate myself. So it's, you have your body and your brain and you kind of like separate yourself from the anxiety.

Jen: 7:44

So you put this number on it, you recognize it, you say, yes, the anxiety is there, and then you say, but this is not who I am and this is not how I'm always going to feel, and like this is just in this moment and this is going to pass. So I would do things like that with her and it went. It went really, really well. And after that, my mother, who had been very sick and it's probably something that certainly did not help my anxiety she had been very sick for like a long time since I was in fifth grade and she ended up passing when I was 16. So I was a sophomore in high school.

Jenny Benitez: 8:28

Wow.

Jen: 8:29

Yeah, and I had to live with my dad after that and it wasn't the best situation for me, my younger sister and my dad, who was against psychiatry from the you know the beginning was like you're fine, now, you don't need to, you don't need to do this anymore. So I'm a kid who, at 16, just lost her mother and now my dad decides I don't need to be all medicine anymore. You probably needed it more than ever.

Jen: 8:58

Absolutely More than ever. So. And not only that, he just has me do it cold turkey, I don't.

Jen: 9:05

Oh the therapist and I cold turkey, which is like the worst thing you can do. So now you have a kid who just lost her mother, she's put in a terrible situation, she has anxiety and now you're going to cold turkey, take her off her medication and tell her to stop seeing a therapist. So it was not a great time for me and anyone really in my family. So I gained a lot of weight during that time. I was just really unhappy and just trying to do the best I could to get through it and somehow managed to get through the rest of high school relatively unscathed. And when I got myself into college I actually had a much better time. I don't know why, but I found adjusting to college much better.

Jenny Benitez: 10:08

And.

Jen: 10:08

I found the anxiety less in college and I don't know why that was.

Jenny Benitez: 10:13

High school is so like cutthroat almost, which is it's crazy. If it feels like that, very like just oh, no, you can only do this one thing, or as like college is more like oh, it's a little bit I don't know why, but I have that sense too it's like it's more chill, Like people are not as like ridiculous. Basically, yes, yes, yeah.

Jen: 10:33

So I had a much better time in college.

Jen: 10:36

But ultimately, my anxiety at that point in college it was okay with going to classes, like I felt great going to classes, but then it became like, okay, well, now it's about when you're done with college and getting a job and entering the real like world. And that's where I started to struggle, because I really wanted to work in television at the time and I remember I had an internship for C like CBS. So I was going into the city, I was doing my internship and I wanted to do this thing called the page program, just where it's like less than a production assistant, it's like basically just getting your foot in the door to work at these places. And so I go to this office, the page office, the last day of my internship and the guy is like, okay, absolutely, why don't you like come back when you're at like that towards the end of your internship and we can talk about it more? And I just panicked because it was actually the last day of my internship and now I felt like I made a mistake because I hadn't come earlier.

Jenny Benitez: 11:43

Oh.

Jen: 11:44

So I never said anything to him. I literally kept my mouth shut and never said a word and, just like, left CBS on my last day and didn't get into the page program because I didn't even get a chance. Yeah, I didn't even say anything.

Jenny Benitez: 11:59

Wow.

Jen: 12:00

And so things like that were just like a snowball effect through my life. And trying to get a good job where I had so much panic about applying to jobs, I ended up working as a substitute teacher for like a very long time, way too long, because once I got in there I felt like safe, like okay, this is fine, I can do this, and I just the idea of interviewing, the idea of going in person, all of that just filled me with so much dread that I really, I really believe I stalled out my life in a big way.

Jen: 12:44

Basically, I'm gonna say, through almost my entire 20s, I stalled out my life for most people where, like they leave college, they get a job when they're 22, 23, that they start a career. I did not start a career for a very, very long time. I ended up doing the thing that most millennials do, and I did because it made me feel safe and went back to the place where I felt safest and I went and I got a master's degree because I knew I could do college and I knew I liked coming.

Jenny Benitez: 13:15

They almost did that, I almost did that. I almost went the exact same path. Continue, keep going.

Jen: 13:20

That's like the classic millennial move. I don't know how many millennials all over like, okay, I'll just go get a master's degree and then it'll fix everything It'll fix everything that night.

Jenny Benitez: 13:28

It's so funny. I actually, when I was I think I was about 25 and I was like, all right, I'll just get my MBA, Like this is where I'm supposed to go, and I got half of it for sure, or like three quarters of it, and then I stalled out in accounting because numbers and math at the time for me I mean you might as well throw me into a pile of broken glass, Like it was just like I couldn't even wrap my head around that. Go ahead, continue. That's so funny. I took the same exact route.

Jen: 14:01

Yes, I don't know what I saw recently, but it was pointing out how many millennials have a master's, because we all were just like. What are we?

Jenny Benitez: 14:10

gonna do with our lives? What do?

Jen: 14:11

we do Like 2008 hits. Do you have like the housing crisis?

Jenny Benitez: 14:16

Do you have recession? Yes, oh my gosh.

Jen: 14:19

And so we're all like, oh, let's go get a master's and maybe this will help us get a job with money. So, and we end up with more debt.

Jenny Benitez: 14:26

Exactly Master's the great thing I'm still hanging off my master's now.

Jen: 14:30

Oh, same here, and I didn't even get mine.

Jenny Benitez: 14:32

I didn't even get mine and I'm still paying it off. That's what I'm paying off right now.

Jen: 14:36

Yep, yep, still got that tail off. But so I get that and I start working a job that had literally nothing to do with the fact that I now at a master's degree, but I was like, still, okay, now I did this thing, I got this master's degree, but now how am I gonna like, actually put it to good use? And I definitely did not get a job of a person that had a master's degree. I'll tell you that Because, again, it was a job that, like, someone mentioned to me, someone knew someone, so I just went and I met with some people and I was able to get this job. And again I put myself in a position where, okay, I can do this. I feel very comfortable now doing this. I stayed there for like six years. I never got I don't think maybe I got like one raise while I was there and not a lot and.

Jen: 15:28

I was not making a lot of money there. So I'm a person with a master's who should be doing something more like my master's was in professional communication and like marketing and advertising and new media so social media and I'm just not doing anything big with it because I always in the back of my mind, in my body, have this lingering fear, this lingering fear of failure, the failure of disappointment. I didn't want to disappoint people. I always felt like I was never gonna be good enough. So, no matter how many times people said to me like listen, you're a smart person, you can be doing things like you got this, you can be taking on bigger roles and challenges, I just never believed it.

Jen: 16:18

I always thought I was not good enough, and that was just something that followed me so much through my life that I just did the job. That felt comfortable and I did the thing.

Jenny Benitez: 16:31

And it probably became like part of your identity, almost that like this feeling of like I'm not adequate, even though you have all these skills which I've known, even though you have all these skills, but leaning into them sounds like incredibly hard, and your reaction to the anxiety was to like lean away and find a safe space. I do wanna highlight a couple of things that you said, because the first thing that you had talked about the technique that your therapist, when you were younger, had used for you, for your anxiety, to acknowledge it but move forward from it. So, like what you're feeling, this anxiety, let's put a label on it. I'm anxious because of this, put a number on it and then be like okay, well, but from here, like yes, this happened, this is how I felt, but move on from it. I actually do that now a little bit. When I have things that happen, I try to like be like all right, I'm really pissed off because of X, y and Z situation maybe I'll vent about it, but then it's really important to be like okay, I have to let that go, though, and move on, because I know, for me, the things that I've struggled with previously was more of like letting it, like you said, like take over everything and then it snowballs from like you have one day of like really intense anxiety, but then it moves into a week, a month, a year, years, and it becomes so ingrained in how you respond to things that it's almost uncomfortable not to respond that way and it would be like a major shift for you to have that practice of like well, if you don't respond that way, then you'd be like well, this is strange. If I'm not responding in an anxious way, this must be a bad situation or because you're not, you know, like that whole pattern that you've created there.

Jenny Benitez: 18:27

The other thing that I want to highlight, because you mentioned it and for the listeners, I actually do really want to highlight this If you are ever on medication for any particular reason, especially mental health reasons, but I mean in general, if you are on medication, you should never, ever, ever stop cold turkey ever. Like that can cause that is the most dangerous thing you can do for multiple reasons. But there's medications out there that we take for our mental health that if you stop in cold turkey you could actually have a brain seizure, you can have a heart attack, like there's actual physical repercussions from that, and it's incredibly important that if you are gonna stop taking a medication, that you talk to your doctor about it first, because you might have to actually take something in between to help wean you off. There is really no cold turkey way to do anything, even quitting cigarette smoking, if anybody's still doing that right now. It's like vaping, right, like vaping is like the thing If you're trying to get off nicotine, cold turkey not really the best way to do it, but, like you know, like there's methods that you do have to use.

Jenny Benitez: 19:30

And then the other part that I wanted to highlight here is because you did say, like you picked roles, that where you felt safe, and then, instead of trying to scale from that particular role, you would kind of settle to the role and you're like this feels safe. I don't wanna interview. It's too interviewing sucks, I mean in general. But, like you know, you don't wanna interview because it's like it's too anxiety inducing, it's a lot.

Jenny Benitez: 19:59

I mean I don't know if anyone listening has had to interview recently or even, like you know, if you've had to interview at all, but you're basically you have to like put a show on now, and I mean in our industry to interview is a months long almost process of going through the whole gamut of meeting everybody and then from that you have to. Then it's like sometimes there's tests involved that you have to take to show that you know how to do your job and then from there you sit and wait and it's a game of sitting waiting Like I can't even wrap my head around it anymore, nor do I wanna touch it, like I don't wanna be bothered interviewing ever again, because it's like a whole job having to do that and then for someone with anxiety, just forget about it. Like to have to go through that must be like torture.

Jen: 20:54

Yeah, it absolutely is, and it's something that you know. You're used to people thinking well, maybe she's just really lazy, Maybe she just doesn't wanna do it, and it's so hard to explain to people that don't suffer from anxiety. And if you don't suffer from anxiety, man, am I jealous of you? Because I've talked to people that have no anxiety whatsoever in their life and they cannot at all understand how to do it.

Jenny Benitez: 21:22

I don't think I know anybody. I don't think I know people. I don't think I know anyone. What does that say about me? Melissa and I have talked a few times on the other episodes where, like she's given her her POV on the anxiety that she had, especially after she had her daughter. Her anxiety was like out of control, and it's like I think it also has something to do with hormones too, because my anxiety is much worse depending on where I'm at in my monthly cycle. Like which I know sounds a little nuts, but like that has, for me, a big impact on it. What I will share here, too, is I had I started having bad anxiety in my early, late teens, early 20s, and it was debilitating for a couple of years for me, where I would be about to do something, about to go to a class or about to go to a social engagement or about to go do something and I would feel this, like I think you said, like a weight, and I would just be sitting there and instead of doing it, I would sit in my car and let the time pass to where it was like well, too much time has passed, I have to leave, and then that's what I would do and I would leave.

Jenny Benitez: 22:41

And I had been in this lecture and I was a psychology major when I first started school and I was in this lecture and this professor was throwing statistics around about women who are in abusive relationships. Nine times a 10 will never get out of them, will be in them their whole lives. Women who have anxiety, or women who have eating disorders, and this will never beat it. Like he threw out all these really depressing stats and then he threw in one about anxiety and depression, like women who have this, like you know, most likely it'll affect them their entire lives. And in that moment I remember thinking to myself like I can't live my whole life like this, like I can't do this. And I very like, aggressively, went after, I did my on my own, made appointments with mental health people, got myself into therapy, started doing treatment, I went on medication. I was like I can't, I can't let this happen, because if I have to give up everything at this point, because I hadn't even graduated college at that point and I was like I can't give this up, like what am I doing to myself here? And it was good.

Jenny Benitez: 23:57

But it also put me in a position where I started just kind of trying to control everything. I don't know if you've noticed, but I have this tendency. You can't see it, but Jen is nodding and smiling because she knows I have this problem. But I try to control everything and you know our line of work in. You know communications and everything. It's fairly easy in client services to be successful when you want to control everything because that is the job basically is having control of all the details and making sure that you're on top of all the stuff.

Jenny Benitez: 24:34

But the reality of it was that was my way to cope with anxiety. When I start to get anxious about something, instead of shrinking back, I will throw myself at it like full force and almost like engulf myself over it so that it's like, well, you don't exist anymore. Now, over the past year, I've been trying to shift Away from doing that. Hopefully it's working, because it's not a good way to be, it's not a way to function and unfortunately it is. I think it has a lot to do with you know what you go through in your life. You did share a lot of trauma that you've been through and I've seen it. And actually, as you were talking, now that I'm saying this. Like all the folks that I know that have anxiety, have been through some trauma in their young lives that has resulted in them reacting in these specific ways.

Jen: 25:32

Yeah, absolutely. I still, to this day, have a very big abandonment fear. It's a huge one for me Because my parents were divorced when I was three. Yeah, so it leads into me and I think I had mentioned this to you it leads into me being a real people pleaser. I, even to this day, my boyfriend, will go out somewhere. I'll be like you're coming back, right, like joking. Well, like only half joking, I'm joking, but seriously I am convinced that, like, eventually, people are just gonna leave me. That's a very big fear I have. So I will do things like go through work and not advocate for myself.

Jen: 26:11

Maybe, not stick up for myself enough, because I do not want people to be mad at me. I do not want people to think less of me. So, it's like how can Jen make everyone feel happy? How can Jen make a situation better If people are fighting? Even if it's warranted, I'll be like, okay, like, how do we stop?

Jenny Benitez: 26:30

this how do we keep the peace?

Jen: 26:31

How do we keep the peace, even if that fight should be happening, even if someone did something really bad? But how do we just fix it now? Because it's too much for me to handle if people are fighting with each other. So how do I make this better? And I'll do that with my family. If people are having issues in my family, I'll be like okay, but like how do we just fix this right now and just make everyone like each other again? Because I don't want to handle this at all and I definitely take that into my work in a way that I don't advocate for myself enough. So if something's really bad, I won't say something a lot of the time. If someone does something really, really egregious towards me, I'm not gonna say anything about it. I'm probably just gonna like really bear it.

Jen: 27:15

Talk to my coworkers about it, but you know in secret, but not really do anything to fix the problem, because I'm just too afraid of people getting angry at me and then I assume I'll get fired. I assume if I bring up any sort of thing, I assume I'll get fired, and that's always been the case with me through everything I've done.

Jenny Benitez: 27:37

You know, when I was growing up, my mom I'm certain that because my mom has bad anxiety now and she's let it like she lets it really get to her and it's another catalyst for me to be like no, not doing that. But I remember when I was younger she used to say that to me a lot. She would put herself to the side to make sure everybody else was happy. Is everybody else feeling good here? I'm gonna put myself on the back burner and I watched her do this like my whole life. But then I also watched her when she got older and when we all got older and she was resentful about it and she has to this day. I'm sure like those feelings are there, but she doesn't. She's not one of those people and I think it might be a generational thing for that generation. Like mental health in like the 1950s and like my mom was born in the 50s, so like mental health in 1950s and 1960s was like rub some dirt on it and get your ass back to work.

Jenny Benitez: 28:39

You're not doing that Like, you're gonna do this, like period, and there was no like. I think that's why what they make fun of millennials, that we have all these emotions. It's like well, we really are supposed to, though, like you're supposed to acknowledge the bad and the good and take it in and understand it, and then you can move forward with it, because the other part of it here is that you don't wanna pass that trauma on to anybody else. You know, and like I had observed my mother my whole life and how she handled things, but I also saw, like the dark part of it, where she would get resentful or she would blow up the one time, not one time. I don't think it happens as often anymore, but I was telling my husband, I was like oh yeah, my mom would like let things build and build and build, and then she would have this blow out and just be screaming at me and my brothers and just really let it loose on us, and we would all be like, oh my gosh, and I remember I'd be devastated and crying everything, but then she would like, instead of acknowledging it, she would like laugh it off Like oh gosh, sorry, I lost my and then pretend like nothing happened. And I was always like, but you, just, you just, I don't understand. And I remember I was telling my husband this, being like, yeah, it was crazy. And he was like you do that. And I was like what? I was like no, I don't do that. And he was like you do do that. You don't ask for help and you try to do everything, you carry everything on your shoulders and then you explode. He was like you do that. And I remember having this conversation with him and I was like oh crap. So now it was like this thing that I'm like all right, I have to actively make sure that I'm fixing this, because I am starting to see like little anxieties in my kids.

Jenny Benitez: 30:35

You know, like my daughter is a perfectionist and she is right now. Currently, the problem that we're facing right now is she's learning to read. She's six, she's figuring it out, she's doing really well. She doesn't think she is and she comes home and the past couple of weeks she's been like devastated Mommy, I don't want to go back to school, I don't, I can't go to school anymore. Mommy, I don't want to do this, I'm not as smart, I can't do this and I'm like, oh my God, I'm like honey, no, like tell me, like explain to me what's going on. The reality of it is she's doing great and she's fine, but because she's not reading perfectly, she feels like she's failing. Yeah, and so now we're like okay, like how do we, how do we get her to understand that, as long as you try your hardest, you are succeeding here.

Jenny Benitez: 31:33

And the other part that we're really careful about here too, is like not to compare the kids to each other, because my kids are all really close in age. And this morning I was giving them a little pop quiz on the way to school and I was like all right, and I was throwing their little spelling words at them and her the one twin twin and a or twin, you know, twin a was getting them. You know, she's like firing off the and twin B, with the anxiety, was like I don't know. And I was like all right, hold on, hold on, hold on. And I asked the other one to pipe down.

Jenny Benitez: 32:02

I was like I'm going to give you your words, okay, because it was that competition part that was getting her. And I said to her I was like you know, mommy was really bad at tests. At school I was like I want you to know that I was really terrible at test taking and I was like I consider myself intelligent, but when I was a kid I take tests like written tests. I hated that. Oh, I did terrible my standardized tests because I just couldn't do it. So there's a there's a lot to it, and I do very strongly think that people pass that those habits and those learned behaviors along to family members, nieces, nephews like it goes across the board.

Jen: 32:39

Yes, yeah, you know, and I have to think that like it has to be a bit of like an inherited thing too, because I'm seeing it now, I'm hearing about, you know, my niece has had a lot of issues. She's in high school now and she's been struggling a lot and so much is like what I went through and I feel horrible for her. And now I'm hearing that my, my nephews in fourth grade he's having issues now with like the perfectionism Yep, he's not perfect. Apparently, in class, you know, he starts like mumbling on his breath, saying like how he's not smart, he's not good enough, and the key is actually hurt him. And surprisingly, the kids were not little jerks or anything and they actually were really supportive and they were like you know, you can't talk to yourself like that. You're really smart, you're really good. What do you mean things about yourself? So I was thrilled to hear how that's wonderful like propping him up?

Jen: 33:39

Yeah, man do. I know how it feels to think if you are not perfect, you don't get 100 on that test, then you are a failure.

Jenny Benitez: 33:48

Mm, hmm, and let me tell you, I was not, yeah, I was not one of those kids. I had to study really hard to get anything. I was not naturally like, and I remember my friends would all be like, yeah, whatever, and they'd like look stuff over, and I was like, yeah, haha, I was like I can't do that. I was like and I felt I actually felt inadequate for a really long time. I might have actually had a learning disorder, I might have had some kind of a, and I just didn't know what he picked up on it, because that's not something that my parents were into, like you know that and that's that's. You know, it's unfortunate because it does start really young and that's the other part too, that, like, I don't think people realize too, because you brought us through from, like when you were a little kid, all the way up and it does manifest like that. And so I want, like the listeners to really hear that too. Is that like, if you do have kids like it will manifest in a way of physical reaction, like I don't feel good, I have a headache, yeah, I don't feel good, I have a stomach ache, you know, and it comes out like that. My kids are pretty vocal and they'll come home and tell me like I'm not going back because I can't take that test tomorrow and I'm like what you know? Like they'll tell me like stuff like that. But, like you know, we've been, I've been teaching them and, like my husband, I've been like hounding them on communicating since they were like little, since they could talk, but most kids won't do that. You know, I remember my older brother had really severe anxiety because he got bullied at school pretty badly and I remember feeling like I need to protect him at school and I think I had told this story to a couple of you guys but I had like his bully. I tried to beat his bully up because it was like, don't mess with my brother. That basically it's unfortunate but it is going on. And I think the biggest thing, that the biggest key takeaway, is going to be like we have to acknowledge this, like there shouldn't be a stigma around it.

Jenny Benitez: 35:48

I feel like everybody has some form of anxiety or depression. Everyone has something and it is all. It is quite normal and there are ways. There are healthy things you can do through working with medical professionals. You can go on medication, like, if you don't want to go on medication, that's totally cool. There are other routes you can take.

Jenny Benitez: 36:09

But do something to try to help yourself and the most important thing here too, is also advocating for yourself. You know, like in Jen's situation, like her father was not on board with it you know there's those situations where you might not be, you might not be able to get someone to help you out, like you might have to actually go and do this Now, when you're a kid, that's not possible. You don't know what you're supposed to be doing. But when you're able to do it as an adult, you know get the help that you need, that you're not suffering through the rest of your life because you don't have to live like that. It doesn't have to be that bad. But I mean to this day I'm still working on myself in that regard.

Jen: 36:49

Yeah, absolutely. I truly felt so much shame about how I was feeling. I didn't want anyone to know when. I was out in high school I said make sure that the school tells everybody that I had a bad asthma attack and I can't be in school Like.

Jen: 37:05

I did not want one person to know the real reason. I was out because I was so ashamed about it and I felt like such a freak and that no one was going to understand me, that everyone was going to think I was a weirdo like with some mental issues, and I think that that's the way I really went about it until, honestly, pretty recently, like I didn't want to talk about it Truly being around you and some of the people that we know and being able to openly talk and seeing like, oh, actually, everyone's dealing with this, oh yeah.

Jenny Benitez: 37:41

Oh, yes, yes.

Jen: 37:43

It's even like. You know, I'm 40 years old and I still am like kind of shocked at, oh, everyone actually is dealing with this. I'm not a weirdo. No it is something I can actually talk about, and I talk about it a lot more now.

Jenny Benitez: 38:00

That's wonderful actually.

Jen: 38:02

Yes, I talk about it with. Even my dad has gotten on board with the fact that, you know, I'm a medication, so even he's kind of changed his thinking, so he doesn't think the same way either anymore, and so I'm a lot more open about how I'm feeling. I can say you know, I'm actually really anxious today. Certainly, I would have always thought that that's not something I would want a partner to know, but I'm super open about it. I'm like, listen, I'm really anxious.

Jen: 38:29

You know, I don't know why, and my partner? He's someone who does not have anxiety so it's hard oh wow, he has zero anxiety, so it's harder for him to understand and I think I also have like a. I'll get a touch of depression every now and then where I just can't explain it and he's like what's going on with you? Like why are you? What's happening?

Jenny Benitez: 38:49

It's just there. It's just there.

Jen: 38:51

I can't Nothing happened. Nothing bad happened. I can't tell you. Yeah, I can't say oh, actually this happened today and it made me feel sad. There's no reason, it just is. I just don't feel in a good mood, I just feel bad in general and I don't know what. Pass, it will pass and I'll feel fine.

Jenny Benitez: 39:11

It always does. Yeah, it does Typically. I will say this like my husband and I will be very vocal to each other, like my anxiety is bad today, and then the other ones, like oh, okay, okay, and I know that, like when he'll say and then I'll be like, okay, I have to make sure that, you know, things are a little bit less stress on his side, you know. And then when I say it, you know he'll like be like, okay, like, and he'll try to like talk with me and like I think I've told you a couple times, he talks me off the ledge when I'm like really like far out there, and he does, he like you know, helps talk me through it.

Jenny Benitez: 39:43

And then you know, honestly, it I don't think I've ever like how I and now that you mentioned it, because I'll have days where, like I'll tell you like my anxiety is hot today, you know, and I'll like just mention it. So I'm like I feel like it's, I think it should be something. It's almost like when you say, like I have a cold, I don't feel good, and your teammates got your back and they're like, don't worry, we'll throw in some extra support for you. Today, I don't feel my anxiety is hot, hot today, guys. So if I feel, if I seem off, just like why, that's what's up.

Jen: 40:12

Absolutely.

Jenny Benitez: 40:13

That's like on the same, it's on the same playing field. You don't feel good. You know that. You're getting that really bad feeling in your chest like, hey, can you step in for me on this call? I can't, I can't handle it today, no problem, you know. It should be something that we're comfortable just saying, like hey, this is what's going on. It doesn't mean that you're bad at your job or you're a bad person or you're a failure or there's something wrong with you. Like you're excellent. It's just you have this thing, same thing as anything else.

Jen: 40:43

Yeah, absolutely. I love the idea of it being so common that you can just say that to somebody and I know I could say it to you and there's certain other people I could say it to but man, do I just want everyone to be able to do that I want every company.

Jen: 40:59

I want every person to just say you know what, today I'm just feeling a little anxious, I have a lot of anxiety, and not be looked at as like you're faking it, you're right out of something, like there's still always going to be people that think you're trying to use that as an excuse to get out of something, and it's just not true. Like until you've experienced this feeling of having to, like, go about your day, do your job and be good at it and also feel just dread and just feel terrible.

Jenny Benitez: 41:30

I will say this I definitely felt a definitive shift in workflow with one of our other colleagues and then also with when you and I would work together and things after I knew about the anxiety. When I knew that anxiety was at play, I was like, oh, I also have. Okay, well, now I get it, because then I would know if I could, if I sensed it like okay, I think she needs a little bit of a buffer today. Let me be that buffer for her today and that actually helped, I think, our partnership much more, because we were able to have that openness and and everyone listening like that's like the most important thing here is like if you acknowledge it and you put it out there, like I mean it is scary to do it in the beginning because you really don't know how the other person is going to react, but it also helps because then you've put it out there and now you can be honest about and say, like I'm freaking out about X, y and Z, can we talk about this? And even just like talking about it and talking it through, like maybe you're freaked out about a big meeting coming up, maybe there's a project that you got on your plate that you really don't know what to do, or you do know what to do, but you're freaked out about it anyway, like acknowledging it and then, even on a personal level, tell your partner like I have anxiety, I'm getting really anxious today. Your communications will improve, you'll probably fight less if you're just honest and say I've got anxiety today. I'm gonna probably freak out over everything. Just a heads up like that's all it takes. It's really truly all it takes. And even if it's not your partner or close friend, whatever, letting them know and giving them a heads up like hey, I'm not feeling great, I'm feeling off. Just giving you a heads up, it's totally okay and it's okay.

Jenny Benitez: 43:15

And we need to normalize this because all this time and we're always trying to fit into these molds of like this is how I'm supposed to be, this is how I'm supposed to react, this is the type of person I'm supposed to be at this point in my life. None of that's real. No, it's all BS, it's all fake. There is no right time, there is no specific time.

Jenny Benitez: 43:41

I remember when I was in my early 20s I was like you have to get like married by a certain age. You have to have kids by a certain age. You have to get your perfect job, you have to buy your house, you have to do this, you have to do this. And I would be like, oh my god, like I don't know how to do any of these things. Like this is so much, it's very overwhelming. Like you don't have to do any of that. How many women now, today, are like focusing on their careers first than having babies in their 40s? Not I'd be exhausted doing that, but like, yeah, you know, like you don't have to fit into a mold is really the point absolutely.

Jen: 44:16

I agree with that 100%. There is no right, one right way to live your life and everyone's unique, everyone's individual. Everyone has a different path and a different journey that they're gonna go on, and I used to. I used to do like things like be on Facebook. Look at, you know people I went to high school with. See the kinds of jobs that they had. I would feel terrible about myself when I was, you know, especially in my late 20s. See some of the jobs that people had that I went to high school with and, man, I just felt like crap about myself, oh yeah like they're doing better than me.

Jen: 44:51

They're married, they have their kid, they have this great job where they're like a VP, like they're only in their 20s and I'm like, how is that possible? And I would just feel like garbage about myself and at some point I was like you know what, I don't, I don't care about that anymore. I cannot let this stuff bother me. They're doing that. I'm sure they have stuff in their life that's not perfect and I sure they have people that they look at and wish they were. Like like everybody aspires to be something else. Everyone thinks that maybe someone else has something more than them. They have things that they're going through that nobody knows about, and it's just time to stop trying to compare myself to other people like.

Jen: 45:31

This is where I'm at in my life. You know I made the choices I made and I did the things I did, and I can't get mad at myself over that. I can only learn from what I previously did. Right, make choices to either change what I'm gonna do you know better myself in some way, and I think that that's like what I'm doing now, and maybe it took me a little longer than some other people, but it's never too late. I truly don't. I truly believe that it's never too late, agreed, yeah, you just gotta. You just gotta do what makes you happy and what's gonna make you the best person, and that's really all you can do in life. You just can't. And I try and work on that, you know, every day, and I just I don't want to be the person that is anxious and feels bad about myself, and I'm just gonna try and live the best life that I can live for myself, and that's, that's all that's the most fabulous thing you could say after everything you've been through.

Jenny Benitez: 46:30

You've come out of this with this success mindset, Like that's what you just explained. What you just explained is called a success mindset because you basically have come through all these challenges and at the end of this you're saying to yourself like I don't have to compare myself to anybody. Their journey is their journey. And I'd like to also plug in here what everyone is posting on social media is not the actual reality of the situation. So you're not gonna post on social media all the horrible things that are happening. You're only gonna post the highlights, and the impact that that has had on people's mental health is like obscene.

Jenny Benitez: 47:18

We're still learning all of these things that are coming out of it, but how many people like I'm not in it at all, but like how many people spent hours scrolling, looking at beautiful pictures of other people? Look, oh, this woman had three kids, her body's perfect, Her kids are always smiling, her house is always clean, her husband buys her flowers all the time. My husband doesn't buy me flowers and blah, blah. I mean I've talked about this on other episodes I'm like that breeds like resentment for yourself and your life and your kids and your partner, and like you're really just like pulling everything to the ground and, in reality, you're comparing yourself to something that's not real. Like that's not real.

Jenny Benitez: 47:59

And you know you said something and I wrote it down quickly because I was like I need to take that quote there is no one right way to live your life. There truly isn't a right way to do it. You have to do it your way. So, however, that is is okay. You know, like when I was, when my kids were all little and I was just trying to survive, like I did a lot of stuff that you know, my co-host, Melissa, would never do. She's like she would never do with her daughter, but she always says to me she was like you were trying to survive, you had to do what you had to do, and I'm like hell, yeah, I had to, you know, and you just have to do it, and without judgment.

Jenny Benitez: 48:35

And that's what this is this is meant to be. Like we need to make this a safe space for women to say, like this is a no judgment zone. We need to live our lives. However, we need to live our lives and it's gonna be wonderful because you're living your life authentically. So I congratulate you on that, because what you just explained, I hope that one listener comes away from this Only need one person to hear this episode to say you know what? I am gonna change how I'm looking at this, or I am gonna like I'm gonna shift how I'm thinking about this and maybe not feel like as bad about how I was feeling about the situation. So that was just like such a nice way to summarize your whole experience, like kudos.

Jen: 49:20

Awesome. I'm glad and I certainly hope that any ladies or anyone out here listening sees that you are good enough. You do not have to compare yourself. You are worthy of praise and admiration and love and all the good things you want in your life. And if you have anxiety about it, take charge. Find someone you can talk to, someone that you trust. Like you said, if it's medication, great. It's not medication. If it's something else you wanna do, that's great too. But you deserve to be happy. Everyone deserves to be happy. And if you're not happy, I truly hope that you have someone in your life you can talk to, that you can say you know what. I'm ready to make this change in my life and I deserve it for myself.

Jenny Benitez: 50:17

That was wonderful. I couldn't have said it better myself. Truly, I hope that this resonated with some of you and if you are feeling this way, we encourage you to. I mean, you guys hear me all the time saying I'm always open, you can always reach out to me. You can find me mostly on LinkedIn if you wanna find me there, because I'm pretty active there, but you can also email us at SteelRosespodcast at gmailcom. I'm always here for you guys and I'm happy to provide support and just even a sounding board if you need it. Jen, thank you so much for recording today. I think this was such an important, impactful episode, so thank you.

Jen: 50:57

Thank you, jenny. I really loved being on here and talking to you today, and thank you to anyone who's listening, because you guys are great and you're worth it.

Jenny Benitez: 51:08

Thank you all and we'll see you next time.