The Wrong Way to Deal with Anxiety

Storms always start off slowly with one cloud drifting into clear skies. A thought tinged with emotion, but just slight.

“I haven’t talked to Olivia in a while, what if she doesn’t like me anymore.”

Add another cloud.

“What if I did something wrong to make her not like me.”

I make a mental note of the word what if clearly starting each sentence. “ It’s just anxiety. That can’t possibly be true, can it?” I seek for reassurance inside my mind, “No, she’s probably just busy with Crossfit and Running Club. She’s been way more busy lately. It’s not me.”

At this point the skies are still sunny. There’s just two pesky clouds in another wise beautiful blue sky. These thoughts are easy to rationalize. Easy to dismiss. Easy to forget. But the forecast, suggests heavy rains later in the week and I am not at all prepared for the weather.

If my mind was the weather the feeling of stability and truth I feel when I am not anxious would be the sun. It constantly shines and is perpetually present even when I cannot see it.

Most of the time I cannot see it.

When the clouds inevitably roll in, normally, I can manage them. I notice, I ponder and I dismiss the clouds as shaped like elephants even though I am worried they might be giraffes. I can reason my way out of the uncertainty.

That is until, there’s a storm.

Storms always start as white and puffy clouds. Before long they hang dark and heavy threatening rain and lightning. In my brain, when there is too much uncertainty, the clouds start to accumulate. I cannot reason them away. I cannot remember the sunlight. The thoughts are perceived as too pressing, too real, too tangible, to be cast away as just another neural firing.

This normally occurs when the thoughts in question relate strongly to two areas of my life: fulfillment and relationships. You see, after years of observing the same pattern, I have come to realize most of my anxiety centers around the loss of my true potential and the loss of those I love. Worse still is when those two fears meld together, but I will get to that.

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