Oh, the joys of anxiety. I might hate that word more than the actual misery that is associated with it. Yes, anxiety is OK in very small doses. It may help to motivate you and get you in gear for whatever you’re working on at the moment. However, there is a point to where anxiety is too much.
If it were possible to overdose on anxiety, then I have done that multiple times. Anxiety is terrible. In some of my college papers I have written saying that I have finally overcome that god-awful disorder. The truth is I haven’t and never will. I will only learn how to cope with it.
Anxiety is like the war between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Everything seems to be moving in a positive direction, and then boom! Palestine launches missile attacks and the conflict is right back to where it started. I know that may be quite smug of me to compare an anxiety issue with a never-ending war between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but there is a similarity. Israel and Palestine are always in a rotating period of peace and war. The mind is always in a rotating period of peace and war as well.
It drives me completely mad at times. I’ll be having a great time with friends and then boom! Anxiety strikes again and makes sure to ruin my day. A significant amount of pain arises from my stomach and then sometimes I have trouble breathing. Moments later, all I want to do is leave whatever place I’m in and just crawl up in a ball trying to figure out how to breathe again. Anxiety has found ways to ruin nights with friends and more school days than I could ever remember, but I’m learning to cope. I’m learning to say screw you anxiety. If only saying screw you to anxiety would actually work, but I do it anyways because I hate anxiety.
I believe anxiety stems from, or at least, my anxiety stems from a lack of confidence in whatever situation I’m in. I’ll be at a party and someone might look at me strange and then the anxiety comes on. I’ll be in class and I’ll start questioning my ability to solve an equation and then the anxiety comes on. I’ll be driving down the highway and the traffic increases and then the anxiety will come on. It’s a never- ending cycle, but that’s how life is. A constant variable in everyone’s life will always be a problem.
Seeking a problem-free life is like trying to find a Unicorn. They just don’t exist. Around every peaceful bend of a river will be a stretch of rapids. What has helped me so much with anxiety is that I have accepted the fact that I will have to canoe across a stretch of rapids here and there, but the rapids don’t have to flip my canoe. We can all choose to have the confidence to paddle across the rapids or we can paddle back up river, which will only prolong the problem.
Anxiety will probably plague me tomorrow just as it has plagued me today, but I can do things differently. When I walk into a party tomorrow night, I can tell myself that people want me to be there and that I’m just as important as anyone else. When I’m staring at incredibly difficult math problems, I can say Preston, you can do this. And lastly, when I’m stuck in traffic, I can just roll down the windows, turn up some feel-good vibes, and enjoy the alone time.
When I close my eyes tonight, I can choose to believe that tomorrow is going to be a great day, possibly the greatest day. Instead of taking a ride down the road of self-doubt and indulging myself in total disaster thinking, I can choose to be self-confident and believe that tomorrow will be a day of self-growth, not disaster.
Every night before I go to sleep I thank God for that day and even at times I thank my God for the pain from anxiety. For anxiety has almost forced me to dig deep inside of myself to discover the beliefs and values I hold most dearly.
I see now that as humans, almost all of us make the mistake of caring too much about temporary and irrelevant ideas in a life span that is so short. I laugh looking back at myself. I see a person that cared so much about revolving his life around the approval of others. What an unsatisfying and depressing life that is. I believe the greatest happiness is achieved from within by knowing that your self-identity is unique and is a necessity to this world. That is the belief that helps to wake me up in the morning and the belief that drives my day.
For every one of us, there is a reason and hopefully reasons that we were born into this earth. It can be a tough concept to grasp. I have toiled over that concept countless times. However, it must be true because why are we here?
I liked to say to all of my fellow anxiety ridden brothers and sisters, we’re in this together and tomorrow can still be a GREAT day!
