The life of the high strung and overly anxious is not readily understood by most who are neither of those things. For those of you who don’t know what it’s like to be in stress mode 80 percent of the time, this article will (hopefully) give you a better understanding of what goes on in the mind of the high strung and overly anxious.
First of all, we are not monsters. We definitely have a monstrous side, but it only comes out when we’ve hit our breaking point. Please don’t push us to that point just to see that side -- it’s not worth it.
Second, we don’t try to be over the top, but sometimes we can't help it. When our sensors are in overload and things are coming at us from every part of our life, we respond with what we know how to do – freak out until the problem is fixed. Yes we get snippy, but we’ve got 99 problems and this one is probably not even the current problem we’re thinking about.
Our minds work similar to a web browser. We’ve got about 45 different tabs all running at the same time, we never clear our history, and when too much happens at once we freeze and shut down.
One phrase that really gets old is “it’s not that big of a deal.” Yes. We know. We are well aware that this situation is not a big deal. We’ve spent hours, possibly days, reciting that to ourselves during the course of whatever the problem is. However, treating it like a big deal is how we deal with it. We freak out over minor things. When we are shown one way of doing something, it’s very difficult to accept other ways to do the same thing. We spent a lot of time learning one way and it works and we like it. When you tell us “it’s not that big of a deal” and try to tell us to do it a different way, it’s like telling someone that the time and energy they’ve put into something doesn’t matter. It comes across as a personal attack on our work and what we’ve accomplished. Yes, we know you don’t mean it that way, and yes, your way may be 100 times better, but ease us into it. Please. For the sake of our sanity, be gentle with us.
We love details—the smaller and more insignificant, the better! We will map out every possible scenario of how a situation may go (mostly bad ways) and prepare for all of them. No joke, we expect the worst every time.
In the end, we can become mostly normal…ish. It takes a lot of hard work and patience to be calm and collected more often than being anxious. Don’t expect us to “calm down” overnight; we need your patience too. Even when you don’t quite get what the fuss is about, an understanding spirit and gentle encouragement do much more to calm us than anything else will.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go overanalyze something I did five years ago and worry if it completely altered my future…and maybe have a panic attack.
