So, I’m dealing with lots of anxiety lately. About money, the future, hitting rock bottom, whatever. But the thing is, I’m not in a position to be anxious about these things. I have a decent paying job with an unlimited contract. I have an appartment, a loving gf, I’m healthy and even if shit hits the fan, my family would happily help me.
Still, I get like panic attacks when I think about some stuff. The fear of my car breaking down, for example, makes me feel like dying, despite being able to buy a new one without problems.
My anxiety feels misplaced. When I walk to my job (because even that’s a luxury I have), I walk past homeless people sleeping on porches, I walk past addicts shooting up etc. and I think ti myself: ‘they are so much worse off, What do I worry about?’.
Years ago I was trapped in a life of crime with very little perspective, and even then I didn’t feel anxious. Now that I have monumentally changed my life around, I worry. It makes no sense to me.
Has anyone else felt this way before? Or ar you still having issues like this? How did/do you deal with it?
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Anticipatory anxiety, the feeling where even trying to feel happy might cause something to go wrong? Also curious how others deal with this…
The thing is, things do go wrong from time to time. I had a lot of repairs for my car in the last two months and even though it sucks having to spend money on it, it didn’t end up bankrupting me in any way, nor will possible upcoming repairs do. Despite this I still feel anxious for some reason. It’s as if my mind is in stuck in a loop of: ‘watch out, danger, watch out, danger’ without there being any danger.
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Consistency is something I’m improving actually. I bought a planner even, in which I note all the things to do for the coming period. You’re right about it helping, because I already feel a bit more at ease the last week of two.
But yeah, I might also seek therapy. Self improvement can only go so far.
I am struggling with anxiety too for the past two days though it is not exactly unjustified.
That sucks and I hope things get better
Thanks. Good luck to you too.
Hey comrade!! First of all thanks for being a big contributor and consistent presence to the grad.
I am not a professional nor do I have any real experience with these kinds of techniques, but recently (in the past two weeks or so) I’ve been trying to work on my anxiety through consciously thinking about it.
Instead of fighting my anxiety and telling myself there’s nothing to be worried about, I just consciously tell myself something to the effect of “ok, I am feeling anxious” or “ok this feeling is there”, “that’s fine”, etc… Then I tell myself there is a reason for that anxiousness. And I try to think back and find potential causes for it.
This calms me down. I don’t remember to do it every time but it does work to varying degrees for me. Sometimes less than others.
Great tip. Acknowledging our feelings in the moment can really help. I wish schools would teach some form of mental health class with tips on how to combat anxiety and stuff. It’s just weird that so many of us are feeling strange one way or another but we never get taught how to deal with it.
And remember you don’t ever have to justify being anxious. It never comes from nowhere. Our brains are capable of feeling anxious because having the capability to be anxious is more beneficial than not having that capability.
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You couldn’t tell by reading my content yesterday, but coincidentally after I posted this I wept and I wished that I had never been born.
I’m sorry to hear that. It wasn’t my comment, was it? I’d have to have upset you.
I’ve got a pile of climate change books that I’m trying to work through. The problem is, it’s depressing af. I can read for a few weeks but then I need time off. Sometimes a day or two will work. Other times I need a month or more.
You do a lot of great research and share it with us but some of the topics are a bit grim. Would it be worth taking a break for you to recover if it’s making you feel that way? I wouldn’t want you to stop posting but if you need a break, you’ve got to look after yourself.
No, it was nothing that anybody here commented. I have a shitty hippocampus, and resultingly I regularly obsess over my unpleasant experiences even when they stopped being relevant years ago. I am sure that anybody who’s been reading my comments for about a year can guess which personal matter has been agitating me again. Sometimes it makes me want to avoid others as much as possible, so I stay inside a lot.
Occasionally I even consider trying something antisocial, but the potential consequences make me reluctant. The worst thing that I have done to complete strangers within the last five years was deliberately ignoring them when they say ‘hi’ to me. I haven’t made any rude gestures or yelled ‘fuck off’ at them, but it is mildly tempting.
As for the grim topics, at the risk of sounding counterintuitive I have to say that they don’t devastate me emotionally. They can be moderately depressing, but being so far removed from the experiences, they just don’t traumatize me like some of my personal experiences do.
