My Anxiety Files – Worrying Is The Worst Thing Ever

Been, there, dude.

           To the anxious, worry is always a verb.  It is something people do with their time.  It is active and it eats away at your life.  What makes it particularly evil is that you really do believe that you are accomplishing something, while the truth is, worry has never solved a single problem in the history of every-damn-thing.

            I used to worry. I patterned this after my mother, who could be a world champion at the sport.  She almost medaled one year in the Worry-lympics.  Worry has its base in the root of nearly all of humanity’s psychological problems: fear.  We try to reconcile the unknown, just like every generation before us.  We have used recorded history, science, sociology to help aid us in our understanding of the unknown, so worry looks a lot different these days.  Now we worry about possible outcomes.  We worry about what may happen.  Statistics should be able to help, but they do not.  Our minds should be able to quell that feeling of worry if we understand likelihoods and embrace when there simply is no way to predict some outcomes.  But it often does not work, because there are emotions mistakenly connected to worry. No logic we can drum up will help a person with anxiety that is compelled to worry.

            First, some confuse worry with concern.  If you are concerned with something, you care about the outcome.  You care what happens after your friend’s surgery or if you get into a good college.  You care about your kids’ grades and you are very concerned about that hole in your roof.  Life cannot be free from concern.  But worry is taking that concern and trying to make it an action. We feel the need to show our concern.  It is keeping vigil for life’s many unpredictable issues.  There is a difference between caring about my friend’s heart surgery and pacing around clutching my phone waiting for a call.  Some people believe this is a sacrifice that shows we care.  The truth is, you are just killing hours of your own life.  There is nothing your concern can do that life won’t take care all by itself.  Your buddy is passed out in surgery.  He can’t be anywhere else or do anything else.  Exactly how are you helping?

            We believe worry is an extension of love.  I worry about my kids because I love them.  In this worry is a lack of acceptance.  You do not have total control of what happens to your kids.  No one does.  Every year they get older, their spheres of knowledge, interaction, and influence grow.  You will always feel what you feel for your kids, but you must accept that worry is about you, and not them. It is your unwillingness to let go of the reigns of responsibility.  It is one of the hardest things to do, but the converse is so much more difficult.  Worrying about them will put you in the ground so much faster.

            So, how do we combat this monster?

Accept, grow, and embrace the uncertainty.  Watching reruns of The Office while sitting in a big fat chair would accomplish more than worry.  Or reading a fantasy novel.  Or learning how to play that keyboard.  Or writing a blog about time travel and stuff that nobody reads.  Worriers all need to be stopped.  There are so many ways out of it, including a little more exercise, but one major way is the one that gets the most heat:  Distraction.

I promised myself that I would not get political in this blog, and I do not plan to break that promise here.  But, at least socially, I will say that if we all gave ourselves a break, things may be a little less tense.  We’re just human.  That’s it.  We have a lot of crap on our plates real and imagined, and I think just the acknowledgement that we do not need our foot on the accelerator of life all the time is fair.  We need art and music.  TV and the movies.  Books and websites and blogs.  Doing goofy shit with friends. We engage in these things regularly but their intrinsic value is overlooked. 

Of course, people will point out that excessive use of the distractions is not good.  No shit.  Extremes are always a problem.  Also, substance abuse is not a distraction.  It is a sickness.  Binge-watching Breaking Bad is a fun way to kill a wet weekend.  Drinking three days straight is probably not as healthy.

            Anything you and use to push yourself away from worry is worth a try, as long as it doesn’t hurt you more than the effects of worry.  People who don’t have the problem say “don’t worry about it” to the rest of us and we are supposed to magically turn off the switch.  This time, their advice is worth trying.  You are replacing worry with acceptance, and it is a decision you can make.  It is not easy, but too bad.  Try it.  Your heart and your free time will thank you.