“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” ~Soren Kierkegaard
Let’s be clear:
This is not an essay about positive thinking.
This is not an article about how the silver linings make everything perfect.
This is not an article about how your perception of anxiety is wrong.
Kids call those things “toxic positivity.”
No toxic positivity here.
This is something an article about my lifelong relationship with anxiety and what I’ve learned from something that will never end. Sometimes the anxiety is overwhelming and almost crippling. I find it hard to appreciate reading at those times, but it’s still there.
That’s what this article is about.
Please don’t confuse me by reading things into something that won’t go away when I agree with that thing or say it’s a good thing. I would trade everything I’ve learned from anxiety for less anxiety. I don’t even like to write about it because focusing on it too much gives me anxiety. But I want to write things that help people.
That Bare Butt Raised My Anxiety
Stranger Things proved that the eighties were cool. For the most part, this is true. I miss the arcades and the music. I miss the freedom I had as a child that I don’t see children getting these days. I miss some of the fashion. I can’t remember people who don’t know anything about mental health.
We used to play football every day after school at the baseball field/park in our small town. This was an unsupervised soccer game with kids much older than me.
I remember one time a young man broke his finger. It was pointing back at him at a ninety degree angle. He ran towards his house. One of the older children said, “You’re running to mommy’s house!” and we all went back to playing.
Ironically, it can break mine the finger didn’t bother me. What he did My concern was one day when a kid ran for a touchdown, and another kid dove to stop him. He grabbed only the top of the pants, and pulled them down to reveal his butt. He scored a touchdown, but while everyone thought it was funny, it scared me to death.
What if that happens to me?
I started tying my pants with string every day, pulling them tight so my stomach would hurt (remember, this was the eighties—I wore those neon-colored panty-looking things). I started getting sick before we played football, before school, and before everything.
You might think it’s obvious that I’m dealing with anxiety, but you have to remember that in the eighties and nineties, we didn’t talk about mental health like we do now. We didn’t throw around words like anxiety and depression. I was a strange child who threw up before going to school.
Concerns have become less apparent over the past few years. It seems to be the worst since the COVID in 2020 and 2021. I don’t know if that’s a thing, but it feels like it is. It forced me to approach it with more care and purpose. It’s never been fun, but I’ve learned a few things.
1. Worry has taught me to exist.
The crushing presence of intense anxiety forces me to be where I am in that moment. I can’t read and write. I can’t play a video game or watch a movie for any kind of entertainment. There is nothing I can do.
This anchors me in the moment in a very strong, authentic way. That may seem bad as far as I’m concerned, but there’s another layer to it. When I am fully present with the feelings of physical anxiety, I realize that it is a force in the body. When I’m more present, I can see how my mind turns those feelings into the emotion we call anxiety, and that’s where my suffering comes from.
2. Worrying has taught me control.
I have been told that my independence and need to be prepared for anything is a response to trauma. I’ve been a therapist for ten years, and I still don’t know what to do with this information. I know that anxiety gives me a crash course on what I can control and what I can’t control.
The bad news is that I can’t control any of the things that I think are causing anxiety. The good news is that I can control how I react to all of those things. Anxiety forces me to do this more deliberately.
Anxiety also sets my mind firmly on something bigger than myself. Maybe it’s that high energy we hear about at AA meetings and awards shows. It’s good to get out of my head and remember that I’m not holding anything back. It helps to only box in my weight class.
3. Anxiety teaches me to have good habits and boundaries.
I’m bad at letting my habits and boundaries slip when times are good. I start eating unhealthy, stop exercising, stay up late, and watch tons of shows and movies that bring the darkness and confusion right out of my head.
I am also starting to allow unhealthy and even toxic people to have a more prominent role in my life. All this is assumed that I am helping them because people come to me a lot. Over the years, I’ve learned that I have to limit how close I let the most toxic people get to me, no matter how much they need help.
When I feel good, I start to think that I can handle anything, and my limits slip. Anxiety is a constant reminder that being unhealthy in my life has consequences, and I clean house when it comes up.
4. Anxiety reminds me how important growth is.
Once I clean the house, I start looking at new projects and things I can do to feel better. I’m starting to take the next step of who I want to be. This has been difficult for the past three years because the waves of anxiety have been so strong, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel as the good habits I have put in place and the new projects and things I have started are starting to pay off.
I chose to let my counseling license expire and focus on life coaching because it’s less stressful, and I’m better at it. This would not have been possible without concern. I’ve changed my diet and exercise because of my blood pressure and anxiety, and these are good habits to have whether I’m anxious or not.
5. Anxiety taught me to be gentle.
I have written and spoken a lot about my desire to be kind to people. I’m not an unkind person, and I have a lot of compassion for people, but this is often expressed in a rude or very direct way. It’s the way I was raised, and I often feel like I’m taking care of people when I walk in circles of words when I’m trying to help them with something.
When I’m dealing with high anxiety I feel vulnerable, which helps me understand how other people might feel when I’m dealing with my dullness. I started working on becoming leaner in 2018, and I was disappointed with my progress.
That same year anxiety started to become a presence in my life again. As I look back now, I realize that I am kinder to all the people around me when I am worried. Being a little fragile helps me treat everyone with a little care.
6. Anxiety taught me to slow down and ask for help.
When I started dealing with increased anxiety, it led me to make quick decisions and change things to try to cope. This makes sense. Evolutionarily, anxiety is meant to move us into action.
The problem was that these decisions were rarely the best and often led to other consequences that I had to deal with on the floor. Because of this, I have learned that an anxiety spike is not the time to make big decisions.
When I have to make a decision about something, I slow down and try to be more deliberate about it. I have also learned that I need to talk to another person, something I never liked to do. Asking for help is a good thing.
7. Anxiety helps me to be faster.
Yes, yes, yes, this is the opposite of what I just said.
Let me clarify.
One of the most important quotes I’ve ever read is from folk singer Joan Baez: “Action is the antidote to anxiety.” (Years later, I learned that he may have said despair instead of anxiety, but I heard it the first way).
Some jobs bring anxiety that I don’t want to deal with. This often involves phone calls or emails to authorities or activities that I find unpleasant and anxiety-provoking (avoiding this also makes sense—our evolutionary heritage cannot understand why we would do something that might seem dangerous).
Over the years, I’ve learned that anxiety decreases when I take the steps I need to take to deal with these tasks. Happily, this has translated into many of my daily activities.
By getting things done in the face of anxiety, I’ve gotten the best out of getting things done when they need to be done. I mow the lawn when it needs to be mowed, take out the trash when it needs to be taken out, set the clock when it needs to be put in, and change the oil in my truck when it needs to be changed.
Once we start dealing with tasks quickly, it becomes a habit. Anxiety helped me do this.
Anxiety is still hard
So there you go. Seven things anxiety has taught me. Thank you for these lessons, but they do not make the anxiety difficult at this time.
Anxiety is meant to absorb. It is meant to make things difficult and uncomfortable for us until we do something to fix the problem. The problem, unfortunately, is often unsolvable these days.
We worry about things like losing a job, not having enough money, divorce and the general state of the world. Anxiety didn’t grow to deal with any of these things, so sometimes letting go of the discomfort is the best thing we can give ourselves.
Maybe that’s the last thing anxiety teaches me.
About James Scott Henson
James is a writer who wants to help people overcome challenges and make important changes in their lives. She has worked for over twenty years as a social worker, meditation teacher, and licensed professional counselor. After finding her home in life coaching, she helps others achieve their goals and create the life they want. As a writer, James shares helpful posts on Substack, writing thousands of words each month to inspire, challenge, and inspire his subscribers.
