Grinds My Gears: Anxiety

You know what I really hate right now? Anxiety! It is like an inescapable vicious circle. Something causes anxiety, then you get anxious. You try to approach the thing to get some catharsis by doing it, solving it, fixing it, or confronting it. However, you are too anxious to do this—or trying to do this causes you to be more anxious and then you can’t do it. When you can’t do it you become more upset about this and start to worry about the consequences of not doing it which makes you more anxious which makes it even more difficult to do it and so on until you peak out and shut down and then this formula is applied to almost every situation because being in such a high state of anxiety for so long shorts out your nerves and cause you to become more sensitive to anxiety so now not only are you still freaking out about the original issue, that in it of itself is not that big of a thing and eventually you may have gotten it done, you are also anxious about everything else and so you can totally forget about being able to do the initial thing let alone the simplest of things like writing an email or reading a chapter. You feel you have become useless which then depresses you on top of the anxiety, which now causes in combination, panic attacks and then, in the purest definition of anxiety, you become anxious and panicked about your anxiety and panic! This depresses you more and you then become depressed about being depressed. Then these issues bleed even more into each other: you become anxious you are depressed and get depressed about being anxious—you you get more and more depressed and anxious—then you can’t do anything and now we are back to the beginning. Furthermore, most of the home remedies for anxiety are counterintuitive to focusing on what needs to be done, typically, smoking, drinking, sleeping, etc—things that boast they relax you, constrict blood vessels which simulates the effect of a hug which scientifically is proven to relax a person. However, this means less blood gets to the brain so even if you do calm yourself down with these various methods, you are still unlikely to be able to get stuff done! Then, you start to think about all this the way I am which also gets you even more anxious and depressed and gives you a sense of hopelessness. Also—since you are not getting anything done. You think about all the horrid negative consequences about this which, depending on your situation can vary from anything like getting fired from your job, failing all your classes which can mean losing financial aid and\or academic suspension, if you are spending money on stuff to distract you from your anxiety you will think about how much money you’ve wasted that you shouldn’t have, and it just goes on and on. You may ask why then, am I able to write this rant? Well the answer is simple, when you are in a state of panic and anxiety, the easiest thing to do is to talk about how it makes you feel.