Upfront disclaimer: Considering all the deep insights and the spectrum of anxiety issues that are on this thread I recognize that this is maybe elementary, anecdotal and likely more cathartic than anything..  but in case it’s helpful for someone I thought I’d share.

A good friend of mine, who I’ve always known is not the anxious type explained to me the first episode of anxiety he ever had. It was triggered by a huge life event and listening to him explain it was so interesting because I figured that while he rarely, if ever, dealt with high levels of anxiety that he went through his day to day with very subdued symptoms of anxiety like me (and so I thought everyone else).  

My friend is also not some person who has no responsibilities and can just sit around with nothing to stress over - he works in what is considered a very stressful industry and has the same general responsibilities that all adults have.. but he can go through very stressful situations and not worry about them 7-10 days before and after.  He focuses on them gets stressed, angry, mad, sad etc. but the physical symptoms and endless circles of worry aren’t something he deals with.

Only over the last couple years have I actually realized that I have anxiety and pretty much have always had it (shout out to my now wife for helping me understand that).  After realizing it’s a disorder it has really helped me recognize that yeah, I go through most of my days worrying about things from sunrise to sunset and that this isn’t exactly what everyone goes through.

I generally have been looking at anxiety as “wow, people have it way worse than me. I’m lucky I don’t have it worse but should take care to manage it and ensure my doesn’t get worse.”  When my friend explained to me that he has never dealt with that before.. I don’t know why but a phrase like “I don’t worry about it” really took on a whole new meaning to me. I’m a very hands on learner and this unexpected conversation helped me understand that there is an actual other side to anxiety.  Perhaps the way I’ve been approaching it by trying to prevent it from worsening has actually not been helping, and even at times making it worse. 

So for the last few days when I start going down my rabbit hole of things that aren’t right.. I’ve been saying to myself “don’t worry about it” and its actually been working a bit. When I woke up today I said “okay not going to worry about it” and of course I did but now it feels like an attainable goal or challenge that I can actually not worry as opposed to just accepting that starting each day running through my list of anxiety inducers isn’t how it has to be.  Like I said I’m a very hands on learner and also goal oriented and it seems that learning directly from someone who doesn’t have anxiety and also working at it with the mindset of accomplishing a goal might help. I say might because I’m only a few days into it but am feeling like my paradigm has shifted.

As I disclaimed initially, I’m not sure where this will land with people on here but I hope that amidst the vast and diverse challenges people on here share and support each other through, it will connect with some people.

Best wishes to everyone out there going through the challenges of anxiety.