I Thought I Was Anxious
I spent years fighting futures that never happened.
I used to get anxiety so bad...
I developed hemorrhoids.
Looking back...
I thought I was an anxious person.
I spent years trying to fix my anxiety.
I never realized I was fighting futures that didn’t exist.
Let me explain.
I’m about to go on stage for a school musical, I’m not really looking at our performance.
I’m sitting in the back lines repeating my lines over and over, I couldn’t stop thinking about not messing up.
I can not mess this up.
This has to be perfect.
I hope I still have more time.
My stomach starts to hurt as my throat slowly closes in.
I go on stage, but quickly. I move into my role as fast as possible.
Even though it was a short time I was on stage, I performed quite well and was expressive.
I go off stage and wonder, why did I spend so much time and energy hurting myself?
It all went well.
I sometimes used to be anxious about things in the future that I would get a severe stomach ache.
I constantly go to the bathroom, and every time I try to stop feeling anxious, I think more about it. Which makes it worse.
I end up developing hemorrhoids and have to stay in bed for a few days.
I don’t tell my parents the real reason as to why I had hemorrhoids.
I wonder what’s wrong with me.
Why I am not able to think normally.
But I had to tell them, because I was in so much pain in bed.
They buy some medicine and it ends up getting better.
I tell myself I will never let it get so bad that I have to use the bathroom.
Well..
That didn’t work.
As I’m about to fly home from a vacation alone, with my sister.
I feel so incredibly anxious.
How am I supposed to fly without my parents?
The same symptoms start to develop.
Literally in the airport and on the plane. I had to use the bathroom multiple times.
I’m sitting in the plane when everybody is sleeping. But I can’t.
Eyes are open, I don’t want to wake up my sister.
But I have to go to the bathroom.
No no not my sister. I just want her to rest.
But I whisper and wake her up:
I need to use the bathroom.
I honestly thought this was just my life now.
That I would always be the person who couldn’t travel.
Who couldn’t relax.
Who couldn’t stop thinking.
For years, I thought something was wrong with me.
Then I picked up Psycho-Cybernetics.
Books didn't change my life. They helped me understand it.
It wasn’t life-changing because it gave me a technique.
It was life-changing because it helped me understand what I had been doing.
I wasn’t just anxious.
I was constantly living in futures that hadn’t happened yet.
And every time I tried to escape that feeling...
I pulled myself even deeper into those imagined futures.
…
I’m about to travel all alone from Sweden to Germany.
Have to drive down there and take care of everything myself.
I felt it coming again.
But this time...
I didn’t try to make it disappear.
I sat down at the piano.
I watched the sunset.
I let the feeling be there.
Eventually...
It passed.
…
I made a big mistake on the road, wasted a lot of time.
I felt it coming again.
My first instinct was to stop it.
To make it go away.
But this time...
I didn’t.
…
I still felt a tiny bit anxious, but I arrive safely.
And this time, for once. I finally felt like I wasn’t trapped by my anxiety.
Like I was free from my mind, so I could have freedom out in the world.
Looking back...
Those books didn’t remove my anxiety.
They changed how I understood it.
I realized I had spent years fighting futures that never happened.
Every time I imagined what could go wrong...
My body reacted as if it was happening right now.
I still get anxious sometimes.
But I don’t spend hours trying to survive a future that doesn’t exist.
I’d rather spend that time living in the present that does.