From Enemies to Partners

At first, anxiety was an enemy. Ready at a given moment to jump up and tell me the myriad of ways any situation could go wrong. And as soon as I made the slightest misstep making me feel horrible. A constantly churning in my stomach and a hand over my mouth so I could not express what I was feeling.

Then, anxiety became a partner. We went everywhere together, and anxiety was always ready to give me an excuse to get out of difficult situations. Arm around my shoulder, guiding me back inside. Until finally I stopped going out at all. No risk, no problems.

But it turns out even inside, anxiety never leaves. It sits in bed while I’m asleep, waiting for me to wake up. Ready whenever I would look out the window and remember all the great times I had. Ready to remind me of all the bad times.

For a while, anxiety was misunderstood. I was told it was a friend, and it serves a purpose. And that I’m the master of my anxiety. One of these makes more sense than the other. While I kept digging into myself, I decided to keep an open mind on my anxiety.

And I know now. I know exactly what anxiety is.

Anxiety is a badly trained customer service representative.

It is absolutely there for a purpose, to keep me safe. And I appreciate that purpose. But it was sent out with two days of training, all on a computer, no job shadowing, and very little support. It is doing its best, working with the guidelines it was given, and pretty much reports every possible risk because it doesn’t want to get in trouble for missing something.

Also, it has a line to my overactive imagination and my ego. My overactive imagination sends reports on what’s possible, very long reports. And my ego sends reports on what I know. And it thinks it is always right. Between those two, anxiety doesn’t stand a chance.

What chance did my poor overworked anxiety and I have, when it gave an alarm I reacted and then felt safe. So we developed a working relationship that was high pressure and insular. No one else could possibly understand, we only had each other in this mess.

I would like to issue a formal apology to my anxiety, I misused you. I heard you but did not listen. I gave you my trust, but not enough support. I let you have connections that were unmonitored and didn’t do anything to contradict the information you were given.

The truth is, you’re an important part of me, and I never realized. I thought I had to get rid of you. But I understand now, we have to work together, but we have to do it in a healthier way. From now we’ll go into situations together. I’ll listen, and you can tell me everything about what might be unsafe. But please understand if I make the decision to keep going. To take risks. To let my heart race.

I ask you to trust in me, to breathe with me, and to never stop doing our best.

If my overactive imagination sends you a message, that doesn’t mean I’m in imminent danger. Just because I “picture” a blender blade flying out and hitting me in the stomach, does not mean it will happen. Just because an angry customer might yell at me on the phone, does not mean I’ll get hurt. I’m going to throw the dragon figurine out now, because I know that even if I touch it every morning, that’s no guarantee it’ll be a good day. I think you know that too.

When my ego comes calling, remember it lacks perspective. It sees the good, and the success, but conveniently likes to avoid the failures. We’re working on that too. I promise. I know I do not know everything. And I’m fine with being wrong about what I think I do know.

It has been a long road, but we’ve also grown in the last few years. I believe we can keep growing. Just please. Trust me. I love you.