Thoughts About Anxiety

[olifhar]

I understand the irony of this title.

A few weeks ago, I began to really give credence to the idea that anxiety has been a big factor in how I've gone through my life. How many decisions have I made because I worried or tense or wanted to avoid something? A lot, probably.

Anxiety has two parts, as far as I can tell.

• Tension
• Thoughts

The thoughts

Comments

[practicalpowers]

My thoughts have momentum. This seems to be a growing issue. It matters less with writing than it does in conversation. Small things can get me off track while speaking. I'll just lose the rest of the sentence and wind up shoving words together in some hope that what I'm saying will make sense. I'm pretty sure other people must notice the death of my thoughts. They certainly look at me funny as my cadence switches and my words stop making as much logical sense. I don't know what's going on in my mind here... There used to be a time, when I was more anxious actually, when I could just force myself to start a sentence and my brain would autocomplete the rest of the talking period. Now, I don't have the adrenaline but I still have a lot of self-limiting beliefs, and my brain doesn't have the impulse to jump forward, maybe?

My posts often end up taking hours, too. The only way I've found around this is to set a timer and not allow myself to edit. Of course, sometimes I just want to write for hours. It's often better than the alternative

I'm a total shit-show right now. It makes me think about cutting people off. My cutting people off is pretty dreary. It doesn't involve any okness. I would take the scraps of my health and wealth and hide somewhere until dying.

You can cut me off if you want, I guess. That'd make me a bit sad. I'd like the chance to stay your friend, be told what you need to be well, and be given the chance to provide you support.

[olifhar]

I only worry about people I don't write to. When the correspondence comes to, "Good to hear from you. I'm doing fine. Let me know if you're ever in the area, haha," things feel kind of lost.

If I can keep writing to people, I can stay friends with them as long as they feel like reading. People who read what I write, even occasionally, are part of my life.

Do you feel a difference sense of time when you lose track of your verbal thoughts? Sometimes I think about something else in the middle of a sentence, and then realize I have yet to finish while twenty seconds have passed. Or maybe not twenty seconds. Sometimes I'm not sure how much time had passed.

[practicalpowers]

Once I've noticed that I've lost track then time feels very slow. It's possible that I'm not even delaying that much, I guess.