Something More Harmful Than Anxiety

Anxiety certainly doesn’t feel good, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is harming me. The means I use to fight anxiety, on the other hand, may be harming me more than the anxiety itself.

The temporary relief I find through accomplishing tasks is a quick fix that just buries the anxiety deeper inside me giving it more power to dictate my actions. I panic whenever I sense it surfacing, but each time I successfully bury it, it comes back stronger. I begin to fear anxiety, and my whole day is structured and designed to prevent it and smack it on the head as soon as it arises. The sense of control I feel when I defeat anxiety is so lovely that my brain is trained to believe that I am doing the right thing.

Anxiety is a part of me just as much as my arm is a part of me. However, I slowly began to hate Anxiety. I discovered how good it felt to kill it so I kept exercising the power I felt I had, only to find that Anxiety could not be killed for it is a part of me just as much as my arm is a part of me.

If I don’t allow myself to experience anxiety, it will increasingly become a source of fear instigating obsessive and controlling behaviors that masquerade as essential life-management strategies. In reality, these strategies are harming me in ways that Anxiety never would.