All aboard!
Like most Americans, I have anxiety
problems. Fortunately, I’m usually
strong enough to keep it from completely taking over my being. There are good days and bad days –
today just seems to be a bad one.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned what some of my
triggers are. One of the reasons
I’ve never had to seek professional help, though maybe I should have, was that
I can identify what events/thoughts/actions tend to cause the worst anxiety. Once identified, it is easy-ish to try
and erase the trigger from your life.
Or at the very least, find ways to mitigate or distract the anxiety
until you forget about it.
My big three: Career, Love, Solvency.
Career – I’m an artist. Boned.
Love – I’m trolling online for dates. Boned.
Solvency – Too closely related to the other
two. No career, no solvency. No solvency, no love. Doubly boned.
It’s not like I can remove those three things
from my life. Oh, I could easily
go back to corporate, work 40 hours, get my bennies, troll OkCupid/JDate to
find my love, and make babies. I
could also join the lemming line off the cliff of reason too.
 |
| The ladies are this way! No, this way! Aaaaaagghhhhhhhh... |
Don’t we all wish it were that simple? What are we supposed to if the worst
anxiety tends to be triggered by the most important aspects of our lives?
Embrace it.
Love it. Work it. Channel that energy!
That is reason numero uno I spend a couple of
perfectly good video gaming hours a day writing this. Truth be told, I started writing this blog before I even
signed up for a dating site. I
knew that the second I got on the site and started filling out all their uber-introspective
questionnaires I would have an ELE-type
meltdown. I don’t even want to
think how difficult it would have been to write to a stranger.
 |
| Not that kind of stranger |
Though I’m channeling the majority of my anxiety
through humor and self-deprecation, it’s not quite enough to guarantee an anxiety-free day. I’m practicing a lot more music. I’m transcribing song after song after
song (transcribing music = learning it by ear and writing it out on
paper). In fact, I’ve never been
this musically efficient.
How’s this for irony: Transcribing music used to
trigger worse anxiety than going out on a first date. My Sagittarian perfectionism was uncontrollable – anytime I
hit a roadblock on learning a song I would get horribly nauseous, stop working
on it, brood for days, and seriously consider quitting music.
Ridiculous, isn’t it?
The only advice I can give is to know your
triggers. If you can’t avoid your
triggers (like me), it is imperative that you find ways to healthily channel it.
Many people turn to alcohol or drugs (illicit and pharmacological) for
their release. You have to do
better – you owe it to yourself.
Try exercise. Maybe read a
horrible book!
I must confess to something: Whenever I was
having a legitimate anxiety freakout, I would re-read Harry Potter books. Why? Because it is easy to lose yourself in the story. If you’re too busy worrying about Lord
Voldemort and Ron’s ginger hair, you’ll forget that you were getting worked up
over something trivial.
Next on the plate: JDate, Cougars vs. Young
Ladies, Automatic Disqualifiers, and Improvisation.
Zen of the Afternoon:
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