The Worry Net

Read Time:2 Minute, 36 Second

By Rich Tee

When I wake in the morning my thoughts drift gently like fish in the sea, swimming around in the in the juices of my consciousness. These are my thought fish, they come & they go as I rouse myself into wakefulness and they start to prepare me for the day ahead. Some of the thought fish are big; do I need a new job, shall we extend the house, others are small things, must pay that bill, need to check that booking, must respond to that email, and when I am well, they will swim or float past, I know they are there and I will see them later in the day & deal with them.

The-worry-net-pin - When my anxiety strikes, I have a ‘worry net’ that gets cast into the soup of my cognition. As I wake, usually between 4 & 5am, the thought fish will start swimming by

However, when my anxiety strikes, I have a ‘worry net’ that gets cast into the soup of my cognition. As I wake, usually between 4 & 5am, the thought fish will start swimming by and sooner or later the worry net will catch one of my thought fish in it’s mesh. The fresh capture will now draw attention by trying to free itself from the worry net. The captured thought fish and it could be any thought fish, nets are indiscriminate, will now start to thrash frantically with ever more force but the worry net has trapped its quarry. The thought fish now twists and coils on a more regular basis, but this is fruitless. The movements now become panicked and desperate as the thought fish realises there is no escape from the worry net. What was a calm and serene scene with thoughts swimming harmlessly by, is suddenly a frenzy of increasingly uncoordinated and desperate attempts by the thought to escape the worry net. Other worry fish swim into the net too, some may be large thoughts, others are small. They all get trapped, then wriggle, then turn and crash around. Once they have reached their crescendo of thrashing and fruitless escapades, the worry fish all give up and one by one stop, trapped in the worry net for the rest of the day, stuck in my brain juice, going nowhere, just there, stuck, on a repeat loop of frantic movements to escape followed by periods of stasis, but always there.

The trapped thought fish impose their stress responses on my body and mind for the day ahead. It leaves me with very little, only their adrenalin fuelled panic is left surging through my blood stream soaking every pre-dawn pore, so I am knackered before I have even got up out of bed. I feel tired, tense, with a tight jaw, racing heart and a headache. I have feelings of dread and fear; what else is going swim past and get caught in my worry net today?

I long for the day when I can haul in my worry net and throw it up on the harbour wall, and just let my thought fish swim serenely around helping me to organise my day, and using those thoughts for creativity and productivity. To be active, be interactive and to be useful.

Reproduced with permission, originally posted here: runningismyantidepressant.wordpress.com