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0 By Nadene
In this blog, I’m going to attempt to explain how my anxiety and constant negative thinking affect me.
Because my anxiety says so
It’s as much for myself as anyone reading this. If I can get it down in black and white (or blue as the case may be), then maybe someone out there will understand ‘messed up me’? Perhaps I will be able to finally believe just how pathetic and twisted my thought process is?
Scratch that. I know that I read too much into everything and always think the worst. It’s something that I’ve perfected over many years but my anxiety says it’s right, so it has to be.
My filter
Someone very wise told me that most of the thoughts we have are the same as the day before and the day before that. I, however, have my own special filter. It blasts anything remotely positive and intensifies everything that’s negative. My irrational head always seeks out the worst case scenario and convinces me that it’s the only logical answer. It doesn’t matter how stupid it sounds. My anxiety is always right.
My most used word (apart from a few choice profanities) is ‘sorry’. Even if I wasn’t at the actual event, my warped thought process will go on the most ridiculous tangent to find the reason that it was, in fact, my fault. I’m sorry for being sorry and sorry for saying sorry so much. I think you get the picture but if not, I’m sorry. It must be my fault for confusing you.
When a few lines become an essay
I know that I can drive people away because I let what I’m thinking slip out. For some reason, I feel the need to cover every possible base. Even when a simple, ‘can you explain?’ or ‘sorry, I don’t understand’ would do nicely.
My negativity is at its worse if I’m writing something. It can take me hours to perfect a reply. I’ll write it, read it back and tweak it, then repeat this process over and over again. The simple few-line reply turns into a full-blown, and very dark, essay in which I can end up accusing the other person of the most stupid and horrible things.
I have a need to ensure that I have covered every angle, every conceivable thought that the other person might have come up with and several that are just what my dark mind managed to conjure up.
Because social media says so
I love social media. I honestly don’t think that I could go a day without it, but it’s also great for making me worry more. It teaches me how I’m failing as a mum, wife and a person in general. It highlights how I do everything wrong compared to everyone else. Sorry for that!
It teases you, by allowing you to see when someone is logged in. The knowledge that other people have a life and a job go flying out of the window. Why haven’t they read my message? I must have said or done something wrong for them to have not replied? Even if they only had time to write a few words now, then a completely detailed response later??!!
My anxiety pushes me to question everything, every conversation and every action. My thoughts and replies become not so much about the other person, more what I think they have to be thinking about me. It always leads me in the same direction and to the same point. The darkest, scariest and most negative place imaginable. Yet, to me, it is reality.
How do you take a compliment?
Finally, (hooray I hear you shout) we come to compliments. Although they have dwindled in more recent years since the grey, wrinkles and flab have all shown their ugly heads, I am no better at coping or dealing with them. I am incapable of simply saying ‘thank you’ and leaving it at that.
A few days ago, a friend told me that I looked good today. My immediate response was that my hair was greasy and that I needed a bath. I have several mental volumes of ‘comeback line books’ that are available in the blink of an eye.
I know that I put people off saying nice things and that I should just learn to zip it, but my anxiety and negatively charged brain know best.
No-one could ever really like me. Deep down, I still feel that I am the horrible, evil person that I felt like when my mental illness was at its worst. People either put up with me or pity me.
In a not so small nutshell, this is what my anxiety does to me.
Reproduced with permission, originally posted on skybluenadworldpresscom.wordpress.com
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