Recently had a conversation with a freelancer suffering from anxiety. They were bullied in their youth, which unfortunately leads to often chronic mental health issues long into adult life. Now, as these issues are very common, especially among heavy porn consumers, I wanted to share thoughts on the subject. This should be helpful to most people.
Firstly, there is nothing to be ashamed of. We only have limited control over our emotions. What you feel in response to situations, words, ideas, people, retells your personal history. Taking control of your story is the goal here.
The challenge is that your radar on what constitutes genuine danger is badly calibrated. You’ve either been through too much tragedy, or too little tragedy. You need experiences both negative and positive to grow up.
Uncertainty is a part of life, just as death is. Being afraid of things you don’t control only wastes energy. Focus completely on things under your control and leave the rest to God.
The most destructive action you can do when struggling with anxiety is avoid things that trigger anxiety. That’s how you fuck yourself to the point of suicide. In all situations that trigger the fight-or-flight response, you must choose confrontation. Yes, that will get you in plenty trouble, but you’ll learn to navigate conflict. You’ll get to see what actually happens. All the wild speculation that your intuitive side is making will be matched against reality. This lessens fear.
Your belief in your own abilities to navigate complicated situations needs regular reinforcement. You can’t just be pumping yourself full of fake self-esteem. You must be grounded, knowledgeable of your current limits.
To develop a sense of your limits, you have to challenge yourself, do things you’re not so good at. You have to engage regularly in activities that make you uncomfortable. Do the least dangerous things that trigger the most anxiety and repeat that until you’re almost comfortable. Then raise the stakes again, do something riskier, up to a degree where you’re happy with yourself.
The key is to go slowly. For most people, that’s best. Gradually growing your comfort zone tends to produce longer-lasting results, in my experience.
Final word. Anxiety is something that’s managed, not eliminated. You’re very unlikely to completely eliminate it. There are genetic factors to this trait that make it potentially permanent. Neuroticism is a beneficial trait up to a degree, as it increases your chances of survival into adult age. That’s how proneness to anxiety is passed down. Your angsty parents avoided all kinds of genuine dangers and had you. If you don’t die premately and have kids, you’ll pass down angsty genes as well.
Hopefully this was helpful. God bless.
