General Anxiety Analogy

Having general anxiety is like finding out that once every week since you were born, your mother has been savagely beaten and will continue to be for the rest of your life. It is something that has always been a fact and there has never been and never will be anything that you can do about it. It’s inevitable.

You try to tell people about it but all they tell you is it’s no big deal and to just get over it. Thoughts will go through your mind like hey, maybe my mother getting beaten once a week isn’t really something I should be worrying about. But you will always go back to worrying about it because she’s your mother and she being beaten once a week for Christ’s sake. You can never just sweep it under the rug and get over it. Doing so will be admitting that you don’t love or care about your mother which just can’t be possible.

Then you think hey, maybe I should just decide that I don’t care if she’s being beaten because worrying about this is ruining my life. I can’t focus on anything else, i can’t enjoy things like i did before i found out about this, I mean what kind of a person am I if I go out with my friends/get drunk/have a good time when i am fully aware of my mother’s horrible situation? My relationships are falling apart, I’m losing my basic social skills along with my sanity because nothing else matters to me but this. You try indifference but the best you can do is temporarily mask your emotions from the outside world, it’s impossible to completely ignore what your mother is going through.

No, I don’t give a crap about what happened on your favorite show last night or if you think that girl is hot, what is wrong with you man? how can I possibly let something so insignificant and trivial occupy even the smallest portion of my thoughts when my mother is in such pain!?

This analogy exhibits many cognitive thinking errors.

You're signifying your struggle with a horrid image inking it as an idea that is out of your control. As if your mother being beaten against your will, the anxiety has the same out of control association and thus holds on to you as such. But you see, there is no outside force beating on your mother. In this case the outside force is yourself, and your mother represents you.

You keep bringing back the punishment and letting it inflict itself upon your mind. You're out with friends and dwell on worries and ideas leading to a loss of reality and joy. The one giving the beating is you, and only you.

Let go, move past your issues and seek ideas that carry your life forward. Appreciate the present and live in the present. It's all you have. The past and future doesn't exist. Thinking about that savage beating in the past isn't an idea that's behind you or in the future. You're making it your current reality.

I hope you allow others ideas to help you. You have talent with how you associate thoughts. Do it more proactively and you'll get somewhere ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xerosnake90

This analogy exhibits many cognitive thinking errors.

You're signifying your struggle with a horrid image inking it as an idea that is out of your control. As if your mother being beaten against your will, the anxiety has the same out of control association and thus holds on to you as such. But you see, there is no outside force beating on your mother. In this case the outside force is yourself, and your mother represents you.

You keep bringing back the punishment and letting it inflict itself upon your mind. You're out with friends and dwell on worries and ideas leading to a loss of reality and joy. The one giving the beating is you, and only you.

Let go, move past your issues and seek ideas that carry your life forward. Appreciate the present and live in the present. It's all you have. The past and future doesn't exist. Thinking about that savage beating in the past isn't an idea that's behind you or in the future. You're making it your current reality.

I hope you allow others ideas to help you. You have talent with how you associate thoughts. Do it more proactively and you'll get somewhere ;)

---

thank you for your words. i dont mean to be so antagonistic but this is just how i feel: i could never understand how people could just live in the present. it is totally beyond me how people arent constantly thinking about their futures and how their decisions will affect them. its so frustrating how this kind of thing just comes naturally to so many people but is just completely out of my reach. its like asking me to grow a third arm. maybe i can break off a mannequin's arm, tape it on my back and do my best to believe i grew a third arm but that does not make it true.

It is learnt behavior. Much like you learnt to constantly look forward. All it takes is relearning, my friend