Anxiety takes you to the future

November 22, 2019 Benjamin Wall

Mental health conditions are often made up of a combination of different kinds of experiences, and anxiety disorders are no exception.

With anxiety, there are two main categories of things that I look for:

Things that are happening to your body
Things that are happening in your thoughts.

When I’m talking about “things that are happening to your body,” what I mean is that anxiety and worry is something a person lives with on a physiological level.

You can truly feel it in your muscles, and actually “muscle tension” is a widely recognized symptom of anxiety. So is having trouble sleeping.

What I want to focus on with this post are the second half of the signs of anxiety; the thoughts that are hallmarks of these kinds of conditions.

For the most part, these are thoughts about bad things that could happen in the future.

Anxiety Preys upon possibilities

There are (unfortunately) many bad things that could happen in the future, and understanding what exactly you are focused on the first task of treatment.

Sometimes this worry is very specific, but other times it is not, which is why we call it “generalized anxiety.”

You may not be worried about a single specific bad thing happening, like a car accident, or losing your job, or getting hit by a meteorite. You might just worry. You might just feel the stress.

IN MOST OF THESE CASES, WHETHER IT IS A SPECIFIC OR GENERAL FEAR, IT IS ABOUT THE FUTURE.

Anxiety pushes you, compels you to focus your mind and thoughts (and energy) on those potential negative futures. It takes up space in your head and brings to your mind all the bad things it can grab, and by doing so, it steals your time and energy away from where you actually are in the present.

You may be standing in your living room, but you are focused on next week, or month - and not on the happy times, but on the potential (inevitable?) doom of tomorrow.

No wonder you have trouble sleeping.

No wonder you get a little snappy with the people around you.

Worry gets you to act

This kind of anxiety may also be getting you to do things about the potential negative futures that it pushes into your mind.

For many people, this can look like avoidance. By not going outside, or talking with people, or being in crowded rooms, you can avoid the distress that comes from those situations (for people that have those issues).

This is a good skill to have!

Anxiety overall is not a bad thing. It’s a part of what it means to be a person, to have stress and to try and avoid bad things from happening to us or those that we love.

When you stay inside because you are too stressed to go outside, that’s you being intuitive, and listening to your body and mind and anxiety, and doing what it is trying to tell you.

The problems appear when staying inside means your relationships, friendships, or job suffers.

The issues with anxiety are when your focus is more on the future than the present, and yet you suffer in the present because of those worrisome thoughts in your head.

The other side of the anxiety coin is when the worry that you are experiencing is greater than the actual risk of those things happening.

ANXIETY WANTS YOU TO PUT 90% OF YOUR ENERGY INTO THINGS THAT MAY ONLY BE 1% LIKELY TO HAPPEN.

If that 1% thing really did happen, it would be beyond devastating, which is why it’s pretty easy for anxiety to show up and get you to worry about it.

Anxiety picks things that are real.

How not to talk to anxiety

If you are trying to convince a person that the thing they are worried about would not be that bad, you are about to start a battle that you will never win.

Remember, anxiety picks things that really are bad. Your attempt to encourage that person, to convince them that they are strong enough to handle whatever might come is understandable, but missing the point.

This is similar to telling someone tied to a train track to stop thinking so much about locomotives. It’s not going to work, or help.

It’s important to keep in mind that they may not be worried about the 1% event, but things that happen more frequently. I mentioned car accidents before, which is a good example of something that is real, and many people have had experiences with.

Car accidents happen, and even if that person is worrying with an anxiety that is really getting in the way of their life, telling them to not worry about car accidents is just silly.

Here is how I work with people who are struggling with anxiety:

As I said before, the first step is to figure out what you are worried about, how specific or general your anxiety is. This can actually be harder than it might seem, and oftentimes you know (in your muscles, remember?), that you are feeling overwhelmed, but you may not know why.

Talking with me about your worry might be the first time you’ve tried to put words to the feelings, and this can be incredibly helpful.

You will probably feel better after the first visit.

With this information, we will keep talking, and over a period of weeks, you will take that understanding of your feelings and emotions, and learn to push back and correct the anxiety and worry in your head.

Addressing anxiety issues is largely about taking back control of your thoughts and feelings, confronting the potential negative futures and disagreeing with what your anxiety is telling you is fact.

We must also honor your anxiety.

It must never be dismissed, (not that you could). If we are taking back control, it is only to form a new alliance with your worry, a better partnership that serves your life instead of making it harder for you to live.

Anxiety likes to keep living in control

One of the most confounding parts of living with anxiety is that it seems to work.

Every day that you do not have some kind of catastrophe happen to you, your anxiety is not actually proven wrong, but proven right.

Here is what I mean: by worrying, it can feel like you are doing something about the bad things you don’t want to have happen.

By giving into your anxiety, and putting your focus on the future, it can feel like you are preventing it from happening. So, when those bad things don’t happen today, your anxiety goes, “Look, it worked! Keep it up,” and so you do.

This catch 22 is the heart of why you need to renegotiate your relationship with anxiety and not try to dismiss it entirely.

It’s very sneaky! It will avoid capture!

So bring it along for the ride. Give it a job to do. Are you cleaning your house? Let your worry about germs help you to do a good job. Are you planning a trip? Let your fear plan for lost luggage and missing papers.

And don’t worry about your anxiety! (See what I did there?)

It is not your destiny. It’s one part of you that you can learn to have a better relationship with, and ultimately use it to your advantage.

Ashland Family Counseling