Friday 27 April 2012

Anxious

I had an interesting insight last week, one that has come from a lot of work and self-observation and one that I think helped. Or will certainly help in the future.

And can I just say again how much I do not like this new layout and interface and it is stinky and I do not like it and it is making me grumpy when I type and probably will do until I get used to it but seriously why fix something that ain't broke? (Especially if your "fix" breaks it.)

Anyway.

At the end of last week things to do with work (that I do not talk about) got very stressful. And by Friday I had a stressful event (work related) at the end of the day and the afternoon was awfully stressful and then another out of my control and yes I'm a control freak and this was bad thing was thrown at me and by the end of Friday I was wound as tight as a very tight thing. (Even thinking back to how I felt has got me all riled up and strung out again.)

Thursday night, as I lay in bed thinking about the event and the possibility of it going wrong, I started to think about how I might possibly get into a car accident on the way there and how that would just make an awful situation even worse and how would I handle that when we still haven't settled things from the last accident and wait a second . . . Why was I worrying about getting into a car accident?

It wasn't so much an AH HA! moment as it was an ohhhhhhhh moment.

So that's what my brain does. Takes a worry (the after work work event) and runs with it and freaks out about other things too. Imaginary car accident, never finding a boyfriend, getting suddenly ill, losing my job for some random reason, etc.

And yes, the work my therapist (counsellor, whatever) pointed me towards has helped a lot with me noticing when my mind is starting to run away with things and so I was able to somehow pull away and just, well, fall asleep I guess, because I don't remember having a terrible night's sleep.

But I remember being less worried Friday morning and just regularly stressed by all the ridiculous but real things that were happening.

So I'm going to be observant now of when I'm worried or anxious or nervous about something so that I can point out to myself that what my brain is saying isn't so much about the imaginary things, but is really just a fantastical extrapolation from the actual thing I'm worried about.

Cuz it's good to learn that everything my brain says isn't true.

Especially the bad stuff.

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