What anxiety tells us
Anxiety can be insidious. It can tell us—can I personify anxiety for a moment?
It can say things like: “Without me, you’ll say that really stupid thing that will lose you your job, or that will alienate the people that you depend on, or people will finally realize how weird you really are, and they’ll leave, or you’ll start making changes to your life, and bad things will happen. I keep you safe.”
And it can be hard to refute this because there have been times where you’ve said or done something without thinking it through, or thinking it through a lot, but it still went badly.
But I’d like to reassure you, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Anxiety might say something like: “Without me, you won’t get any work done, you won’t do the things you need to do, you’ll miss deadlines. And then bad things will happen. You’ll get bad grades, you’ll get bad work reviews, you’ll get fired.”
But you know what? Learning some tools to deal with anxiety doesn’t mean you’re going to start saying or doing things that will blow up your life.
What it does do is, it gives you options so that when you want to say a particular thing (when you’re consciously choosing to say a thing, do a thing, to make a change when it’s the right thing to do or say), you can deal with the anxiety that is bound to come up, and get through it, so that you can do the things that you want to do.
Anxiety isn’t what’s going to keep you from the bad outcomes, and it’s not going to make the good outcomes happen.
It’s not going to make you careless or unmotivated, or crass or reckless, because anxiety is not the only thing keeping you from doing or saying inappropriate things.
You also have life experience. You have a hard won understanding of human dynamics. You have a reasonable fear of consequences when they are appropriate. You have a desire for certain outcomes. You have care and investment in certain people. There are plenty of other things going on.
Anxiety isn’t what’s going to keep you from the bad outcomes, and it’s not going to make the good outcomes happen.
That’s a lie that feels close enough to the truth that it’s hard to refute, but it’s not true.
The tools in my anxiety course aren’t going to blow up your life. It’s going to give you options. But whether or not you learn this stuff from me, it’s important to learn the skill of dealing with anxiety.
And you can consciously choose when you want to use these skills, in certain areas of your life, and not in others. It’s not all or nothing.
But when you want to do something, when you want to make something better, you can.
Then you’ll be able to get through the anxiety spike, so that it doesn’t hold you back from the things that you’ve chosen are right for you.
Does this make sense?
If this sounds like what you want, check out my short course, Anxiety Reduction for Autistics.
