It was decades before I even realised I suffered from anxiety. I was always pretty comfortable in most social situations, was getting my head down and using my limited resources wisely - I mean, anxiety can be a good thing right? - it’s one of the emotional regulators, an alarm bell that tells you something needs approaching with caution, which keeps you safe and stops you making catastrophic mistakes. You do sensible things like having mortgages and plotting a cautious path and avoiding disaster because you are thinking, and thinking is the key, because thinking avoids the disaster, and so you think some more, and more, you want to be aware of the pitfalls, but now you can only see negatives, challenges are insurmountable obstacles, opportunities are lost and you retreat to caution. It’s incredibly debilitating.
You recognise to break this cycle you need courage, but you don’t have it. And now you chastise yourself for lack of courage. You go away and think… because that’s the solution. You become aware you might be overthinking…. is that anxiety? - No… it’s being sensible, you are accountable and taking responsibility for your actions in a ‘every-tiny-thing-that-might-have-gone-wrong-in-your-life-is-you-fault-because-you-have-affected-it’s-outcome’ kind of way. But hold on, you know that is too harsh and doesn’t feel right but you can’t stop it. You go for a walk to clear your head but you just think, and now you are overthinking why you might be….. overthinking. You don’t appreciate how fortunate you are, you wonder what is wrong with you and what life would be like if you were a different or more courageous person. You’re in a spiral, you’ve sucked the pleasure out of life and you are in danger of doing that to those around you that you love too. And trust me guys that is a trap you don’t want to find yourself in.
Things came to a head during lockdown when naturally we all had a bit too much time to think. A pandemic and the instinctive desire to catastrophize meant anxiety levels that were previously manageable were driven to heights where there was no option but to talk. I was incredibly fortunate to have stability and good caring people around, people who understood and were able to give perspective and balance and can honestly say things are much happier and clearer now in a way they’ve never been before. Occasionally you feel things running away with you again but talking early to those you trust gives you the jolt to get things back into perspective pretty quickly.
In retrospect, internalising everything is impossible. Character and temperament flaws run out of control and the outcomes of that are just never good at all, so please guys just talk.
So sincere apologies if that’s just self-indulgent rambling nonsense, but it’s a MH thread and with its relative anonymity can be very cathartic to write. If it’s at all helpful to anyone in any way whatsoever that would be a great thing too.
. It's the same as training to run a marathon or something, you put the work in and see better outcomes. 
