Diary of An Anxious Mind

I’d like to say that the soul-rescuing stare that my dog just gave me was his way of somehow saying “Please don’t read that book about a dying dog!” I’d like to have that sixth sense I just read about in The Art of Racing in the Rain, but the truth is I just don’t know. He might’ve been saying, “Please feed me more food even though I just spilled half my bowl on the floor” or “keep petting me please”. Maybe that’s the analytical part of my brain kicking in, or maybe it’s the anxious part: constantly coming up with multiple solutions to a problem and making it impossible to make a choice because every single one is plausible. I hate every single second of it. I’m always paralyzed by indecision and not wanting to make the wrong one that I never allow myself to make the right one. At least that’s what happens while I’m overthinking. Anxiety is a bitch.

It’s constantly causing me to over complicate situations that are not hard. "Should I text that person or should I wait. If I text them, what will they think of what I say? Will they think I’m annoying them?" The answer is usually all jumbled around in my overactive mind, so I (more times than I’d like to admit) put it off so long that we don’t talk for several days. Imagine what it’s like when I actually have to do something important like call the insurance company or apply for a job.

As I sit in the shower thinking about the frailty of life, especially the life of my dog, I’m willing myself not to cry. It seems like I’m doing that a lot lately. I recently burst into tears out of the blue at a small gathering because the subject of a shooting at my alma mater came into conversation. I hadn’t gotten emotional about it in a few days, and didn’t think I would this time. But for some reason, I found myself bursting into years in the span of about 2 seconds.  I’m not kidding. One second I was fine, the other I couldn’t talk for fear of crying. Then the next that fear came to life. I was crying in my aunt’s house about something I didn’t personally experience. I didn’t know the shooter or the victim. It was by my old apartment, 3 ½ hours away from my current location, but that’s the closest I got to it. It’s so weird how things can hit you during moments where you least expect it. I try not to think about the reasons I’m almost always on the verge of tears when something nice or slightly sad happens, so I focus on something else. I shove those emotions away because thinking about the causes of my emotional frailty makes me too anxious to function. That rabbit hole is something I will not allow myself to go down today. I’ll save it for another day when I have too much to do and can’t afford a breakdown. For today, I’ll go on blissfully ignoring anything that might cause me anything other than contentment.