Every once in a while someone will ask me how I can be around anxious people all the time, talking and writing about anxiety all the time, and going back to school to become a therapist, without becoming anxious myself. It’s an interesting question, and a really good question, so let me answer it here this morning.
The short answer is no. This does not in any way make me anxious. But let me qualify that.
There are times when I wake up in the morning and there are 15 posts in my Facebook group waiting to be reviewed, the same questions are being asked for the 10,000th time, there are 40 unanswered comments on my Instagram posts, and I have not checked my YouTube comments in a week. Sometimes on those same days I have a TON of work to do for school and to keep my businesses running. Sometimes I’m also tired, or sleep deprived, or sick. Or maybe I’m just in a crappy mood.
That’s stress. And I can feel that. Does it feel like anxiety? Sometimes it does.
So how can I say that this doesn’t make me anxious? I can say that because you are asking me if I feel like you feel, or like I used to feel. The answer to that is an emphatic no. I do not feel the way you feel now. I no longer feel the way I used to feel.
I understand where your question comes from. When I was struggling, any physical, mental, or emotional experience would trigger a fear response. I felt horrible, then felt horrible about feeling horrible. I was afraid, then immediately became afraid of being afraid. In the days when two phone calls in a row would push me to the edge of full-blown panic, I could not imagine feeling anxious without calling it a nightmare or an emergency. I knew from an intellectual standpoint what recovery would look like, but that doesn’t mean I could grasp it on an emotional level. I would have paid every last dollar I had in those days to feel anxious without being afraid of that. It seemed damn near impossible.
You may be in this situation now, which explains why I get this question regularly.
When you are so easily “triggered” and trying to avoid that all the time, it makes sense that you would wonder how on earth I can hear about symptoms and fears and scary things all day long without also being triggered.
When I tell you that this does not make me anxious, please do not assume that I feel nothing. I feel things. I am alive. I am a person. I just feel things in a healthier, more productive way now. I feel stress. I feel frustration. I feel fatigue. I feel demotivated sometimes. I feel all of those things from time to time. I’m just not afraid of those feelings any more, and that makes all the difference.
If you’re hoping that you will get to this place one day, I can tell you that you can stop hoping. You don’t need hope. You need action. You need movement. You need courage and determination. You need resolve. You have those things, even when you feel like you don’t. Hope is nice, but you have so much more available to you, so don’t stop there.
Do you know about the monthly distress tolerance webinar I do with anxiety and OCD specialist Joanna Hardis? Check it out here. :-)
It may seem impossible to you now, but one day you’ll be able to watch scary movies, have arguments with your loved ones, talk about anxiety, and tell stories of the things that USED TO terrify you. Maybe you’ll spend some of your time helping people that feel like you do today. While you do those things, you might feel stuff. You just won’t be afraid of that stuff, so you will also say that none of it makes you anxious.
That will be a good day, won’t it?
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
185. Doesn't All This Anxiety Talk Make Drew Anxious?