The Hit List - The quiet panic

On the outside, I’m a cool-headed, happy-go-lucky type. You’d never guess I’m walking around in a quiet panic because I have too much pep in my step. Yep, there is a whole lotta anxiety bubbling underneath the surface. It doesn’t interfere with my life. It’s just present.

The other day, I was pondering why this is so. Is it because I’m a Gemini with six Mercury-ruled planets in my chart (Gemini rules the nervous system)? Or something else?

After much reflection (and sake), I found the root cause: childhood. Yep, that’s where it originated, much like most people’s fears and phobias.

Some of this inner boiling pot is due to the dysfunctional household I grew up in. You never knew when things would fall apart, or someone would blow their top. There was a lot of talk about “money problems,” which made me squirrel away any spare change I could find just in case we ended up homeless, something I worried about from time to time (my parents had a way of making me feel like this could happen, even though it didn’t).

In school, fire drills and cautionary movies about bus accidents set my teeth on edge. I was terrified every time I set foot on a bus, so I sat in front because I didn’t want to end up like those unfortunate kids in those films. The ones in the back always seemed to get the worst injuries. They were also the biggest jerks, so I learned not to be an ass on buses. (Psst…I also kept a bag of clothes by my bed and had an escape plan in case of a fire.)

To top this panic-inducing crap off, my parents watched films like Helter Skelter and The Exorcist when we were safely tucked in bed. The trouble was that I could hear screaming from my room. Fears of murderers breaking into the house or possession by demons didn’t create the best conditions for sleep.

Years later, all of those things I worried about never happened.

I’m financially secure.
I’ve never been in a bus accident.
I have not been murdered (duh).
I’ve never been possessed by demons.

But now, I find new reasons to be anxious: an elderly cat, post-apocalyptic movies (sorry, Walton Goggins, I love you, but I cannot do Fallout), and the state of the world. Sigh. This worry habit is hard to break.

Kids who grow up with anxiety tend to keep that brewing for the rest of their lives. When we throw them into adult situations, continuously harp about the state of the world, and expose them to horrific content, are we really surprised when they stress out and act out? I think about how the kids of today also have to deal with social media and active shooter drills and wonder what effect that will have? What is the long-term outlook when you’re living under constant lousy news and fears about being harmed at school?

I don’t have the answers to any of that. All I know is that my own experience with an anxious upbringing has kept my quiet panic on a light simmer in the background. It’s hard to turn it off. Perhaps the best thing we can do as adults is let kids be kids. That doesn’t mean hiding all the world’s ills, but possibly there is a more thoughtful way.

But what if you’re an adult and now it’s too ingrained?

Here’s my best advice:

:: Get help. A good therapist can provide a sounding board to sort out your fears.
:: Turn off the television and engage less on social media.
:: Rest more.
:: Spend time with uplifting people. Set boundaries with anyone who raises your anxiety levels. Worry loves company. I keep the worrywarts in my life at a polite distance.
:: Lastly, add more play to your life. Do the things you loved to do as a kid. For me, that’s reading. Put a book in my hands, and I’m good.

Life is too short (even that thought makes me anxious) for existential dread. As I move toward senior citizen status (only a few years away), it’s time to focus on what’s going right rather than what’s going wrong.

I’m still here, still breathing. No demons in sight. Whew.

“I’ve suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened.”
― Mark Twain

Theresa

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