Even though I woke up with anxiety, I also woke up with a assertiveness and will to go against it. This summer, I’ve been consumed with fear and worries and it has triggered some kind of meta anxiety (anxiety based on anxiety alone). It is not even real. And I need to open the black box that contains my fear to examine what they are all about so I can accept in – and finally let it go, before the anxiety takes over and I’ll end up in another depression. So, I have to do this.

I’ve already dissected my ‘ladder of anxiety’ that leads to fear and panic attacks. Since I’m highly intolerant to uncertainties and everything in my life right now is filled with uncertainties, any problem that brings another uncertainty will trigger the anxiety and I’ll keep climbing down the ladder:

When I reach the level of anxiety, it all spirals down to panic pretty quickly, especially at the critical ‘point of no return’ when my mind has made up various future catastrophes in hopes of solving the gap, created by the threatening uncertainty. Since I am struggling with PTSD, my mind automatically goes to the worst case scenario because that has often been my reality. It once was a way to protect myself – a survival strategy, but now it doesn’t have any function and instead ruining any peace of mind.

I’ve been making a lot of research about anxiety and how to deal with it, the best strategies I’ve come across so far is learning how to deal with the worries and the nature of problem-solving/ accepting and letting go, and also becoming more tolerant to uncertainties. So I made a new ladder to see where exactly I should make a change:

The trick is to stop the movement down the ladder at the second stage of worrying – instead of going to the next level where anxiety takes over, I have to be aware of my worries and pause – so I can ask myself “is there something I can do to fix this uncertainty?”, if there is something I can do I need to be better and more effective when it comes to solving problems, if there isn’t anything I can do, I need to accept it and let it go. Both ways will stop me from going down the ladder. I just need to celebrate the positive outcome and stop confirming the bad ones where I’m feeling like a victim (“bad things always happen to me”) and to trust myself to handle whatever crap that will come my way. I have survived many difficult things and I’ve always landed on my two feet.

I am stronger than any shit-storm.

2010

And there really is something fundamentally important about the message in this silly song: