One of the things people with anxiety disorders of various types here from those who sympathize (but do not understand) their condition is this:
“You should just stop worrying so much.”
That advice, while it certainly means well, isn’t a help at all. It’s not like those with anxiety disorder choose to worry; a natural redhead didn’t make a conscious decision to be a natural redhead in the womb, although that situation can be chemically remedied. In some cases of anxiety, chemicals can help, too, as well as therapy.
But worry comes natural to some of us. In fact, some of us can’t imagine not worrying. It is more than those typical considerations the average person makes, if he makes any at all, about the consequences of an action he is about to take. Those with anxiety disorder play out countless scenarios about what a single action will cause, and what that reaction will cause, and so on. Often, we come to the same answer: we will be hurt drastically by any action we take, so we get scared to take any action at all.
Some of us worry too much about other people’s feelings, to the exclusion of our own. We worry about our health to the point of making ourselves sick. We worry about specific illnesses we’ve heard of until we create our own symptoms that feel as real as the “real thing” would.
The term “vicious cycle” is one that applies in many ways to anxiety. This type of worrying — and worrying about worrying — is simply one of many examples.
