In The Driver's Seat

Anxiety and Danger

Here's a different metaphor to chew on.

So the driver is at their destination, and for all intents and purposes, just imagine a person walking into a building. Suddenly, their anxiety--a collection of ever shifting static, changing from one shape to the next, but mostly human shaped--just starts screaming. No one else can see them, of course, but there they are--screaming their head off.

"What?!" The driver demands.
"WE'RE ON THE EDGE!" Anxiety screams.
The driver stares at them, confused out of their mind. The embodiment of ?!??!?!??!.
"We're not on the edge!" They respond.
"BUT WHAT IF WE MIGHT BE?!" anxiety continues to scream.
"We're not even on top of the building!"
"BUT WHAT IF WE GET THERE!? WE'RE IN THE BUILDING!"
"FUCKER--THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS!"
Anxiety screams regardless and the driver, in all their knowledge that they are, in fact, not on the edge on top of the building, tries not to scream along with anxiety.

Soon enough they're in the room where they were headed and, after some time, anxiety relaxes.
"Oh." They say. "Nothing happened."
"YOU SEE!" The driver responds. And if the driver seems a bit short tempered, a bit tired, a bit annoyed, well... they've been dealing with this for a long time, and after a while, it's a bit upsetting. Distressing..... exhausting.

Essentially anxiety's response is in attempt to protect one from danger, but it's a bit extreme.
As though, even at the slightest sign, it suddenly pulls out a file that has evidence that something bad has happened before. The goal of the driver is to, of course, one day slap anxiety in a face with a file of their own--a file filled with all the times anxiety screamed danger, and nothing happened. Nothing at all.

And the thing is...
the driver--me, is just...
I consider anxiety to be fear made disorder.
It is the attempt to warn of danger so that one can avoid it or proceed with caution--but anxiety mostly goes with avoid. Run. Hide. You'll be safe if you just run away and hide, and it doesn't think about the consequences because all it knows is get away from the danger, real or potential...

Newt Scamander--the dude from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them--his thing is to not worry, because worrying means you suffer twice.
My thing--me, the driver... by the time you've told me not to worry I am already worrying.
But I don't know why, because it's like:

"What if you get hit by a car?" anxiety says, and it's panicked, screaming at the mere idea. And I, a lot of the time, start screaming to because oh God, what if I get hit by a car?!??! Well, what if I get hit by a car? I know what'll happen--vaguely. The list isn't wildly long to start with, and it may be long by the end but the long and short of it is that I'll get hurt. 

But what if I don't get hit by a car?
Then.... nothing happens.
I'm fine.
I go home.

But I don't want to be hit by a car because if I am then oh God, that's going to hurt--then the hospital or death or Oh God who knows what and I'm trying not to panic while I write this--type--because the mere idea is terrifying. I wanna live and I don't want to be in pain,that's unpleasant...

And that's not unreasonable.

See, the thing about anxiety is that it's not like it's being unreasonable by being scared.
It is perfectly reasonable to be scared of being hit by a car.
It is, however, very unreasonable for a 5-10 minute walk to turn into a most likely 15 minute walk because you spent about 5-10 minutes waiting for there to be no cars or for someone else to cross so that you can cross the street without being hit by a car, or forcing yourself to cross quickly when there are minimal cars.... and not just because you end up spending more time walking, but because you should not get that scared--you should not get anxious--when about the cross the god. Damn. Street. It's not good for you.

...

And I know that.
I know.
I don't want to be scared,
I don't want to be anxious,
I just don't know how to stop... I can't stop it forever.
But the goal is less, and less and less, until one day
one day
it's almost like I don't have it at all.

...
I think,
I think I just....
I think I need to just admit I don't know what's going to happen when I get into the building,
and neither does anxiety.
We don't know.
So we'll go in,
and find out together.
If something bad happens, we'll deal with it.
And if something good happens; we'll enjoy it.
... and if nothing happens.
Nothing at all.
We'll go, "I knew it." because we didn't, we don't, but that's what usually happens.
Everything is just... okay.
And we'll build the folders together instead of screaming or slapping each other with them.
Anxiety may not be a friend of mine, may never be,
but maybe it'll be a check engine light instead of a blaring car horn.