The Great Anxiety Identity Crisis
This is probably going to piss some people off. Maybe even you. But we all know the wishy-washy-fairytale-bullshit doesn't work. So, you know, trigger warning!
Without further ado: Let's talk about identity. Not gender identity — anxiety identity.
Anxiety has a habit of becoming so deeply ingrained in one's DNA that it becomes their identity. The consequences of which are often catastrophic.
A longitudinal study by Crocetti et al. in 2009, which examined anxiety trajectories and identity development in adolescence, found high anxiety adolescents displayed a more troublesome identity development than their low anxiety peers. Since their commitments became weaker with age, and they reconsidered them intensively.
Just because you have anxiety doesn't mean you are "anxiety."
I know that sounds like a stand-alone bullshit quote for the Gram, but really what I am trying to say is you don't have to live a life of suffering and misery because your anxiety has led you to believe that's all you're worth. It does not have to define you.
So you get anxious from time to time? Who cares? Join the club. It doesn’t mean you have to revolve your life around it and make everything worse in the process.
Anxiety should never become your core identity or the defining story you relate to throughout your life because it will only ever ensure a life of misery.
You're not any emotion. You're a fucking human being.
And here's one of the biggest problems I see arise from allowing anxiety sink so deep into your DNA: It's used as an excuse to devoid one of responsibility.
A responsibility that should see you thrust yourself into action. A responsibility that should see you taking the necessary steps to get your anxiety under control, so you're not drowning in misery or self-pity. Or inflicting it on others.
There's the kick in the nuts you probably weren't looking for — especially if your anxiety has been serving as a valid excuse to justify misery.
I get the injustice of it all: Whilst you're trying not to kill yourself, a friend or family member who hasn't an ounce of empathy for what you’re having to endure is walking around like a little baby milking the shit out of a sore foot, and lapping up every ounce of attention they can get in the process to help them through this difficult period in their life. And it's working. So much so you'd swear a bull shark bit their leg off.
What's worse is that it's your shoulder they're crying on. And you're letting them. Because you possess a skill they don't: compassion. And make no mistake about it, as outlined by Tim Desmond in the anxiety support summit, the ability to be compassionate towards another's struggle is a real skill most don't have.
It is precisely why it is so important to erect strong boundaries if you possess this skill because people will otherwise take the piss out of you.
Life is cruel and full of injustices. That won't change. The stigma is strong with this one. You can accept it and rise above it and do what you need to do. Or you can allow the injustice of it all to swallow you up and slowly kill you.
But who wants to cling to misery?
Nobody wakes up thinking to themselves, "you know what, I want to feel anxious and miserable today, so I am going to make a conscious effort to behave in a manner that will ensure it." That's ridiculous. Although over time, your anxiety can begin to meet your needs. Or I should probably say, your behaviour that fuels your anxiety begins to meet your needs.
These behaviors become a sort of unconscious addiction that serve to meet these needs while perpetuating your own shit show in the process.
At its root, a neurotic behavior is an automatic, unconscious effort to manage deep anxiety.
Pissing and moaning on the Internet about how unfair life is would be an example of someone seeking significance. Significance is something we all need to feel. But nobody cares about said individuals relentless self-pity, so they only ever perpetuate their own problem while justifying their belief that the world is cruel and nobody loves them.
This is what I call the anxiety identity crisis — a self-fulfilling prophecy seducing you to seek solitude in all the wrong places while devoiding one of responsibility. A crisis you must become aware of to break free. A crisis with a very tight grip. Clasped right around the balls.
In the same vein, self-help preys on perfection, ensuring most get sucked into the vortex and end up more miserable as a result. So, an industry with "apparently" only good intentions is responsible for more misery than both Putin and the Donald combined.
Fuck that. Fuck being perfect. Fuck putting anxiety on a pedestal and giving it all power over you. And fuck you, Walter J. Phillips, whoever you are — probably a nice guy, and that quote’s probably taken out of context, but what are you going to do!?
The mind can be brutal, and while most of us want to run, hide, and avoid our reality at all costs because it's terrifying to confront, the paradox of it all is that we fail to realize or believe those actions make everything substantially worse.
While many need to practice self-compassion, much more need a kick in the hole to start taking action. Or a healthy balance between the two — which would be true self-compassion.
Only you can decide which category you fall into. However, if you are not prepared to push yourself into discomfort to expand your comfort zone—discomfort is all you'll know.
You're being forced to take action, whether you like it or not. It's your resistance to action — an action in itself — that's responsible for much of that misery.
And the beauty of it all is you only have to compete against yourself.
So, as annoying as it all is, all you have to do is ask yourself if anxiety is the identity you want to live by? And if not, what are you going to do about it?