Published on 12, July, 2020
I go through a lot of intense anxiety, as well as depression, and generally I'll be worrying to death about things I know I don't need to worry about it, or which I should put aside for now and deal with later. People have always told me I should be able to do this - choose to worry about something later, or dismiss worries from my mind - but this seems utterly impossible to me.
Is this part of the obsessive way an autistic mind works? I know I obsess over mundane things too which don't cause me anxiety but which I feel compelled to do, and also I get pleasure from obsessing over certain interests. Do we just have to accept this worry as part of the obsessiveness?
Hey Roguelife,
Worrying is the mental reaction to our desire to be in control. Although it's uncomfortable for many of us to accept, we are constantly seeking to control both our immediate environment, and control the outcome of every situation we face. It's the brain's default setting and has served us well for 200,000 years. It's the reason we are still around as a species. 6,000 years ago, civilisation began to develop, eventually blossoming into industrialisation in the 1800s. Since then, we've come to need our brain's base control setting less and less as our environment has become safer and more predictable. But no one knows how to turn off our survival setting, or at least dial it down a notch of two. And so every day, regardless of where we are, who we are with and how safe we are, and how far we are from any existential danger, we continue the cycle of try to control, fail, worry, try to control, fail, worry again. Repeat.
The result of all this habitual is that it can drain our mental and physical strength. It can also lead to other toxic habits, like blaming ourselves, blaming others, obsessional behaviour, paranoia, stress, anxiety, depression all the good stuff. This is a gentle site for finding a little peace and quiet in our heads:
https://www.headspace.com/articles/how-to-stop-worrying How to stop worrying
Thanks for the link, and for the kind words. It's good for me to consider anxiety through the lens of objectivity, such as historical and scientific knowledge. Looks like you deleted your profile but if you end up reading this then I do appreciate your response.