Worry

Oh my, help me please.....

There are two possibilities. I can worry or not worry. If I worry, I am in pain all of the time. I think of the worst. It’s agony. If I don’t worry then I might be okay, but I won’t anticipate what might happen. Then I may be caught unprepared and there will be a lot of pain.

Maybe if I worry then I can prepare for the worst and put myself in a position where I don’t suffer as much. On the other hand, if the worst happens then I will be in pain anyhow and maybe there’s nothing that I can do to avoid it.

Problem is that I can’t be certain whether or not preparing for the worst will put me in any better position. This means that, by not worrying, I am taking a risk that I could have done something whilst I still had the chance. But this all comes at a great cost. If I begin to think about the worst then I freeze. This is a problem because the fear takes an almighty grip on me and I might fail because of the fear.

I don’t want to fail because of fear as that is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Why am I in so much pain? Why can’t I relax? More importantly, why can’t I just live in peace?

Every day I have to go through this. I can never be certain that bad things won’t happen. It’s like living on the edge of a precipice. What can I do?

Okay, I get it. I’m supposed to just say that the worst doesn’t always happen. If I keep saying that then I can wait and see. If something bad happens then the pain will only crystallise at that point in time. In the meantime I can live in peace.

I’ll try that. I just can’t stop thinking about the risk of not preparing though. There must be something I can do.

I understand now. I feel that I have to be in control because I will be blamed if something bad happens that causes pain to my family. They’ll say that I caused it. I should have managed things better. I didn’t try hard enough. I failed. I am to blame. That would be very hurtful on top of the pain. I would never intend for that to happen.

I guess the problem is that I am fallible. I make decisions all the time that I think could be of detriment in bad times. For example, if I spend money now, I can be blamed later if I lose my job. They could say that I should have saved more and managed my money better. They would say that the pain and suffering is my fault.

If others didn’t depend on me then I could live with whatever happens. I just don’t want to be the reason for other people’s pain. Especially the pain of my children. I don’t want them to be hungry, for us to have nowhere to live, for me to lose them, for them to be taken away from me, screaming and crying and wriggling violently to free themselves of their captors.

It would break me.

Yeah

He needed to escape. He was running away from something or someone. It was all about keeping himself occupied with distractions. They seemed real enough and, on occasions, he actually thought that they were productive, but this was far from the truth.

That day it became particularly challenging for him. He was sitting at home. It was his day off. He hated having time off. That made it difficult to survive. He had asked, then begged them to let him keep working.

“I don’t understand,” his boss has said calmly, “Everyone needs a holiday.”

An argument followed, but he couldn’t win. He knew that they were getting suspicious, perhaps even thinking that he was crazy. No one could understand why he wouldn’t take time off. In the end, he had bowed to the pressure, especially since it was a statutory obligation for them to give him a break.

He was thankful to have been distracted for a moment with that recollection of events, but his mind was starting to empty itself of thoughts. He was left alone, sitting there at the table.

The demons began to swirl around him. He needed something to do, but what? Could he do something with his computer again?

He grabbed his computer and launched his internet browser. In a few moments he was scrolling down the pages of his favourite sites. He followed links from the sights to get more information on stories that he was interested in. He was absorbed and time flowed easily. Nothing was a concern for him except for the moment. His browser was littered with tabs. He sipped his coffee and remained calm.

Then, as he closed them, there were fewer tabs in his browser. He was running out of time. There were four then three. He spent a lot of time on the last two sites and managed to follow several links from them into new tabs. Finally, his browser was empty. There were no sites left.

He began to feel agitated. He felt back in the present and that was not a good feeling. He looked through his browser’s bookmarks frantically trying to find new sites to visit. He caught a few here and there that he hadn’t looked at for a while but then he was at a loss. What to do?

He could feel the pressure. Maybe he would go back to sleep. He needed not to be conscious. He couldn’t be by himself with his thoughts or he would die.

The demons were back. They were quickly getting into his head. “You are not alive” they groaned, “Who are you?” . His head began to swirl. He didn’t feel real. He couldn’t go on. He didn’t know how to go on.

All of a sudden he was looking outside of his body at himself. Who was he? Why was he here? It was very distressing to have those thoughts. It was as if his body was a lump of flesh that he had to drive to continue, but he was no longer in the driver’s seat. It also became excruciating for him to imagine that, even if he were back at the controls, he could actually go on. It was too hard. How could he, a person without any identity keep pushing forward. He was sinking into an abyss.

“I’ve got to DO SOMETHING” he finally thought. The demons were taking over and he couldn’t let them.

He looked around, trying desperately to find something to do? What can I do? What do I enjoy?

It was a difficult realisation that he didn’t enjoy anything. He realised again that even the things he did were merely distractions to keep the demons at bay.