What’s it like to be a lovely calm person?

[Rocklobstershell]

I’ve suffered with anxiety for pretty much all my life (I was even an anxious child). I was wondering today what it must be like to slip into the mind of someone who doesn’t flap, doesn’t fear the worst and lives a lovely calm and tranquil life.

If you are a calm and collected person please tell me what it’s like on your head please? Do you get bemused by people who flap about like headless chickens? Are there any downsides of being ultra calm? We’re you always this way or is it something you have taught yourself to be?

You have expressed really clearly what I also feel.

Outwardly I seem calm, and people comment that I am the person to come to in a crisis as I can calm them and help them get a plan together but they have no idea how anxious I am inside.

I grew up with a mother who has significant mental health problems and I learned from a very early age that showing my own worries only made home life more challenging. I have learned that when things are heated I need to fake a sense of being okay then deal with my own emotions quietly away from the situation.

Those people you think are a "lovely calm" person may well be internalising too.

I am logical and practical. I am good in a crisis. People with anxiety aren't just running around in a flap all the time crying "oh dear oh dear". It's internal. It's intrusive thoughts. My anxiety gets bad when those intrusive thoughts override the logical and rational part of my brain that knows it's completely pointless to worry about things. It's not a fucking choice!

So many people clearly don't understand anxiety. Saying "worrying abut things you can't control is pointless" is about as helpful as telling someone who is clinically depressed "cheer up, it's not that bad".

Interesting. My auntie and I were discussing this in reference to anti-depressants. She said while they made her a more stable person, she recognises they also numb other emotions too such as happiness and joy etc. She realises it's an evil necessity to not have the "negative" extremes.

That's absolutely true for me - I don't get the highs or lows anymore, just a kind of calm detachment from things. It's a strange sort of feeling and I'd give anything to experience the real highs again, but the flip side is deep depression and horrific anxiety which I wouldn't wish on anyone. It's a difficult balance.

I did say that I didn't understand anxiety.

It is true that worrying is pointless, even if your condition doesn't allow to see / feel / think that.

Which is exactly the same as telling someone with depression to cheer up…

It’s got nothing to do being ‘pointless’, it’s the symptom that anxiety produces, in exactly the same way as other conditions produce their own symptoms. It cannot be controlled without intervention or medication, again as with other conditions.

I just don't get the mental turmoil of thinking of all the bad things that could happen. My sis is like that. It must be exhausting. I just assume that everything will be fine!

My mum suffered from what would be called stress/anxiety now and to be honest it ruined our childhood. We spent the whole time having to be quiet and ‘not upset mum’. Eg Christmas Day she would get so worked up about cooking the dinner even though she cooked a decent roast every single week. As a result we would sit there paralysed with fear that something would set her off and she would end up crying/screaming.
As a result of this I was determined not to put my children through the same. So now I try and say what’s the worse thing that can happen, how likely is it and does it really matter? So try and quell any anxiety with logic.

In answer to the original post @Rocklobstershell I'm naturally fairly calm. I was brought up by parents who didn't get too worked up about things, which helped.

One or two traumatic events in my teens led to some anxiety, but I'm fortunate enough to have had access to decent therapy which helped a lot.
What does it feel like? 🤔
Um...peace, joy and gratitude I think. I find mindfulness talk intriguing as that's my general way of being. I try to be a decent human, but I'm not perfect and fail from time to time. I genuinely get pleasure from simple things but I concede that I'm very lucky to have good health and enough money coming in. I love my job though by other people's standards I'm under employed. I no longer justify my choices. I aim for compassion for people over empathy, so I don't get swept away by the challenges of others. I don't use social media beyond MN, and i use that in a way that works for me. I think the Serenity Prayer is a good guide for life, along with Stoic principles.

I'm quite good at 'what's the worst that can happen?' and working back from that.

Depends on the situation. Generally I am a fairly calm, organised person snd may not look like I am in a flap but I think it could just be introversion. But I hate public speaking, that just shakes me to my core and I have 'introverted style' panic & anxiety, tell tale signs are my hands shaking.

People would say I am a very calm & soothing person & most of the time I am. That said, I have had many anxious moments in my life. When I tell someone I feel anxious about a situation I’m always met with ‘ But you don’t come across like that ‘ which can be a bit frustrating.
Being and feeling calm ( in my opinion) is choosing peace over stress.
Whenever I find myself in a difficult situation I choose the peaceful solution.
I’m also convinced there is a genetic component. My youngest child is so calm ( my other two children, less so 😊)

So many people clearly don't understand anxiety. Saying "worrying abut things you can't control is pointless" is about as helpful as telling someone who is clinically depressed "cheer up, it's not that bad".

So true.. like telling an anorexic to just have a three-course meal <facepalm>

That makes a lot of sense to me - my background is a pretty abusive one, so I learned that reacting would invariably end up with another walloping or if I'd shown any emotion about possessions, I'd be woken up at 1am to them being flung around/at me.

These days, the odds of my getting a battering or my home destroyed are fairly non existent (bar a total breakdown in society) and I'm not trapped in a location or situation where I'd be at risk of that happening, so I'm not having to squash down any fight or flight instincts. And nothing else ever seems quite so bad as not even being able to sleep safely at night. I haven't lost the hyperawareness, I've just lost the 'bad things will happen to me any moment now if I let down my guard and I have to wait for them to happen because I'm trapped here' feeling.

DP had crippling anxiety and really wasn't helped by antidepressants, as they just sapped any energy to do anything about his situation - as I always felt better paradoxically if the abuse happened, rather than waiting for it to happen, I think I'd learned that doing was better than waiting or making myself less able to respond/escape/defend myself, I reframed it as his body was telling him there was something wrong and to RUN AWAY (he's not a fighter) and maybe it could help if he tried literally running away. So I took him out for a slow plod around the park, thinking that the physical exertion would tell his body 'hey, it's OK, we ran away, so the threat has gone'. It actually worked.

It's been a two edged sword in that now there are regular runs and gym visits (weights being more like a fight in terms of lifting heavy bits of metal) for both of us, but he's far, far happier, calmer and doesn't catastrophise or freeze anymore. He also says that now, if there's a disaster, he doesn't freeze, he knows to look for me disappearing off to help/into the distance and follows because we'll either be helping or getting the fuck out of it before anybody else has even noticed there's a problem. 😄

All the CBT in the world won’t take away the ‘what-ifs’.

well no, it wouldn’t. Anxiety is a somatic experience (in the body) so addressing thought patterns (in the mind) alone isn’t going to solve it at its root. You have to address both body and mind in conjunction with each other to heal. Check out books:

The Body Keeps the Score
The Body Remembers

I didn't know I was CBT-ing when I dialogue with myself logically, and reassuringly. Although it really helps, it's that initial stab in the pit of your stomach that I hate.

I don't know if this is 'cbt dialogue' but I also tend to have a chat with myself. Out loud if I can find the space (often when driving somewhere).

Sentences start with things like: I'm feeling xxx rught now about yyy because zzz happened before.

I think I try to have a time to lean into the feeling rather than trying to block it out?

I also focus heavily on the thing I can do about it, something like 'it would be amazing if I could get xxx to stop being a right royal arsehole, but I can't, so instead I will yyy.

But then once I'm done, I have a 'right then, deep breath' moment and push forward.

But not work for anyone else but it helps me!

Have you tried breathwork? Download the whimhoff app and do some guided breathwork to recreate that calm

i work in a place of regular crisis management. I step into resolve heated situations calmly. I may seem laid back but I am able to challenge with warmth and tick all the boxes to ensure best outcomes and supportive follow up. I seem steady on the surface but actively reflective, able to see what improvements need to be made and how to go about creating change. I do over think things on a personal level and I’m much kinder to others then myself. I am compassionate about peoples personal struggles.

@LifeOfAnxiety can I also recommend looking up James Nestor regarding breathing? I have his book 'Breath' but he's also on youtube and podcasts.
I said upthread that I'm a calm person, but i have had times of anxiety so i do put quite a lot of work into it, and controlled breathing helps massively. James Nestor has done a lot of research about the positive effects of nose breathing, and also slow breathing.
I also have a short cold shower every morning, but I know not everybody is up for that!

I have copy pasted this for future reference!

I am one of those people that shoots from 0-100 stress in 5 seconds and I find it hard to stop thinking (stressing) about problems till they are resolved.

I am quite good in an actual crisis though.

@Doowop1919

"do calm people feel other emotions in a less heightened way? I had an incredibly calm boyfriend once but he used to get disappointed that he never had any extremes of emotion including heightened joy. "

No. I don't feel that. I don't think that the norm. I'm sure some people do, but surely it's not ideal. I have a range of emotions.I sobbed when one of my closest friends dumped me and ghosted me last year. I laugh and feel real joy when I had a lovely rare lunch 'date' with Dh on a Thursday. or when my 2 closest friends and I went for a nice long weekend to Lisbon, and something funny happened and I was laughing so much my ribs ached.

I struggle to understand anxiety. I've read up on it. Extensively, but I still struggle with it. I don't understand why people don't try to address it more, by at least trying all the recommendations listed on this thread.

I find most people more naturally anxious than me. One close friend, my mum, my Dh, my 2 x ds's are also non anxious people. (I took my mum for a long weekend to Tallinn last month and we talked about this topic. She could only recommend that I try to be more accepting).

Most of my other close friends and acquaintances are more anxious, than I am, and that can on occasion be emotionally draining, but what can I do? When you really like someone you don't want anxiety making life more difficult for them. Because I'm so practical sometimes I can't understand why they haven't done certain things about their problems i.e. phoned their GP or something. but I have to accept that that's just not their nature. I have taken my mums advice above, and try not to let it bother me.

It's a desire to not spend your short time on this planet wasting with worry.

You understand that people with anxiety don’t ‘desire’ to be that way any more than someone with T1 diabetes ‘desires’ to have pancreas that doesn’t make insulin?

I’m fascinated by the lack of understanding around anxiety on this thread, as if it’s something that can be turned off if only the person just stopped worrying. It can require an inordinate amount of time and work to stop feeling anxious or to get it to a manageable level (or meds of course), and not everyone is able to - for some there will always be a level of anxiety ticking away in the background.

I am calm, it's a choice, it benefits me and everyone around me. Most people live in a state of fear and are very easily triggered these days. Life has thrown a lot of stuff my way, l think l have developed very high tolerance levels 're anxiety and stress, as well as actively working on myself, life is too short, l focus on stuff going right, not wrong.

I understand that but day-to-day low level getting anxious about the smallest things, you can desire to not do that.

As with T1 diabetes (you see a doctor) if your anxiety is consuming then your GP should be your first port of call. Then it can be determined if you need medication, CBT, lifestyle changes. Go from there.

Sometimes, and I highlight sometimes, people can say they are anxious like some say they have OCD because they vacuum twice a day. Whereas OCD isn't that. Anxiety is extremely difficult to determine without specifics. So go talk to a GP first they can start to get to the root and extent of the anxiety one is experiencing.