Yes. I am permanently worried.
Objectively, I have a brilliant and relatively easy life. Amazing husband, good jobs, three beautiful children, financial security, good health, lovely friends. I appreciate it all.
And yet. I’m always tied in knots by worry about something. Often work. Since the children were born, usually something to do with them as well. Always worried about finances (I think this comes from a childhood where things were quite tight, and the mentality never leaves me).
It’s exhausting. Takes up so much of my headspace. Ruminating endlessly on all the potential bad outcomes and how to mitigate them. Worrying about every tiny decision and being paralysed by it.
Increasingly, I realise that my mum is the same. I can see that she’s never fully able to enjoy anything because her initial reaction is to jump to the negatives. She’s too uptight to ever just “be”. I recognise myself in this.
After years of putting it down to my personality, I’m coming to accept that there are features of anxiety disorder. I’ve arranged to start therapy. I’m interested to read what others have said about SSRIs being transformative - I think I ought to try these but I just can’t bring myself to go to the GP and shooting down the outward projection that I have it all. Which is stupid, I know.