Is anxiety not being able to let things go?

[TheLasrStraw]

I'm always worried about something e.g. this holiday I'm worried about some office politics and can't get it out of my head. I think about it every day. I know it will only go away when something else replaces it.

Last holiday it was something else and so on....I remember being at a pop concert and worrying about a school physics test.

Is that what anxiety is, or is that something different?

That’s what my head does. I have diagnosed anxiety. I never used to be like this but now I overthink something that happens until the next thing happens to replace it.
One worry after the next, after the next, after the next. All blown all out of proportion by my head.
It’s exhausting!

Anxiety is the mind's way of telling you that something needs your attention, but it becomes a problem when you start thinking about it excessively. If you had NO anxiety in your life you wouldn't have revised for that school physics test, or even bothered showing up for it.

When you become anxious or worry about something you start imagining various negative outcomes. However all you are doing is imagining; the problem is you make the scenario so detailed in your head that you forget that it's not actually real. Once you know that it's not real, that it's something you've made up, you can use that same imagination to change the script.

In your case I guess you've been imagining a number of possible bad outcomes in the office politics problem? Try running some positive ones instead and make them as plausible, detailed and long winded as the bad ones. You can't stop yourself thinking about stuff but you can change the way it runs and the outcome.

It's always useful when worrying/imagining about the future to try three options - the best case scenario, the worst case scenario and the most likely scenario. In real life the latter is almost always the case

@Sarahlou63 that is so helpful, thank you.

I an trying that right now. I think the most likely outcome should be manageable.

Are you a MH professional?

I also think that other people with "more interesting" lives don't worry so much about such stuff, but I can't know if that's true or not - do you know???!!!

@TheLasrStraw - I started studying CBT at the start of the first lockdown (seems a long time ago now!) and I'm about to qualify as an interactive hypnotist; the two disciplines fit very well together. I also teach people how to communicate better by working with my horses - if a horses trusts you, people will.

I do know - not from my studies but from a lifetime of working with people - that pretty much everyone worries about what people think of them, that they aren't good enough, that they are really a bit of a fuck up. It's normal

Thanks @Sarahlou63 , I had excellent CBT for social anxiety about a decade ago but playing outcome scenarios wasn't something suggested to me.

I feel better thinking that things will probably go a particular way and although that may not be great, I should be able to handle it.