a curious epiphany

a couple of posts ago, i described the intense anxiety that's been hitting me upon waking of late. and the stressors/stresses that crawl through my brain when i go to bed at night. the worries about the future, the panic about the present... and the sometimes-all-consuming dread about the unknown that lies ahead for pretty much every aspect of my life.

i'm not sure when or why it happened, but i had a weirdly insightful revelation yesterday that helped (a bit, anyway) bring the root of all that anxiety into focus a little: in recent months, when i've thought about the future, it's been through the lens of being in the present.

and not in a good way.

that is, when my thoughts have drifted to, say, my life two years from now or five years from now or whatever, i've been imagining myself being in exactly the same situation i'm in now... but with EXTRA stressors added to the mix. and, not surprisingly, that's amplified the panic.

apparently, my brain -- or my imagination or whatever governs these twilight-hours mental musings -- doesn't think any of the circumstances of my life will be any different in the future. it believes that two years from now or five years from now or whatever, i'll still be exactly as i am now, the same person dealing with the same issues in the same ways. unemployed and uncertain about when or where my next job will manifest itself. living in this condo and being on its board with the asshat condo-board president. dealing with a COVID-riddled world. and so on.

for whatever reason, my thoughts of the future haven't been framed in things like "oh, i'll have sold my first screenplay by then and the money will be rolling in!" or "i'll be working on an amazing project and feel creatively fulfilled!" or "i'll have remodelled my bathrooms and bought a new sofa!" or "the asshat president will long be gone!" or anything outside of the way everything exists right now.

so, i've been taking the stressful and uncertain place i'm at right now and just... imagining more stress and uncertainty added to it. NO WONDER I WAKE UP PANICKED.

sidenote: "catastrophizing" the future is a trademark of people with generalized anxiety. imagining the worst-case scenarios and then fixating on them as though the future is preordained to be terrible. i know this and yet didn't actually recognize i was doing it.

all that said, and despite this epiphany, i'm not actually sure how to thwart those thoughts completely. i know it will involve focusing on the present (in a healthier, more mindful way), taking steps to remedy some of the controllable-by-me problems of the here and now -- such as getting back into my writing routine so that i can finish, and then sell, some work! -- and probably developing some kind of improved coping mechanisms for the stuff that's out of my control. cue: the serenity prayer.

and i'm hoping that the act of writing it all down here will somehow cement this realization into my memory so that tonight or tomorrow morning or the next morning after that -- when my heart starts to pound and my chest starts to sweat and i feel way too awake for the time of day -- i can calm myself down more quickly and easily, get up (or get to sleep) determined to keep chasing those small goals, and start focusing on a future that feels more manageable and less terrifying.