Time Plays Into My Reactions to Anxiety

In a recent post, I discussed how anxiety impacts how I experience the passage of time. This is a huge topic to tackle, and so I didn’t even attempt to tackle it all–I focused exclusively on artificially depriving myself of sleep to make time appear to move slower. In this post, I want to focus on other ways time plays into my reactions to anxiety.

Setbacks Seem to Repeat Themselves Over Time--My Reaction Is Anxiety

One of the most common ways I experience time is in the sense that what I do seems to repeat itself endlessly. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve suffered a number of personal setbacks. Without going into too much detail, there have been many things that I’ve attempted to do but, because of my mental health condition, did not come to fruition.

One benefit of this is I’ve come to learn a lot about what I can and can’t do and what help I may need when I do things in the future. I’m now much more aware of what my comfort zones are and can easily stay in them to mitigate any disastrous consequences on a day-to-day basis.

A potential negative of this, however, is that it does sometimes feel as though things can repeat. I will stick to doing the same things because I know I can do them. Because I actively seek out things that can make me feel more comfortable, I’ll continue to do those things at the expense of most others.

This doesn’t make me feel bad in the moment, but reflecting on it, it can make me kind of sad. I don’t know what else I can do. What is most important to me is finding a place of peace. Most things, based on experience, do not seem to bring me peace and instead, just cause me great anxiety. If that is the case, why bother seeking these things out?

How to Break the Time-Related Cycle Causing Anxiety

In the back of my mind, I know that perhaps it isn’t the ideal way to live. But at the moment, I’m not sure how to come to a place of true peace.

I know the last thing I should do is beat myself up about it. If I go crazy attempting to find some perfect solution, then I’ll just cause myself a lot of distress. Perhaps I should just try to live life and keep my mind as open as I can, and the right thing will find me when it is time. I know this isn’t the greatest solution. But right now, that’s where I am. I can’t change that.