Anxiety Limits Me, But I'm Okay with It

I don’t know how many people feel limited by anxiety, but if I were to make a bet, I would say that quite a few people are impacted by the limitations of anxiety. So, I figured a post is recommended. When I am anxious, I find that there are certain things that I am unable to do because they are too mentally taxing. I’m not talking about things that I’m uncomfortable doing anyway – these are things that I love doing, things that I would ordinarily spend a lot of time doing if I wasn’t anxious. This post is about those things.

How Anxiety Limits Me

When I am in a particularly anxious state, there are a few things that become impossible for me to do well. One of them is reading. This is particularly distressing because I love reading, and I always feel like I’m behind in what I want to read. But when I’m anxious, I find focusing on the words and retaining what I read to be next to impossible.

Similarly, I love watching foreign films and TV shows that need to be subtitled into English. Because that also involves reading, I find that I cannot concentrate enough to retain what I’m seeing, so a major portion of the things I like to watch is also thrown out the window.

Even if what I’m watching isn’t subtitled, sometimes just focusing on what I’m seeing on the screen can feel too mentally taxing. A lot of the time, I’ll have to just focus on things like YouTube videos where watching what’s on-screen isn’t essential or just listening to music, because that only requires listening.

How I Deal with Limitations Imposed by Anxiety

I’ve mentioned this previously, but in the past, I used to get really concerned that I was unable to keep up with all these things that I ordinarily love doing. I still feel that way to a certain extent, but for the most part, it’s gone away.

As my anxiety has progressed and I realize how central managing it is to maintaining a healthy and satisfying life, I really don’t care about keeping up with anything anymore. It is nice to keep up when I’m able to, but I don’t go out of my way to keep up. When I do that, I tend to feel even worse.

I’ve learned that having anxiety is, by necessity, having limitations that people without anxiety don’t have. Maybe, in some ways, that isn’t fair. But again, what’s important is being happy and healthy. So living a happy and healthy life within those limitations is the only thing I care about.