ANTICIPATORY ANXIETY

You know how we transfer aggression, it turns out that’s not the only emotion we can transfer.

If transferring aggression is an internal deficiency, how would one diagnose projecting other people’s problems as one’s own because of empathy?

This post is about understanding how and when to isolate issues that are affecting us from others. The fact that someone you know has a challenge or experience doesn’t facilitate your likelihood of encountering a similar experience.

Of course, if you know someone that has died, you get in this melancholic funk of when your turn is going to be. Death is guaranteed and quoting the Brazilian President; death is in our destiny, so let’s just accept that we live to die.

I am not emphasizing what we have no control over, rather what is within our humanity to change. I like how this person phrases it:

The strength in anticipatory anxiety comes from subscribing to a narrative, then adopting and assimilating this narrative as a possible description of your life. Life is a narration of events complete with memories and experience. We learn from the experiences of others even as we share and gather ours, but that doesn’t connote that we’ll all have similar experiences even within a defined set of events.

This happens to me a lot, taking on the fear of others as a possible implication of what I may encounter. One such common issue is cheating and betrayal. I had this innocence about faithfulness and loyalty and even though I hear tons of stories about unfaithfulness, I never took it personally. I just felt, faithfulness was dependent on the understanding of both parties in a given relationship.

This thought process got corroded the moment I started believing the stories, taking on the rage, analyzing the issues repeatedly, churning it in my mind continuously. Before long, I had successfully mastered bitterness and mistrust which went on to characterize my budding relationship. Then like some sick twist of fate, I finally had a reason to take it personally, even though it didn’t happen to me directly but someone I know.

All of my anger, hurt, bitterness and mistrust, amplified sporadically. Next thing I know, love was hard to accept. I became suspicious of affection. I started feeling like I won’t be able to find or keep love. I started adjusting my expectations to the reality of betrayal and unfaithfulness. Any proponent of faithfulness became suspect, because I figured it was all pretense.

I started spiraling and self-sabotaging, deliberately pushing everyone away and always overreacting to the slightest issue. In short, I was easily triggered. I knew I’d lost it completely was when I almost started stalking my boyfriend wondering who he was chatting with and what he was saying which to me was the beginning of unfaithfulness. Honestly, in retrospect, that was crazy!

You don’t own people just because you love them. They should always be free to choose to stay with you every time that option is presented. That should in no way affect your belief in your worth. It has nothing to do with you. If someone hurts you intentionally, that’s on them. You are in no way culpable.

My point has been summarized above; be sympathetic but don’t take on the fear. Guard your heart. Be intentional about isolating events that have nothing to do with you. Don’t exert energy anticipating your share of doom. I have been there and so have many of you, but it doesn’t work. If anything, it makes us carriers of scars we didn’t even battle for.

In the world today, where interaction has gone up a notch and stories can easily be manipulated on social media, one needs to be intentional about the narration one wants to subscribe to, to filter every negative vibe before accepting it as reality and getting in line for your own experience.

The beautiful thing about life is we can all have great experiences and there’d still be space for more. I am not saying bad things don’t happen. I am just saying don’t be anxious about it. Just prepare yourself enough to deal with issues as they arise because sometimes we never rise above the fear we allow. So, at least reduce the fear you take on.

Ciao.