I have begun watching a new programme called Offspring. Its great and I love it. It is made and set in Australia and centres around the Proudman family. The main character Nina is an obstetrician. But she is also a worrier. She narrates her thoughts so we are privy to the worry, the self doubt, the wanting, the loathing and the humour. We get the lot. And Nina reminds me of me.
The first episode sees it all becoming a bit much for Nina and she ends up lying on her bed, having a panic attack. The next thing you know, her sister is holding a paper bag to her mouth helping her to breathe, so it’s a pretty bad one. God have I been there. There is nothing worse, your thoughts are racing, and it feels like there is a weight on your chest that consists of your own and everyone else’s problems and you just cannot escape. The problem is that most of these issues are blown out of all proportion and actually, there is nothing to worry about. But it will be a while after the panic attack before you can realise this. Of course there is also the point, that worrying is the most useless emotion ever, worrying will not fix the problem.
I go through periods of extreme worrying. I will become an insomniac over it. I will lie awake staring at the ceiling worrying about anything and everything. I will cry a bit. I will be hot so I will get up. I will watch some tv. I will read a magazine or a book. But always in the back of my mind there is a loop with the worries going around. They range from current worries, things that are current and happening now, to past worries, mistakes that I made in the past, and future worries, mistakes that I will make in the future or what shape that future might have. I find that if I am not kept sufficiently busy than I will inevitably end up back in the loop.
Most of the time I can keep on top of the worries. Eating well, exercising and having plenty to do helps. But every now and then, like a few days last week, they get the better of me. Every now and then I have a wee melt down. Sometimes it’s best to have the melt down, get it all out and then get over it. Sometimes it’s better to power through and keep forcing these worries to the back of your mind. The trick is knowing what to do when. As a worrier of old, I am quite good at knowing what to do and how to cope. Last week a strategy was to tell a good friend, via text, what I was feeling and that I just needed to tell someone. She was great and made me feel loved, wanted and most of all understood that I just needed to get it out. All of my friends currently have a lot on their plates, so I find it hard to open up to them. I don’t want to add one more thing to their already precarious juggling act. I worry about them. You see most of the time I know that time is the solution to these worries, but hey no one likes that solution. We all know that time is a great healer, but it’s hard to have the patience to wait it out. Then one day you wake up and realise that you have slept through the night for a week and that you are no longer worrying or hurting anymore.
I have heard it said before that Virgo’s are prolific worriers and that it is just a trait that you have to learn to live with. My one and only Virgo boyfriend (note to self, Virgo’s should not date Virgo’s, we are terrible together), sympathised with this – sadly the time in which I knew him, I was a bit of a crazy mess, there was very little sleeping going on and a lot of worrying. As he so eloquently put it – Worrying is shit. It’s a wasted emotion and makes you feel inadequate and awful. He encouraged me to learn not to worry. Of course cause every worrier likes to worry. For a while there I got really good at not worrying. In fact there may be some of my friends reading this now in a little bit of confusion, they would tell you that I was easy going and that not a lot fazed me. Worriers are great actors.
Here is a snippet of my current worries to give you an idea – was I too harsh with a friend for being late, Money money money, will I be forgotten in NZ if I decide to stay here, will I stay here, did I do the right thing by sending that, am I good at my job, will I get a new job, did I make a complete fool out of myself when I got drunk a year ago, will I be able to run 5k in just over a month’s time, will the landlord put the rent up, will my fav pub be demolished, are my friends working themselves to hard and how can I help, will my nephew always remember what a fun times we used to have or will he outgrow me, will I ever have a child of my own, will I ever get married, do I keep up with friends at home enough, what can I do to encourage more people to recycle, what will I do when nearly everyone goes home this year and so on and so forth. As you can most of it is completely useless, worrying about these things will not stop them happening, or change the past. And you know what, next week it will be a whole new set, or it will be none at all. It all depends on what is going on around me.
So are you a worrier? Do you hide it well or is it well known? What to do you do to alleviate it? Do you believe in star signs? Is your list of worries similar to mine, are our worries simply typical of my age/situation? Are your worries worse in winter? Could it just be seasonal affect disorder? Who knows, but I am sure that I will worry over that at a later date. As Zooey Deschanel – my fav girl crush of the moment says – You gotta be kind to yourself. This is advice that I am trying very hard to take.
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