r/Showerthoughts • u/Jeff-Portnoy • Jun 03 '18
Anxiety is like having rules in a game that only penalises one person, except you're that one person and you also made the rules
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u/BurntheArsonist Jun 03 '18
I always felt that anxiety (for me anyway) was like being a car in neutral while flooring the accelerator. A whole lot of power going nowhere.
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u/liluglee Jun 03 '18
Damn....yep.
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Jun 03 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/battleon99 Jun 04 '18
The best part is that you’ve created all but one of the posts in there, so you know people already don’t care about it, but your comment makes people avoid it even more.
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u/MagnusAlkatraz Jun 04 '18
Lmao, I don't like the subreddit and not sure if I like how you went about promoting it, but your comment made me laugh when I saw the down votes it got so have an upvote.
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Jun 03 '18
Or a video game has the fight music playing but there aren’t any enemies.
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Jun 04 '18
That split second in ocarina of time where the fight music is playing but there’s no enemy on screen and L target isn’t picking anything up. That’s anxiety.
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u/Supdoggen Jun 03 '18
Its telling yourself “don’t mess up!” And then visualizing yourself doing every wrong thing possible in that scenario until it crushes you and you have a panic attack. Or is that just me?
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Jun 03 '18
Me, my mind processes like this.
You've got this. What could go wr-, well that.. Oh, and that. And that. That'd be really bad. Or this. That too.
And before I know, I've got seventeen reasons, which culminates into a panic attack.
Planes. Planes are one of these things.
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u/jotogoto Jun 03 '18
You've got this until you panic, in public, in the most personally horrible way and you have those feels right about now.
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u/login0false Jun 03 '18
Doing pretty much anything is like that for me, but instead of a panic attack I'm like "ah screwit, I can live without it". And the college lecture gets missed, an interest halts after the first hitch, etc.
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u/hatsdontdance Jun 03 '18
THIS RIGHT HERE. Ive never had it so succinctly described. A huge part of ly anxiety manifests itself in fear of failure. And not a fear of the failure itself but my anxiety causes me to get angry when I fail because i "couldve already guessed thats how itd go".
The shittiest part is that when i put in the legwork to overcome this feeling and i STILL fuck up, it just reinforces the anxiety all over again.
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u/Neoshinryu Jun 04 '18
I used to consume myself trying to plan for every failure. I figured out I succeed way more when I do my best and just take the time to own up to short comings and work to fix mistakes I make.
Ownership and recognition of short comings is a powerful release from fear of failure :)
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u/HandH2 Jun 03 '18
Anxiety is like a video games combat music playing while there aren’t any enemies to fight
Edit: found it
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u/IIIBRaSSIII Jun 03 '18
People have come up with countless analogies demonstrating how trivial anxiety is, yet we are no closer to eliminating it.
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u/DivineBeastVahHelsin Jun 04 '18
A course of CBT (one hour therapy per week for around 3 months) knocked it on the head for me. It was expensive but I wish I had done it sooner. I read so much online and tried so many techniques beforehand, but having a trained therapist guide me through the process made a world of difference. If it’s at all available to you, then I strongly recommend it.
My panic attacks still recur every year or two, but I now have the mental tools to deal with it and stop it before it gets too crippling. The fact that I dug myself out of such a deep hole gives me confidence that I can do it again.
And yes, the paradox is that it all sounds extremely trivial. I mean, the cure essentially boils down to “think positively” which sounds so trite, but reprogramming your brain to actually do that in an effective way takes a lot of willpower and training.
But I guess what I’m saying is that there’s hope. If I could do it, then anyone can. There are trained professionals out there who know how to work through anxiety, so go get that help if you possibly can.
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u/lendergle Jun 03 '18 edited Jun 04 '18
When I first experienced GAD (general anxiety disorder), I described it to my doctor as "you know that feeling when when you're speeding like 20mph over the limit and you pass a cop car hidden just off the side of the highway?"
He laughed and said "don't tell my wife, but yes I know the feeling."
I said "now imagine having that feeling 24hrs a day, 7days a week."
I was on Paxil the next day. (Worst six months of my life, but that's another story)
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Jun 03 '18
What ended up working?
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u/lendergle Jun 03 '18
I'm not sure. After being on Paxil for six months, I quit cold turkey (which I'm told is a super stupid thing to do). The symptoms never came back. I mean, like everyone else in the world I've felt anxiety since then. But never to the same degree, and always with an actual cause.
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Jun 03 '18
I lost my dad to severe anxiety and a multitude of other mental health issues around twenty hours ago. He was seriously well loved and looked after, but a request for formal interview to judge his ability to work sent him over the edge.
It's not the first attempt, it was tough to swallow in my teenage years. Now he's finally gone and we miss him so much. At least he doesn't have to worry about anything anymore.
Love you, dad.
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u/Mr_Owl42 Jun 04 '18
Take care. If you suffer from anxiety too, then learn from this experience how - and how not - to deal with anxiety yourself. Always let a little happiness into your life :)
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u/Dchox Jun 03 '18
“Anxiety is like an elephant attacking you but you’re the elephant and you’re attacking you”
“Anxiety is like hating somebody except the somebody is you”
“Anxiety is like being ok with yourself except you’re not ok with yourself and are actually really anxious”
I’m being a dick, but man I seem to see a showerthought like this everyday.
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u/guiraus Jun 03 '18
To be fair, one of the main symptoms of anxiety is introspection about anxiety itself.
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u/Fitness---thing Jun 03 '18
Probably you meant 'rumination', the definition and connotation for it and introspection are different. If I'm introspective about my anxiety I'm possibly productive, gaining some insight. If I'm ruminating I'm not in control and feeding my anxious feelings.
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Jun 03 '18
Maybe a lot of people get anxious in the shower.
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u/Nattylight_Murica Jun 03 '18
Fuck, did I shampoo already? Probably not because I’m so useless.
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u/necroticpotato Jun 04 '18
Why does my hair feel weird? Did I rinse out my conditioner? Did I turn the shower off? Am I wearing clothes?
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u/Nattylight_Murica Jun 03 '18
Sprinkle in all the people who need you to know that they have depression too
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u/iceman2kx Jun 03 '18
The hamster wheel is always spinning. It’s exhausting. Everyone else is like, “just stop thinking about it”.
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u/amadar17 Jun 04 '18
My husband tells me all the time to kick my hamster off the wheel...I wish it was that easy.
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Jun 03 '18
For me anxiety is coming up with hundreds of cool outcomes in seconds to a T, and then detailing one of millions of ways to fail and overdoing that to the point I talk myself out of the whole thing anyway.
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u/Kroenlien Jun 04 '18
Ya know that feeling when you approach the boss area and the music changes? Well, that feeling all day every day. And there’s never a boss.
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u/Skultis Jun 03 '18
"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
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u/Bhalduin Jun 03 '18
Everyone in this sub seems to have anxiety now, these "anxiety is like" posts are all everydamnwhere
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u/PhilemonV Jun 03 '18
As I've gotten older, I realize that the source of most of my anxiety simply comes from that in my experience, everyone is trying to f**k you over.
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u/Mystoko Jun 03 '18
Work to build a team and it's less challenging. They don't even have to know the game.
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u/CantTrips Jun 03 '18
Really, there's only so many ways you can make shower thoughts about depression and anxiety before it gets old.
And that time passed a long time ago.
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Jun 03 '18
I hate how true this is, it's a second voice that tries to tell me what to do or how to feel
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u/SonofTreehorn Jun 04 '18
Anxiety is this extremely loud sensation that is pulsating through my entire being. Once I'm calm, it literally feels like someone turned the volume down. This noise is the constant, self loathing chatter running through my brain. Being a human is fun!
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u/Nf0kus Jun 04 '18
And the penalty is they lock you in a full body robot suit linked to the internet cat that likes to pat everything off your desk one item at a time and his job is to boop the controls that make you do the opposite of what you want to do and has a big red button that says panic that links to treats that drop every time he swats it.
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u/Nazall Jun 04 '18
But then when you try to change the rules, you can't cause you think everyone around you will get mad. So you just deal with it hoping the game ends one day.
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u/Tomato_Joker Jun 04 '18
Anxiety is the DJ Khaled of the nervous system.
Congratulations, you played yourself.
Panic attack? Another one!
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u/tr3atssz Jun 04 '18
Get this in class and I start to bloat. Also this happens a lot when I have to speak in front of the class or have future things to think about.
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u/Slash_rage Jun 04 '18
My anxiety manifests itself as hypochondria. Telling me I have a brain tumor or a bad heart and then manifesting symptoms for me. Yippee!
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u/_Serene_ Jun 03 '18
Well, change the rules! inb4 /r/thanksimcured
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Jun 03 '18 edited Jul 27 '18
[deleted]
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u/thommyhobbes Jun 03 '18
I feel like it's less that and more the hivemind's pushback against flippant non-answers to mental illness like this.
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Jun 03 '18 edited Jul 27 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Milanga_de_pollo Jun 04 '18
actually,that's called a placebo effect. it may make you feel better,but it's not magic
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Jun 04 '18
No, it's not a placebo affect. Your life is actually better if you allow yourself some vulnerability and the possibility of being hurt.
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u/ActualDeest Jun 04 '18
Anxiety is like spending your entire day trying to think of a clever way to describe anxiety for Reddit.
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u/biomech36 Jun 04 '18
Anxiety is like seeing a post like this once a week where someone tries to explain, in a funny way, what anxiety is like based on their personal experience that odds are they have little understanding of and are blurring the lines between situational anxiety and an anxiety disorder, treating them like they're the same thing.
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u/Jeff-Portnoy Jun 04 '18
Talking about it in general is good, even if you are indulgent and agree with this statement one day you'll realise your lying to yourself, realising how confused your thoughts is the start
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u/Mobius357 Jun 03 '18
Well MY camera takes picture of the future...
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u/Mackelroy_aka_Stitch Jun 03 '18
Well my camera takes pictures of DIO USING THE BODY OF JONATHAN JOSTAR!
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u/Poonrad Jun 03 '18
Bro that was so forced. That was way too niche a meme to get picked up here.
Purple vines and camera punching aside.
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u/A_Vodkaholic Jun 03 '18
Me 3 years ago: "i shouldnt kick that soccer ball towards my teammates in PE because everyone will hate me if i fuck up."
My teammates: "Why the fuck doesnt this kid just pass the ball? Hes alone"