Suddenly with the onset of anxiety (an upcoming presentation, a person you’re potentially meeting, the dread of being blamed, the worry that you lost something)…

it is consuming.

It takes over every single through. You can’t cook, you can’t eat, you can’t sleep. The worry settles deep inside your stomach. It settles all through the muscles, cursing down your veins and then circulating back to your head through the life-saving arteries. Your eyes are bulging.

Then perhaps perhaps…something, someone helps you overcome it. Perhaps it’s a movie. Perhaps it’s a drink. Most likely, it’s an activity. You pause the anxiety for a moment. And for a moment, it doesn’t exist. Because your attention is elsewhere.

When the moment returns, it’s back. But perhaps it better now. You have better cognitive dissonance…and the anxiety hopefully fades away.

But by now, the anxiety is so consuming that it exhausts you. And you fall into a fitful sleep because you no more energy left to think about the anxiety. Perhaps the best sleep? Maybe only if in your mind, you stumble upon a solution in your dreams.