Yes, of course we all suffer from those conditions. Anxiety and stress are a normal part of life. We’re anxious about our new job.
A lady has to prepare for a dinner party, so she’s rushing here, there and everywhere to make things ready. Naturally, she feels stressed.
Problems start to arise, though, when that anxiety doesn’t seem to leave you. You can’t shake it. You wake up in the morning, and the old butterflies start in your tummy. If you’re employed in a very stressful job, then this is understandable… up to a point. Understandable, but not acceptable.
If your stomach starts to churn along with the butterflies during the day, and this happens every day, then it’s time we asked some questions.
Have you always had a stressful job, or have you been employed at far less stressful situations? If so, did you experience butterflies then? Are you nervous being around people? In the job before this one which was far less stressful, did you still have the butterflies?
How long have you had this condition of nervousness? Ever since childhood. In fact, you can never remember a time when you weren’t nervous. This nervousness has never really left you.
Yes, that was me. Everyone does become anxious and stressed on occasion, but it’s not normal to live your life in these conditions. Anxiety itself is an insidious little beast. It can leave you for a short while, so that you feel this tremendous sense of freedom, joy, in fact, and then back it comes, worming its way back into your life.
No, living life like that is very far from normal. But what causes it? What’s the initial trigger?
It may be caused by your parents if they’re uncaring and particularly strict, but that wasn’t my case. I didn’t receive any encouragement from them, which frankly left me with a ‘what’s the point’ attitude. But I wasn’t beaten or physically abused in any way.
So I have no idea what started this lifelong anxiety and nervousness. Something must have done so, but what it was is lost now in the mists of time.
Anxiety robs you of true happiness, of really being able to enjoy life. I wasn’t depressed. That came a lot later. But it’s only in the last twenty years or so that anxiety has really become understood as a condition that must be addressed.
One part of me thought that everyone else felt the same way, and yet the other part of me knew that to be wrong thinking.
I’d be invited to all sorts of functions and parties, but would always back out if it were humanly possible. Occasionally it wasn’t, and I’d be terrified of having to go, at least until I’d had a few stiff drinks under my belt. That took the edge off nicely, but naturally enough, caused other problems.
Nowadays, if anyone feels the same way, especially if they’re young, then for goodness sake seek treatment. You’re lucky. Now help is there for the asking