“Would your husband describe you as a worrywart?”

Dear Dears,

I am an anxious person. I have struggled with anxiety my whole life, though only really it nailed it down a year ago. Panic attacks, worrying thoughts, stress about interactions… all of it.

In light of this, I thought it would be fun (because of course it is fun to talk about horrible things) to list out some of my random anxious thoughts. These worries are annoying and partially legitimate, and therefore it feels like I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t worry about them.

I would love to know if other people have ever worried about:

  1. Taking a knife from one side of the kitchen to the other. While it’s in your hand, you turn around and accidentally stab your partner. He’s bleeding and you have to explain to your daughter how you stabbed her dad. By accident.
  2. Tree branches falling on your car when you are driving. This is during windy days, but also, every day.
  3. Going over a railing and falling many stories to the ground. Not that the railing fails you, more that somehow you lift yourself up and over the railing by accident. I also feel like I might randomly fall out of a window too. (It seems like it might be something I would do.)
  4. That comment you made at your work meeting – wow, you probably shouldn’t have said that. I bet he is still thinking about that and how awful you are.
  5. How old you are.
  6. How your car is parked. Is it parked straight? Did you leave too much room on one side? What if someone thinks that you are negligent? You should probably go back outside, get in the car, and fix it.
  7. How a cramp in your leg must be a legit blood clot. It’s probably not, but what if it is and you ignore it and then die. Or how that thing you ate is making your stomach hurt and you probably just poisoned yourself and will have to go to the ER and how are you going to do that with a kid in the middle of the night.
  8. Being in a closed tight space.
  9. Oh my god, where is the exit? You always have to know how to get out.

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