Anxiety

Someone mentioned something the other day that sent me scurrying.  Anxiety.  Those that know me, know I am big on balance.  If all I looked for was a certain thing, then I would find it. I see a bit of that in elections.  According to some, their person can do no wrong, while the other is incompetence personified.  It seems somewhere around the middle is more often the case. 
When it comes to anxiety, there seems to be more of it.  Covid-19, bush fires, elections.    State of Origin caused me anxiety, but it always does.  It does not matter what it is, when I am invested in someone winning, and it is close, I have trouble watching.
I have been looking at the figures and anxiety disorders are the are the most common form of disorder in Australia.  14% of the Australian population has reported having one in the last 12 months, and one in four people report having one in their lives.  Anxiety is defined in Dictionary.com as, “distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune.”
To me, there is anxiety and anxiety disorder.  When a big test is coming up, or a presentation is to be given, or a child is to be born it is right I do what I need to.  Yet when I have studied as I should, made the necessary preparations, and taken all reasonable precautions and still my anxiety grows, I reckon it becomes a disorder.  A disorder to me is when I am anxious in a disproportionate way to what I am facing or considering.  Worry gets more airtime than it should. 
When I am anxious about everything, I think I have a problem.  If going shopping and talking to someone I always talk to, and performing everyday activity causes me undue anxiety, I think help is helpful.  Some no doubt think me needing help is par for the course.  That is actually pretty right.  It is mostly when I think I stand I come a cropper.  I seem to be at my most vulnerable when confidence becomes over confidence.
There seems to be a multitude of reasons for anxiety, but when that is the case, I need to deal with them one at a time.  Even when anxieties are dealt with in bulk, I mostly need to win individual battles again.  It is one thing to have my life all shiny and my house swept clean, but I will still need to guard against what caused the anxiety in the first place from returning and my condition ending up worse.
An anxiety disorder is not something to be solved using a three-point plan from a textbook.  It is a human difficulty with potentially dire consequences.  Anyone who claims it is easy to solve some problems, needs to be taken with a grain of salt at best, or they do not care at worse.
I went to a phycologist a few times and refused to go back.  His solution to a perceived problem was to create in my mind another problem.  The aim is freedom – not swapping one problem for another. 
Whatever causes the anxiety in the first place, I need to ascertain its origin, and respond correctly, to have any hope of it being a thing of the past.  Thankfully, I have found it can be a thing of the past. 
Winning a battle is not winning the war, but winning battles can turn the tide of war.