Anxiety At Its Worst

I can’t help thinking that, with anxiety, maybe “everyone else” really IS the problem.

You receive information through the stimuli present in your environment.

It gets analyzed, partly consciously, partly subconsciously.

A prediction naturally results, which says: “i bet i will encounter people who will make me uncomfortable, for reasons x, y, and z.”

You go into the “public realm” environment and find your hypothesis tests as true.

Hypothesis confirmed, theory established, precedent set: I don’t want to be around people who will predictably make me uncomfortable, so i will avoid it when possible.

Whose fault is it that we’re uncomfortable? Is it our fault for feeling what we naturally feel? Or is it the fault of those making the choices to behave in the ways that make us uncomfortable?

Whose fault is it that “typical people” often “typically behave” in ways that cause “people with anxiety” to prefer to avoid them?

I don’t think it’s the fault of the anxious. I think it’s that “people don’t know how to act.”

I feel like i’m literally “in the wilderness” when i go out into the urban jungle near me. Who wouldn’t be “anxious” when surrounded by predators who are likely to lash out for completely stupid reasons? People are animals. Lots of them are “predictably unpredictable.”

I think “anxiety” is actually a valid response to a correctly perceived “real world.” I think it’s silly that we’re just not supposed to notice, or just not supposed to freak out about “wild people” being in such high supply, scattered sporadically throughout the population, so that you can encounter them almost literally everywhere you could go.

I bet anxiety-sufferers would do well with the right martial arts training. Then you’ll have an outlet and method of control for that “omg animals everywhere!” feeling. If you have training to deal with unpredictably aggressive people, you’ll be less negatively affected by anxiety.

Okay, but who determines whether a fear is “irrational?”

If people actually do typically act the way i want to avoid, then it’s not irrational for me to fear what actually occurs… or rather, the way i feel when exposed to it.

It would only be irrational if there was either no evidence or reason to expect, or even evidence to support the likeliness that people would most likely not act the way i fear.

But they do. I have learned that they do act in these ways, by actually being around and among others, and observing what occurs.

I don’t fear the socialization, it’s not a “social phobia.” It’s the fact that i have continually and repeatedly observed evidence to suggest that “most people” will behave in ways that make me uncomfortable, and i know i want to avoid that type of discomfort.

Maybe it’s not “the anxiety” that’s “controlling your life.” Maybe it’s all those other people acting exactly the ways you must expect them to act. The idea of being required to interact with those people who behave in those ways, is what causes the anxiety. On top of that, we’re blamed for having a “flaw” that makes us dislike typically expected behavior of others. As if we must be medically defective to disapprove of the “typical behavior” of people.

But i don’t think we are necessarily “medically defective.” I think we’re just an outnumbered minority being discriminated against.

You’re right, though. We ‘shouldn’t’ be feeling anxiety. But the fears are rational. Its the behavior of the typical person that is not rational, is predictably disconcerting, and often preferred to be avoided by “the anxious.”

But then there’s regular anxiety, where people just have overly strong responses to stimuli that probably should not cause them, or perhaps even just the thought of something stressful.

If you cause someone enough suffering through a particular method, they will develop an anxiety response to any indication of that experience. If you strike someone often enough, they will flinch when you simply raise your hand.