A letter from anxiety to the mind

Having worked with anxiety for over 15 years, I feel I have met it in all its disguises, but underneath it always has the same narrative. This inspired me to write a 'love' letter from anxiety to the mind to show people the manipulative way in which anxiety can attach itself and the language it uses to convince the individual that it is here to help, not hinder.

Dear Mind,

I had you in my sights for a while. I was just waiting for the right moment. I always knew how to get you; I just needed to act at the right time. Get you when you were low, vulnerable. That’s always the easiest time to sweep in. I had a fail-safe plan too, a shortcut through your survival response. I had used it thousands of times before, and it never fails!

I knew if I could hijack that, you would be putty in my hands. And you, my love, would never know and never question me. You would trust me implicitly, believing I had your best interests at heart. And I did, sort of… well, that’s what I told you. Without me, your world was unsafe; I was there to protect you and warn you about possible threats. How could that be a bad thing?

I wanted – no, needed – your attention, and once I had it, I never wanted to let it go. It felt so good watching you fall for me again and again, hanging on my every word, never questioning my opinions, no matter how far-fetched they became. I would test your commitment to me by suggesting things I knew your calm mind would never believe, just to make sure I had your full attention. And you never let me down.

You joined me on every crazy journey I invited you on. We felt like a team, you the passenger and me the driver, heading towards my destination of choice. A destination of chaos and doubt, where I never gave you enough time to stop and figure anything out. Where I kept you second-guessing every choice you made, and we lived together blissfully in my chaos. People couldn’t separate us; we were unified as one.

Do you remember that time I told you that if you stood on a stage in front of people you would probably make a complete fool of yourself? I wasn’t specific about how, or maybe I was; I can’t quite remember now. Maybe I told you, you would stumble over your words and people would snigger at your pathetic weakness. Your inability to speak confidently and calmly would make people think less of you. Who are you to stand on a stage and tell anyone anything? That was a fun one.

I enjoyed watching you squirm and panic for days before. You read over your lines again and again; you knew your presentation inside out, and yet you kept coming back to me to check in. "Have I done enough?" you would ask. But no, I wouldn’t make it that easy. If I did that, you would have realised that you didn’t need me, and I couldn’t face being shunned by you. So, I kept the fear alive in ways that meant you could do nothing about it.

Ah but…what if… twisting and turning every time you found what you thought was a solution. I always had a reason why that solution wouldn’t work. I was clever. I made sure all the threats I created could not be solved in the here and now because they weren’t real; they were hypothetical. But you weren’t to know that, bless your heart. You trusted me; why would I create a threat that wasn’t real? That would just be cruel, right?

You needed me as much as I needed you. We were a power couple, totally unbreakable. And the more I pushed, the more isolated you became, relying on me more and more, shutting the world out. That cruel, unsafe world that was so unpredictable. I was the voice of reason. I warned you about potential hazards. I was there to protect you! You knew it would be crazy to ignore me.

But then you changed, and help arrived. I think I must have pushed you too far because you started to question and doubt me. I thought I could keep going, and you would just stay on board, but I was wrong. You decided to figure out a different way to live, and I felt you slipping away. That was the most horrendous feeling. You broke my heart. I tried to double down on my efforts, and for a while I think it worked. But you just came back again and again, stronger each time, and I realised my power over you was slipping.

Who were you listening to now? Whoever it was stole you from me. You didn’t hang on my every word, and I could start to feel the separation between us. I felt betrayed. I would have stayed with you forever if you had only let me.

But you always leave in the end. Abandon me for calm, that boring, uneventful place where nothing happens. How dull! Where’s the adrenaline? I kept you alive, in more ways than one. I had you living on the edge of your seat. Surely that was a more exciting way to live.

But never mind, my love; there is someone else waiting for me, and they won’t let me down as you have; they will never leave me. You keep your calm, uneventful mind, and I’ll take my adventure somewhere else. Somewhere where I am wanted, where they haven’t figured me out, and I am back in control.

Hopefully, this letter gives you an insight into how anxiety speaks to us. It pretends to be on our side, assuring us it is there to protect us. It gets its power from hijacking our survival response, using the same feelings and the same language. In this way, it guarantees our attention, knowing that we are biologically designed not to override or ignore it.

So, when working with anxiety, it helps to be able to see it as an intruder and not who we are. If it is an intruder, we can learn how to separate ourselves from it and make it unwelcome. The first step is to see if you recognise any of the narrative in the above letter. If you do, maybe it's time to ask for help.