Always Afraid

Always Afraid

Being a pessimist and a worrywart has its upsides and downsides. If you always think that the worst will happen, you can never be disappointed. When the worst does happen you react with, “I knew that would happen.”

And, if the worst doesn’t occur, you get a boost of elation that things did work out. You react with, “Thank God, I can’t believe it happened that way.” Again, you are not disappointed for not having bad things happen which always produces good feelings. 

 It seems like a win/win situation to me. So what are the downsides?

The downsides of thinking about the worst thing happening occur during the times between your thought and the actual occurrence of the event that you were anticipating. That time period has a major effect on your health and disposition. People who worry constantly have trouble sleeping, are more prone to stress, have more physical ailments, and might even have some social interaction difficulties too. Who wants to interact with Debbie Downer all of the time. You want to be around people that lift your spirits not bring you down all of the time. All those Negative Nancys have trouble keeping relationships. That is unless they happen to know a Grumpy Gus, after all, misery does love company. 

Sometimes you don’t even know that you are worried or afraid of something happening. Your body knows, but either you are in denial or you’re just unaware of your subconscious thoughts, until one day when your brain has had enough and it signals your body to send up a red flag, usually in the form of pain somewhere…headache, stomach ache, high temperature, etc. 

Trust me, I know. After I had been teaching for about 10 years, I began to get sharp pains in my stomach/intestinal area. This went on for a few years. I had lots of tests run during that period and it was finally suggested that I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome. (Side note – when they bloat your intestines up with barium gas during a barium enema, and they say they are done and you can release the gas, doing a handstand in the bathroom, thinking that air rises, doesn’t make it go out any faster. Just sayin’). Anyway, I never connected the pain with school and teaching. It wasn’t until I had the opportunity to take a position in the district as a computer support teacher, where I didn’t have a class of my own, had no interactions with parents, or reports to write, that my IBS completely went away. And I must add, it has not returned.  

My stress, unacknowledged, and worries which I always wrote about had signaled my brain I’d had enough. Once I realized the cause of the pain, it went away,  and I went back into a classroom setting, I changed not only my outlook on my work but added more support systems within my social circles to both keep me more aware of what might be happening and even guide me at times. One less thing to worry about.

To me, the downsides of always thinking something bad will happen outweigh the upsides. That doesn’t mean that you should be unrealistic and feel overly positive about everything. Personally, I hate being around those kinds of people. The only time I want to think about what is the worst thing that can happen is when the worst thing that can happen isn’t the worst thing in the world and I can live with it. That, at least, lessens my worry. 

My advice is to be open about your concerns with trusted friends and family. Try to find the positive things that are happening in your life so that you don’t get overwhelmed with negative worries. If you’re going to be afraid of something, make sure it is real, like roller coasters, or crawly things on your back. And most of all – Be safe; Be well.