me_irl

If you’re younger, I find worrying about the climate is a good entry into the hobby. It’s a looming threat that affects everyone, definitely a Big Deal, yet it’s a slow burn. Super accessible for novices and experts alike.

"What if I run out of money and have some kind of emergency?" is a pretty common one

Did you lock the door?

But did you tho?

Do you think you are good enough to be anxious?

• Maybe all my friends secretly hate me and think I'm super annoying.

• Could that weird cramping feeling be the first signs of cancer?

• Did I make sure my door fully latched? What if it blows open in the wind, my cat gets out, and some car runs over them?

You can start with climate change and work your way to all the other shit stemming from it

Beginner worries aren't necessarily what's most common but maybe more what's lightest. Did I remember to turn off the light before leaving the room? Did I just say "Love you" to my coworker? Does my phone have enough charge for the rest of the day? Inconsequential things.

When you think those enough and can't even handle them, it's then that you can graduate to more difficult anxieties like "Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?" or "Will anyone even notice if I'm gone?"

I remember as a child, I just started wondering what is stopping knives from floating up and shanking me.

Hyper-fixate on establishing certainty in an uncertain universe. Rely on consistency as emotional support. Only feel safe when all possible failure points are 100% guaranteed protected against. Ruminante and endlessly catastrophise even the slightest crack or worry. Focus on things that are impossible to verify but statistically unlikely.

Don't let anyone convince you that you're fine and nobody cares. Make it an obsession. Make more knowledge work against you. Really research the topic and learn way too much about it. Learn how impossible it is to ensure and guarantee anything 100%. Really froth yourself up into a full scale panic attack.

From the US? The Yellowstone super caldera is over due for a massive eruption. From the west coast? "The big one" is also well over due. Enjoy.

My body feels fractionally different, am I dying?

Sleep apnea is a good starter. The idea is to look it up when you wake in the night and obsess over the idea that something may be wrong with you.

Some skills require long term practice. ASAP start to develop deep doubts about your adequation to your work. Are you not an absolute impostor? And if so, when and how will the grand revelation of your ineptitude happen?

• Do your friends really like you, or are they just being nice out of pity?

• Did you leave the stove on?

• Really, did you leave it on?

• Hey, so this climate change thing looks pretty scary, huh? Probably not a good thing to leave your progeny to suffer through.

• On an unrelated note, when was your last period again?

• Fuck, now you’re gonna have to go to the drug store, pick up some tests and holy shit what are the abortion cutoffs in your state, again?

• What if you have to find an in-network provider for an appointment, call them, and face the possibility that they’re not taking new patients?

• Oh, that’s an itchy scalp, isn’t it? Better spend the next 30 minutes recording a zoomed in video as you look through each hair section and check for lice.

• Can humans get fleas?

• What if you have to fumigate? You can’t afford that.

• Your car’s sounding weird, don’t you think? What if it just had a catastrophic malfunction on the highway and you die in a horrific crash?

• I mean, at least then you won’t have to worry about the appointments, might be a relief.

Will ppl like my posts?

"Is that a fart, or a shart?"

Is the oven on? Go check

Replay cringe conversations and social blunders in your head from years ago.

Constantly wonder if you put your underwear on backwards this morning.

Question whether you are having a heart attack, or cancer, or serious organ failure, or parkinsons, or MS, or a fatal case of covid, or ebola, or a stroke, or going blind ... all the time.

Know that AI will replace you sometime this year and you are too old to get another job of any sort.

That aircraft you hear overhead is not some passenger jet, but bombers about to try shock and awe.

That rumbling isn't a truck driving by, but a hidden fault line about to unleash the mother of all earthquakes.

Ghosts are real.

A classic is to wait at the supermarket check out for another person to get back while you hold up the entire line.

The unstoppable passing of time

My personal mixture when snoozing in the wee hours, dancing deftly between imagination and dreams:

"OH SHIT OH FUCK DID I MISS MY ALARM???'

If you aren't stressed, then you're forgetting something important and only falling behind. Better drink some coffee, smoke a cigarette and pace around until you realize what you should be stressing over

You can go for the classic: What if you are forgetting to do something important?

A good starter worry is that you left the stove on.

Instead of specific worries, try focusing only on your negative experiences and memories. Then, you will worry naturally as you go about daily life being constantly tortured by the intrusive thoughts of all those emotionally painful moments and awkward mistakes.

If you stop worrying you might accidentally fart in a meeting at work again! Who needs to pay attention to the road when you could be ruminating on just how much you overshared with that new group of friends you like so much? Sure they were all gracious and supportive, but that one glance from that one guy who probably doesn’t like you probably means you blew it. Did you? Who knows! Better think about some more.

Let the philosophy of anxiety inhabit your soul, and pretty soon you won’t be able to stop it even when you want to! And just remember, that you’re probably tolerated at best, so you deserve this! Best of luck with your new anxious life, and keep those shoulders tight.

Don’t bother. You haven’t got what it takes.

"Am I breathing right?"

tends to help get things going.

If it doesn't work, and you actually calm your breathing instead, try prefacing it with an "Oh no!", and if that doesn't work still, try framing it in the negative, with more urgent alarm...

"Oh no! Is my breathing wrong?!"

Then you can really get underway with anxiety, moving on to things like "something bad is going to happen".

With a little practice, you can build up to full blown panic attacks in no time.

Do they like me?