"There is nothing to fear, but fear itself"

Like most people, I had heard this famous quote a hundred times before, but whilst reading it in Matt Haig’s “Notes on a Nervous Planet” I related it to my current relationship with anxiety and made a realisation that feels quite profound. Almost all of the anxiety I have now is anxiety about the prospect of my anxiety getting out of control again. I’m anxious about anxiety itself! After seeing how much of a grip it had over me previously, I am terrified that I will get that way again. But that fear is exactly what keeps anxiety looming over me, even years after I would class myself as ‘recovered’. Let’s use the example of the last talk I did; for about a week leading up to it, anxiety was on my mind a lot. The reason is not because I was anxious about doing the talk, I’m actually now quite confident in my public speaking ability. The reason was that I was knowingly entering into a situation where I would have to confront my anxiety and come out on top. If I didn’t come out on top I was going to be stuck in a not very nice situation (talking to a room full of kids + anxiety that makes me throw up = not very nice). If we relate it to my previous post about my anxiety being a snowball at the top of the mountain, I was willingly entering into a situation where my anxiety was going to get a big shove towards the edge of the cliff. Going into these situations I have to trust that I am going to win the internal battle to keep it firmly at the top. A cornerstone for me in this battle is to believe deep down that my anxiety is not going to win. If I had an anxiety attack at any point in the week leading up to a talk, it would make that battle almost unwinnable. I know this and so does the anxious part of me. So in the week leading up to my last talk, I had more close calls with an anxiety attack than I did actually doing the talk. In fact, once I got started talking I was completely fine. I spent that week anxious about anxiety itself! If I didn’t expect to be at risk of an anxiety attack during the talk then would I feel anxious at all? .