How to Manage Anxiety and Control Issues: Tips for Finding Inner Peace

If I had a signature look, it wouldn’t be my leather or faux fur, it would be my anxiety with a side of control issues. Although I am a total slay in my fur!

I’ve struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember, though it’s changed as I've gotten older. I thought it was normal for every child to feel impending doom when the school day was over, the fear that their parents would forget about them. I thought every child got stage fright when they tried to pee in public, and that everyone worried about Every. Single. Thing.

When I was young, I used to triple check that Mom was coming to pick me up from school or that people would be coming to get me. As I got older, it morphed into worries about my parents, worries about dying, and worries about everything going awry. When my parents both don’t answer the phone my first thought is they’re dead. What a world to live in, right?

With 20 years of ongoing generalized diagnosed anxiety, the need to control every part of my life increased excessively. This changed with traumatic events as well as relationship conflict and anxiety. I planned out every second of every day to make sure it was exactly what I wanted—regimented through and through. And don’t get me started on living alone! Being able to have my own space and exact expectations drove the control, well…out of control. Anxiety and control go hand in hand. I’m nervous about the future and the unpredictability, so why don’t I give myself the illusion that I’m in control?

Uh, wrong. Control does nothing for us other than give us a FUPA and higher cortisol levels in our bodies.

Control gives us the fake precedent that we’re able to manage every outside factor we can think of as well as the end result. I’ve been battling with this for years, and I still do. With dating, with my job, with how things play out daily. How do I control every single factor!? How can I control everything working out to do exactly what I need? Relationships need to be perfect with no issues or my anxiety spikes through the roof. Trying to control people, things, and other's reactions.

I’ve worked on anxiety over the past ten years with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to work on my struggles with anxiety. My favorite CBT activity to help my anxiety is centered around "What Can Happen vs. What Will Happen?" The point is to identify and nix catastrophic thinking. Catastrophic thinking is extremely common with anxiety, thinking the worst will happen, and often getting lost in a fear driven thought. Going through each possibility allows me to be prepared for what could happen. It’s the closest we can get to controlling the outcome without actually being able to. This activity allows me to write down what I'm most worried about happening and identify clues that it won't come true. Putting a pen to paper and writing helps me to change the narrative.

Anxiety wants you to live in fear and be wired. It feeds off the panic inside you to keep spiraling onward, which further encourages the overthinking. On nights when I first moved into my own place alone, I was afraid that I was going to die, and no one would find me. Did I use too much bleach to clean my room? Was I going to die from the fumes? Did I forget to turn off a candle? Was I going to burn alive? It sounds so dark but saying to myself “okay so what! So, you die! You have lived a pretty good life thus far.” Saying this out loud took the fear away from me and let me chill out. And guess what? I don't worry about those silly fears anymore.

Speaking our fears out loud and into the world helps me to realize…wow that is a silly thought. As we know, anxiety can cause us to get lost in our heads and then spiraling into what is going to happen. The idea of speaking worries out loud allows us to confront our fears and hear the thought. When we have to manage our own anxiety, it can be difficult to not think the worst. More times than not, I’ve wasted minutes, hours, and even days worrying about things that always work out.

People will sometimes ask me my advice on managing anxiety or control issues. The simple answer is letting go. And then they roll their eyes- I used to as well! There is an art to balancing the idea of letting things go in order to rid the idea that you have control. Truly we don’t have control over much other than our actions and how we respond. Affirmations can be helpful in this practice to further speak kindly to yourself and calm the fears. I will use affirmations to recite how everything will work out to myself—even if I don’t believe it.

Anxiety can be difficult, lonely, and excruciating to deal with. It can convince you that you’re alone, that you’re not enough, and you're not loved. It can convince you that terrible things are going to happen and make us spiral on a path of creating the feeling of false control.

What matters is how we train our bodies to respond to anxiety. I don't have all the answers as it manifests differently in individuals, but I do swear by CBT techniques and therapy. It's a journey to work through anxiety and doesn't happen overnight. Through this work it's possible to process our feelings, learn our triggers, and train our bodies to know we're safe.

xo,

C