Go with the flow

Anxiety is seen as something very abnormal that we shouldn't be experien-cing. The assumption is that it needs to be banished or at least greatly reduced. But is that right? We live in an increasingly uncertain world in which the future is far from predictable, so isn't anxiety a rather normal reaction to what's going on around us?

There's climate breakdown, the invasion of Ukraine, the cost of living crisis and the crumbling NHS, just to pick the most obvious problems.

Yet we're told we should be free of anxiety and trundling along happily in our little domestic bubble, not paying too much attention to what's happening in the rest of the world. Just go with the flow and follow your instincts.

But if more and more people are saying they suffer from acute anxiety, doesn't that suggest that anxiety is actually a normal reaction and that calmness and serenity (or whatever is the opposite of anxiety) are not normal at all?

In which case, what needs adjusting is not our individual reactions, which are perfectly healthy, but the world around us that's causing those reactions?

I've been an anxious person for decades, and no matter what I do to lessen the anxiety, it stubbornly persists. And I think it's significant that I wasn't anxious as a child but very happy-go-lucky and carefree. It was only as I got older and learnt more about the wider world that my anxiety developed. Is that really so surprising?

Perhaps we should live with our anxiety as a healthy emotion and not bust a gut trying to get rid of it.

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Five comments failed to appear on my last blog post. Only two comments were missing on this one. Things are improving.

Silent mum

What do you do with a 94 year old mother who's immensely secretive, won't discuss her problems and mishaps, doesn't want anyone to know about them, doesn't want anyone to interfere or make decisions on her behalf, and is almost impossible to contact anyway because she won't answer her landline, doesn't have a mobile phone and doesn't have email?

It's a maddening and frustrating situation. I know from third parties (usually days later) that my mum is regularly having falls and being taken to hospital for check-ups, but she won't discuss her falls or why she might be having them so it's highly likely she'll be having more.

Her memory's not too good, she may be forgetting to pay bills, walking is getting more difficult, and she has a flat full of junk and clutter that needs to be cleared out (and which she may be tripping on). But she refuses to discuss any of these things, insists she's on top of everything and says there's no need to worry.

Most of my information comes from other people - my brother in law (who lives nearby), social workers, carers, paramedics, her GP, the managers of her sheltered housing block. Trying to get anything out of my mum is like getting blood out of a stone. She's happy to tell me about her favourite TV programmes or last week's musical evening. But her personal problems - forget it.

Without knowing the cause of her falls, it seems that all we can do (my brother in law, my sister and I) is accept she's going to have more of them, and just hope they aren't serious enough to cause broken bones or some major injury.

Probably she doesn't want to worry us, but then we just worry about all the things she's not telling us.

Pic: not my mum!

Worry wart

Like many other people, I'm prone to anxiety. I worry about all sorts of things I don't need to worry about, but I'm unable to stop. However much I try to reassure myself that I'm a capable person and everything will work out, the anxiety continues.

It seems an awful lot of people don't like to admit they're affected by anxiety. They find it embarrassing, or they think they'll be shunned, or they think nobody will understand. So they keep quiet and hide it behind a fake facade of confidence and poise.

But it's estimated that four in every hundred people are affected, and that social anxiety is the third most frequent psychological problem after depression and alcohol dependence. That's a pretty big hidden problem.

Luckily my anxiety is fairly mild. It's purely internal and I don't get the physical symptoms of sweating, shaking or nausea. I don't get paralysed. I don't get panic attacks. I just worry needlessly. And have bad dreams.

There were calls this week for more research into this widespread condition, as little is still known about the causes. In my case, it probably goes back to my insecure childhood, but my whole family is anxiety-prone so it may also be genetic.

One of my blogmates, who's a therapist, says that nowadays there are lots of techniques for curbing anxiety and nobody needs to suffer. There's a long waiting list for therapy on the NHS though, and long-term private therapy can be very expensive. But as my anxiety is quite mild, and as I've developed my own ways of overcoming it, I don't feel any urgent need for treatment. It's simply another personal foible that I deal with.

I wonder what it's like just to take things as they come?