Overreacting, my favorite American Pasttime.

The youngest of five, where my closest sibling was six and a half years older then me, I developed the traits of both the youngest and the oldest child. For the most part I was left to explore and develop on my own. Many of my life lessons where gained watching 'The Drew Carry Show' at the ripe age of twelve. Most of the humor was lost on me then, but I would laugh the the audience sound track. Mimicking what I saw on the TV made it harder to talk to my peers.

I made a few good friends, other people similarly on the outskirts of popularity. It was easy to become cynical and judgmental to the popular kids, surely because I lived fine without it they were living their lives incorrectly. No real social balance got formed in my high school years, and my friends either stopped conversing on a day to day basis or moved away.

Because I was dealt a rough hand and I had to come to my own truths, I see them as the one true way to finding yourself. I know for a fact that each person is different and that they will have different ways to grow up to the different types of people they are meant to be, but if any of them ask me how to get from A to B, I am ready and willing to give an in depth answer.

Here are the steps to my impromptu therapy
1)I convince them that I have merit in the subject. This is as easy as telling them that I had a similar life experience or witnessed this before.
2) Discuss what I see about this behavior in them, (e.g. someone says they are worried all the time, I point out a few times that I saw they were worried.)
3) I explain that I am not a trained therapist and that I am just giving my opinion on the matter.
4) Tell them the solution that seems to be the easiest course to correcting the problem.
5) Let them think and ask questions.
6) Move on to something else.

Normally I do this for one of two reasons. The first reason is that I feel better about myself when I can help someone else, my stresses are less important. the second reason is less frequent but better on my overall out look, I help people so that I can discuss similar problems and get feedback on ways that I could go about helping myself.

Surprisingly enough, for the most part people have the same problems. It is the way that they express and go about reacting to the stress that sets them apart. The way that you interact in the environment that you are faced with can lead to healthy tendencies just as easy as it can lead to unhealthy tendencies.

As far as I see it the problems surrounding Anxiety are based on the lack of communication between people. If you get mad at someone from work because they are being bossy, and later that day they come back and say they are sorry because when they get anxious they get bossy. Would the tension that you had with that person elevate? If not why, are there no times when you do something based on being anxious that you wished you had not?

Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress, everyone suffers from anxiety. Some people have found ways to not let it effect their work, others have allowed it to immobilize them. When it comes to Anxiety, face it, not necessarily all at once, but make sure that you are fighting it. Set back happen, that is just your body trying to keep in its routine. When you got your first part time job, you had to learn new things to follow tasks to get the job done. The transition for one state of mind to the other is the same, you have to stop doing some actions and start doing others. If your first job was for a half hour before you went to school, you have to walk up early, and the first few mornings, if not all of them, it was hard to wake up earlier. Fighting Anxiety is the same, when you start to feel good about yourself, you have a heart wrenching panic-attack, your body wants you to go back and be depressed like normal, it is up to you to keep working on where you want to be.

There it is again, me going out and telling you how to change your world. It is what I know how to do I have been overreacting for years, and I am comfortable with it. I am slowly trying to balance my advice giving, with my personal growth. But overreacting is my Anxiety trait, I am nervous about making steps into my future so I take time out to help other people make it to their future. I am battling my anxiety and I plan to win.

-NK