Looming fear. Stress. Dread. My name is Robin and I am addicted to anxiety.
It started way before cancer or my daughter dying, and long before I knew about global warming. Even before the last election, I was hooked on worrying. Always poised for danger, I feel lost without something to worry about; as soon as one anxiety is resolved I replace it with a new concern. I confess: being anxious is my normal. It excites me; it numbs me. Most of the time it consumes me. And this past week it totally possessed me.
Fortunately there wasn’t much notice before I learned I was to be interviewed by Tish Pearlman for her Out of Bounds Radio Show. But I suffered several sleepless nights, wondering if I would be able to focus and keep my train of thought. What if Tish asked me something I didn’t know or couldn’t remember the answer to? Bad enough that I struggle to remember words even when I’m not under pressure, what if I got tongue-tied? All week I panicked in full force fight-or-flight mode, considering canceling yet preparing for every worst-case scenario. On Interview Day, armed with seven typed pages of notes, I trudged up the stairs to the Rep Studio.
And yes, during the interview, all the things I worried about happened. The blanking out, the forgetting, the trouble concentrating…. And as I struggled to understand and respond to one of the questions, I remember telling myself, Okay, this can be edited out. But when the interview was over I forgot to mention it. Relief spread over me like a warm fuzzy blanket, and I sat there, speechless, as Tish smiled, letting me know I could go.
Later, in the middle of that night I woke up horrified, remembering that one particularly embarrassing response that had nothing to do with anything I wanted to say. The entire remainder of the long night, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head until I emailed Tish in the morning, and she emailed me back, No … don’t think we can edit it out.
So now I’m inviting you all to tune in and see if you can find that embarrassing part of the interview. Because sometimes, to get over extended anxiety attacks, it’s best to take deep breaths, tear the insulting idea up out of the dark depths of your sensitive psyche, acknowledge your emotional disruption, and then blast the whole issue apart by sharing it all over Facebook for the world to see.
BROADCAST DATES and TIMES:
Sat Sept 2 at 3:30pm pm: WEOS-FM ( 90.3 & 89.5 Geneva/Seneca Falls region) Live Stream: WEOS.org for those out of region
Sun Sept 10 at 11:30am: WSKG-FM (89.3 Binghamton, 90.9 Ithaca 91.7 Cooperstown/Oneonta, 91.1 Corning/Elmira, 88.7 Hornell/Alfred)
LIVE STREAM: WSKG.org for those out of region
After broadcast, shows are available at www.outofboundsradioshow.com
What craziness keeps you awake nights? What advice can you offer for dealing with excess worrying and panic attacks?