‘You are so neurotic.’

I was not sure what it meant so I googled it.

Neurosis- a relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress ( depression, anxiety, obsessive behaviour, hypochondria) but not radical loss of touch with reality.
– Excessive and irrational anxiety or obsession.

Which means if you are neurotic you are as stated above. I remember sitting down and finally learning that anxiety has been a part of my life for like forever. Let me tell you what gets me anxious:

1. Going to a new place by myself. I want to know everything, where to get the transport, how many traffic lights I am meant to count before drop off. If I am going left or right, the key buildings I am bound to see if I am in the right direction. How much I will need because Lord knows I do not want to be short then have to ask for help from a stranger. What color is the gate? Do I knock or call or just enter. Just give me the details and I was called neurotic by this friend because he was giving me directions and instructions about a place he had been to. I asked endless questions.

2. Dropping new music. I announced the release of two singles on NOV 28 this year and every night I spend at least two hours of my sleep thinking about this date and the songs. Will the people accept them, will they like them, will radio play them, will they bring a new demographic. What if they are not good enough, let me listen to them again. My heart starts to beat so fast and I feel myself run short of breath. It drives me crazy.

3. Going to a gathering or hangout where I only know the person who invited me and yet they know everyone else. I can’t with this right here, I panic from time of invitation to the time I arrive. I can hardly decide what to wear because fear of being judged. I memorise the things to talk about which never really come out on the day. My imagination takes me through the day and I try so hard to tell myself that it will be great and that I won’t crumble. Then I also start imagining all things take a left because of me, what if I accidentally bump the punch jar. What if I fall, should probably wear flats and walk slowly then. What if I slip and hold onto to the table cloth and be the reason we won’t have food for the event.

4. I love event management but this also has anxiety kicking in. Will it work out, what if it flops? What if I wake up late on the day and do not make it in time to tell the people where to set this and that? Right now I am part of a team that is putting together a worship night at church, it is my first time hosting anything at the church. I find myself dreaming of disasters taking place that night. The nightmares wake me up and I can’t stop my mind from thinking what if that actually happens. In one of the dreams I just couldn’t sing, I had no clue about singing, I was just letting out an amazing dischord every second of the way.

5. Recording or rehearsing in the presence of people. If you hear me sing on my own and behind the mic in a room with other people, different thing. I hear them judge me and my voice the whole time, I fail to reach my potential and it makes me so mad. Afterwards I ask myself why it is that I failed to do what I needed to do. It is even worse if I do not have a personal relationship with the people, I could almost just lose my voice immediately.

I haven’t quite found the solution to this problem. At times I cry and and times I just sit it out. At times I pray and the calm often hits me faster with this method. I have read many posts and statuses where people speak of anxiety and how they too haven’t found the solution to it. Is anxiety a product of fear? Do we set ourselves free the moment we deal with our fears head on? I do not have the answers but maybe just maybe we should start there, what do you think? Ciao.