Learning to Love and Hate - Anxiety Triggers

So I wanted to do another post that was more specific to my personal experience with anxiety and anxiety symptoms and triggers. So that's what I'm doing. This is that post.

"Anxiety Girl!
able to jump to the worst conclusion
in a single bound!"

When I was a kid, my dad traveled a lot for work. Especially in the winter, it seemed like he was gone more often than not. No big deal, and I don't hold resentment or anything towards him for that. It is what it is, and it was the way that things were. He was gone often, but it was for a good reason, and lots of the time we actually got to go with him - his work trips became our family vacations. However, when my dad was gone, I could tell that my mom was stressed, and rightfully so - she was doing double duty. I'm very empathetic, so other peoples' emotions and energies rub off on me quite easily; when she was stressed, I was stressed. If she was worried, I was worried. My brother and I both had a habit of getting sick when my dad was travelling - for me, at least, I know a lot of that had to do with worry.

Now that I'm older, I find that my partner travels a decent amount for work already. Same things tend to happen - I get sick with worry. In the day or two leading up to when he leaves, my anxiety starts running ideas through my head. All the ways his trip could go poorly. Car crashes, freak weather, tornadoes, bear attack, crash the quad, fallen tree, lost in the woods, you've seen 127 Hours, you know what could happen....The day he leaves is probably the worst. It's hard to focus on anything, I'm constantly asking him if he's definitely going, what his plans are, what time he's leaving, when he's coming home, his route, everything. I feel as though if I have all the details, I have more control over the outcome. Even if something does go wrong, I know what his plan was and I can have a better grasp on what to do.

"I had to LEARN to SILENCE
the VOICE IN MY HEAD
that was ALWAYS telling me
something was going to go
SERIOUSLY
WRONG..."

It's not just when other people are travelling, either. It's me, too. Travelling is one of my favourite things in the world - and I tend to hate a lot of it. How the hell does that make sense? Getting there is the worst. Planes, cars, boats, all of it just sends my anxiety reeling for reasons to ruin my time. Messed up schedules, delayed flights and trains, missed connections - easy triggers for a panic attack for me. I had a panic attack in front of the Hungarian Parliament Building once because we missed a tour time, even though there were definite workable alternatives. Take off and landing on planes spike my heart rate through the freaking roof. I have to check maps a million times before we leave for anywhere every day because god forbid we get lost in a city that we don't know or don't speak the language. I memorize train station names. I talk the route out with my travel partners again and again. I have tour reservations (tours that I have researched in excruciating detail before we reserved them) in my phone and printed copies in the pack. I've checked the meeting time and meeting point a gazillion times. Our 'free time' is even scheduled - where we're going to go, how we are going to get there. I think you get the point - planning is my way of controlling the situation, however, if something doesn't go according to my plan, it can completely ruin my day by sending me into a panic attack in public. There's nothing like having strangers stare at you while you hyperventilate and cry and rip at your hair and try and soothe yourself back down.

"Hey Brain, is there anything we can do to help with your anxiety" - Heart
"I don't know" - Brain
"What if I contort myself like THIS?" - Stomach
"UM" - Brain
"And I'll move things along REALLY fast or REALLY slow, depending on your preference" - Intestines
"Well I don't..." -Brain
"And I"ll pump as FAST AS MY LITTLE ME CAN PUMP" - Heart
"How does that even..." - Brain
"And just ONE of us with twitch from time to time" - Eyes
"You all look ridiculous"- Brain
"Does that mean it's working?" - Stomach
                                                                                                                      Comic by The Awkward Yeti

So the more time I spend thinking about this, I think it boils down to this - I have anxiety about the specifics and unpredictability of travelling, whether it's for myself or for others. While unpredictability is something that I tend not to handle well on a good day, I think it's amplified when it relates to travel because of the unfamiliar surroundings and unknown potential situations. There are a million ways that things can go wrong (trust me, I've thought through most of them), but I try to deal with it because I understand that it's completely worth it - travelling is something that I have been privileged enough to be able to do, and I try not to let this anxiety limit me, I guess. And I get that, when it comes to other people travelling (especially for work), I have no say in it and am going to have to learn to cope. Otherwise I'm being really selfish in making people cancel plans because I can't handle it.

"I've got 99 problems and 86 of them are completely made up scenarios
in my head that I'm stressing about for absolutely no logical reason."