A blog by Elena Overfield | Formerly Pepetoe

Something bad is going to happen. I couldn’t tell you what. I couldn’t tell you when. Give my brain five uninterrupted minutes and I’m sure it’ll come up with several possibilities. This is perhaps one of the most exhausting things I’ve realised about myself this year: I am constantly bracing myself for impact. Things don’t even have to be bad. Sometimes things being good is enough to make me nervous, because if I’m happy, suddenly there’s something to lose.

I’ve confused worrying with preparation

Somewhere along the way, I seem to have developed this idea that if I imagine the painful thing beforehand, I’ll be more prepared if it happens. If I imagine the breakup, maybe the breakup won’t destroy me. If I notice someone becoming distant before they leave, maybe I won’t be blindsided. If I imagine every possible thing that could go wrong, perhaps one of them actually happening won’t be such a shock.

It’s anxiety’s greatest scam, “I’m helping”. Well, you’re fucking not. Most of the disasters I’ve imagined never happened, but my body still experienced the fear. I’ve grieved relationships that hadn’t ended. I’ve reacted emotionally to conversations that never happened. I’ve prepared myself for rejection from people who weren’t rejecting me. I’ve experienced tomorrow’s hypothetical pain today.

Maybe my anxiety isn’t predicting my future. Maybe it’s remembering my past.

This has been one of the biggest revelations I’ve had. Pain has blindsided me before. People have left. Things have changed unexpectedly. I’ve trusted things that didn’t last. I’ve allowed myself to hope for help and felt that hope disappear. So, perhaps when life feels peaceful, my brain doesn’t interpret peace as “everything is ok”. It instead thinks, “you thought everything was ok last time too.” And even just writing that strikes a cord for me.

My brain and its traumas has taught me to stay alert, look for signs, don’t get comfortable, don’t be stupid enough to think this will last forever. Then, suddenly, hypervigilance feels like wisdom. Except the past isn’t a weather forecast. Something happening before doesn’t mean it’s happening again, and that’s the biggest lesson I have learnt. Just because I made one big terrible mistake, doesn’t mean I’ll do it again. Sure, I’ll make more mistakes in my life (not this one), but at least the more logical side of my brain knows now how to mitigate it, – and maybe that’s the key here, that my brain does know how to handle it, instead of spiraling further and further down.

I cannot worry myself into certainty

This is the bit I’m still learning. There is no amount of analysing that will make life predictable. I cannot secure a relationship by thinking about every possible way it could end. I cannot prevent loss by imagining it. I cannot guarantee that I’ll never be hurt again. Yes, that’s terrifying.

However, here’s another possibility. Maybe safety doesn’t come from knowing nothing bad will happen. Maybe safety comes from knowing that if something bad happens, I will deal with it then. Not now. Not three months before it happens. Not at 11pm because somebody took twenty minutes longer than usual to reply. Then. If it happens.

I don’t need to rehearse grief

That’s perhaps the simplest way I can put it, as I think all this is pretty difficult to describe to you guys reading this with no clue what I go through! I don’t need to practise heartbreak while I’m still loved. I don’t need to practise loss while somebody is still here. I don’t need to ruin today’s happiness because I’m frightened tomorrow might take it away.

Nothing is permanent. That’s frightening. But perhaps impermanence is exactly why I should let myself experience good things while they’re here. I’m never going to think my way into a life where nothing hurts me again.

I’m starting to realise I don’t need to. I don’t need to predict the pain to survive it. I’ve survived things I didn’t see coming before. If something comes again, I’ll meet it when it arrives. Until then, I would quite like my present back.