As a Highly Sensitive Person as well as a person that deals with an anxiety disorder, I don't do change very well. I avoid change, actually. I'm cautious. I love routine. I love control. I love planning things out as far as I can possibly imagine for my life. In fact, I plan every detail of my life so much so that I have Outfit Plan A and Outfit Plan B (in case of rain, you know). I check the weather the night before while I'm picking out my clothes, and then I check the weather again before I get ready to leave my house, just to make sure I'm dressed accordingly.
Change is super stressful and terrifying to me, even if the changes are positive, or even if I elected to make the changes on my own. The winds of change are really more like a tornado. Going to college was as shocking to me as if I had moved to a foreign country that I knew nothing about on a dare. Happening upon new people in my life that I could make friends with or (maybe) even date feels like jumping out of a plane with an untested parachute until I adjust to those new people. Change, even positive change, fills me with a sense of dread and anxiety. Life's curve balls and surprises (unless it's a surprise like someone bringing me food when I wasn't expecting food), feel like I'm staring down a rabid dog with my back pressed against a wall, armed with a stun gun I have no idea how to use.
Before I can be okay with any changes that might happen, I have to be able to answer some questions. Have I thought this through thoroughly? Do I have my plan broken down in small enough steps? What other changes might also happen because of this one change? What do I do if I don't like this change after I make it, but I can't undo it? Could the stress from this change send me into an OCD spiral? Am I in a place that I can cope and recover quickly if a spiral happens? What if this doesn't work out like I have it figured out in my plan? You see where I'm going with this...
Changes bring uncertainty, and it's when I can't see all the way through the fog of uncertainty to the end (which is always) that change fills me with anxiety and dread. It's impossible to answer all those questions unless I invented a time machine that enabled me to take a quick trip through my life and into my future to check on myself.
I talk regularly with my therapist about the trouble I have with changes and surprises in life. She always tells me the same thing. She tells me to stop going into the future. She tells me to focus on the right now, the day right in front of me and how I deal with that. I'm only giving myself anxiety when I worry about future changes that haven't and may not even happen. She tells me just to live in today, and then to live in tomorrow when I wake up in tomorrow.
I don't have a time machine or a crystal ball (and let's face it I would be too terrified of changing my future by taking a peek to use them if I did have either of those things). Worrying about the things that I'm afraid might happen or that I'm afraid I can't deal with if they happen in my life sounds like I'm just punishing myself. I wouldn't sit and worry if I'm going to trip and fall down a flight of stairs tomorrow if I wasn't even sure I was going to be anywhere near stairs.
I'm working on shifting my focus. I'll try my hardest to only deal with the day stretched out in front of me. For somebody like me (an anxious INFJ personality type) that probably won't be easy, but I can work on it. My new mantra: I'll deal with tomorrow when I get there (unless I'm out of tea, then I might not deal with tomorrow at all).
I'll end with this: Changes are scary, even if we picked the changes we made. Life hardly ever goes according to the plans in our heads. Life is full of changes and surprises, and it's okay that we can't see how all those are going to turn out right now. Just breathe, take a step back, and deal with the day you're living in. We can deal with tomorrow when it gets here. Just because we can't see everything that's coming doesn't automatically mean that disaster is inevitably waiting on the horizon.
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