Is this anxiety normal You might think that some types of anxiety are more justified than others For example being anxious before an exam is more justified than being anxious because you saw a mouse in the loft Right Not quite Every type of anxiety is normal because that’s the way that our brain tells us that there’s a problem Sometimes though a bad experience in the past or an underlying phobia or anxiety can make a problem seem bigger than it really is Because of that our anxieties can seem strange to other people Here is a story about two sisters who are anxious about different things 6
Jane and her sister Zara both suffer from anxiety about particular things Jane is afraid of taking tests but Zara is afraid of spiders Jane teases Zara about her phobia of spiders Who ever heard of a spider doing you any harm Unless it’s a spider wearing boots and carrying an axe and I’ve never seen one of those Zara answers But what about you and your fear of taking tests You always study hard and do well in the end Then Jane replies You can’t possibly compare my fear of tests with a fear of spiders There’s no similarity I could really fail sometimes But there are no poisonous spiders around here These spiders never hurt anyone Except flies Who is right Well you might say that both of them are equally right and wrong To Jane and Zara these fears are very real Most spiders do not pose a danger to people And doing badly on a test isn’t something to worry about as long as you study and do your best However to Jane and Zara the fear of these things has become much bigger than the real threat Something in both Jane’s and Zara’s memories or experiences has made them feel that tests and spiders are more threatening than they really are The important thing is not whether a fear or anxiety is right or wrong It’s all about whether the anxiety is starting to affect your life negatively 7
f Anxiety get real One way for Jane and Zara to get their anxiety back under control might be to think about how small the real risks are and to look at why they became anxious about these things in the first place For some people their fear of some things feels like a spiral it grows and grows as one fear leads to another and another and another Slight worry about how you will perform on one test can spiral into a deep fear about how you will succeed on all tests and even in your future career Learning to see when you are making this spiraling happen can help you to control it and not to react this way in future So is there any sort of fear that isn’t normal Not really All fear is real to the person who feels it and it’s not helpful to tease or shame people who suffer from fears or phobias There are however ways that we can start to see our fears for what they really are an echo of something we once saw or heard that made us afraid at the time Some counselors and therapists specialize in techniques that help you to alter the way you think about these things You can learn methods that can reprogram your thoughts so that your reactions to particular things become less extreme We’ll talk about these techniques in more detail later in the book 8
Test Fail teSt Fail all tests Don’t get into college 9
