Quotes About Anxiety

during internship, we learned to sit close to the door in case "things escalated" and we needed an escape route),

The hiccup at this stage is that change involves the loss of the old and the anxiety of the new. Although often maddening for friends and partners to witness, this hamster wheel is part of the process; people need to do the same thing over and over a seemingly ridiculous number of times before they're ready to change.

Will you think about me?" Julie used to ask me before she went in for her various surgeries, and I always told her I would. The assurance soothed her, helped her stay centered in the midst of her anxiety about going under the knife. Later, though, when it became clear that Julie would die, that question took on another meaning: Will a part of me remain alive in you?

flight to health is a phenomenon in which patients convince themselves that they're suddenly over their issues because, unbeknownst to them, they can't tolerate the anxiety that working through these issues is bringing up.

If you'd asked me when I started as a therapist what most people came in for, I would have replied that they hoped to feel less anxious or depressed, to have less problematic relationships. But no matter the circumstances, there seemed to be this common element of loneliness, a craving for but a lack of a strong sense of human connection. A want. They rarely expressed it that way, but the more I learned about their lives, the more I could sense it, and I felt it in many ways myself.

our awareness of death helps us live more fully—and with less, not more, anxiety.

A flight to health is a phenomenon in which patients convince themselves that they're suddenly over their issues because, unbeknownst to them, they can't tolerate the anxiety that working through these issues is bringing up.

He thought I was a modern-day version of Freud's female hysteric, experiencing what's known as conversion disorder. This is a condition in which a person's anxiety is "converted" into neurologic conditions such as paralysis, balance issues, incontinence, blindness, deafness, tremors, or seizures. The symptoms are often temporary and tend to be related (sometimes symbolically) to the psychological stressor at its root.

The four ultimate concerns are death, isolation, freedom, and meaninglessness

I've told her about the many relationships I've seen implode simply because one person was terrified of being abandoned and so did everything in his or her power to push the other person away. She is starting to see that what makes self-sabotage so tricky is that it attempts to solve one problem (alleviate abandonment anxiety) by creating another (making her partner want to leave).

Lately I've been anxious about pretty much everything. Even little things like making small commitments have left me paralyzed. I've become cautious, afraid of taking risks and making mistakes because I've made so many already and I fear I won't have time to clean up the mistakes anymore.

Is there anything that makes us feel more vulnerable than asking someone, Do you like me?

It's common for people with traumatic histories to expect disaster just around the corner. Instead of leaning into the goodness that comes their way, they become hypervigilant, always waiting for something to go wrong.

I was three inches taller but he could smell my fear.

In some ways, Mary thought, Irma lived her whole life anxious to get things over with, as if she knew the end of her story all along, and didn't feel the middle pages worth the effort of a read.

Mama--Mama--I want so many things... I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy...

He didn't know how one's flesh prickled when fear took hold. He didn't understand what it was like to gaze into the future and know that it would be nothing more than a dark and lonely place.

Usually she ordered a cup of coffee and a cup of tea, as well as a brownie, propping up her sadness with chocolate and caffeine so that it became an anxiety.

I had never feared insomnia before--like prison, wouldn't it just give you more time to read?

Trepidation is either the sign of great weakness or great wisdom.

Pressure comes when someone calls on you to perform a task for which you are unprepared.

Let's face it, stillness is not exactly easy to come by in today's culture. We are far more likely to be restless, anxious, fearful, fretful, and busy. But God's invitation is to be still—and to find again, in the calm pause, the assurance that He is, in fact, God. His plans are undeterred, and with or without us, He is going to receive glory from all peoples on the face of the earth.

The first, stress, gets a stranglehold on us when we move through life feeling like everything (every decision, every answer, every provision, every protection) rests on our shoulders.

A neurotic can perfectly well be a literary genius, but his greatest danger is always that he will not recognize when he is dull.