Your mind is the crux of all the imaginations, dreams, nightmares, and memories you possess. But how about a villainous character in your life story? Anxiety has arrived and shall not receive a warm welcome; people go as far as to label it as a curse. Now, what exactly triggers this negative reaction towards anxiety? Isn't it just an emotion? Let us deep dive into how anxiety really takes over your central processing unit (brain). I'll be illustrating this by a detailed overview of an example.
Brief Introduction: Imagine orchestrating a grand occasion and anxiety takes the center stage; a typical scenario played out in front of a student about to receive their exam results. I'll be using the CAIE examinations as an example to demonstrate this spectacle.
THE BEFORE
It is about a few hours until the infamous quote “A piece of paper can/cannot decide your future” reigns supreme in your life story. Biting your nails, scratching nearby surfaces, mindlessly playing with random objects; what time-passing technique haven't you tried? Distracts your brain from the nervousness, excitement, anxiety? Sure, for the moment at least. But what will happen when these time-passing techniques don't seem to work anymore; suddenly your brain is all lost in thinking about what circumstances shall play out this round of what seems to be an episode of The Hunger Games. You might shiver, tremble, sweat, and experience all the symptoms that suggest you might have just diagnosed yourself with ADHD. Restlessness takes over you, and you desperately seek comfort, peace, and an escape from all these thoughts wandering around like ghosts in your head. Time is passing like a bullet train and a traveling snail simultaneously; thoughts suddenly flash by as a notification sound is heard from your device. You take a sigh of relief as you discover it's only the grade thresholds that have been released, but anxiety has its own plans; along with the thresholds you are brought to the game of expectations. Optimism, pessimism, no expectations, what shall you let define the next few hours in your anxious mind filled to the brim with scattered thoughts of various emotions ranging from excitement, feeling of disappointment, embarrassment, nervousness, etc? Almost feels like you'll explode from all these thoughts, but you hang on as you won't let anxiety win so easily, you got that fighting will in you!
THE MOMENT
Hours have passed by, and you don't even notice, yet you've felt like so much time has passed that it should be the cosmopolitan era today. Another notification rings, and no sigh of relief you get to take this time; results have been announced. You've had the username and password to access your result typed in since forever on the website, and now you finally press the Enter key. Before your eyes is the moment you've been waiting for, but your eyes are not ready to witness what the future beholds. You finally let the cover open and your mind goes blank. A few hours ago, various thoughts dominated your mind, but now it seems like anxiety has commanded silence to the mind. All you see is that the grades in front of your eyes are not what the brain hoped for, yet you don't look that surprised by this outcome. You finally take a deep breath as you embrace what has already taken place and cannot change; you make peace with yourself.
THE AFTER
A few minutes have passed and this time around, the time actually feels like it is moving at YOUR pace. You've already accepted what has befallen you; you've made peace with yourself. But Anxiety won't let you have that happy ending; new anxious thoughts emerge in your mind as you start wandering on the infamous “What will the people say?” line. How do you confront your loved ones about your or maybe their hopes not being met? How do you confront the people who had expectations from you, and you failed to meet them? Numerous questions, not numerous answers. But once a fighter, always a fighter; you take a leap of faith and finally announce to everybody what fate had done to you. There are all types of reactions, but you only care about those you've cared about before as well. At the end, you realize; anxiety finally suffers defeat, and it's you who has emerged as the winner.
Note: All of this comes from a single person's perspectives and thoughts. Different people may experience different thoughts, emotions, reactions, etc.
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