Worrying means you suffer twice

     I have suffered from anxiety since I was very young. Anxiety for my well-being, anxiety to talk to people, anxiety for my future, you name it. If there was even the slightest sliver of potential that something could go wrong, I was afraid. I found myself in therapy by age 11, but I still could not will myself to be calm. I needed a mindset change badly. 

     By middle school, I had grown apart from virtually all my friends, and I was far too anxious to make new ones. While most middle schoolers were spending their weekends at the movies or the mall with their friends, I spent every weekend clinging to my mom. She so badly wanted me to make friends, but as I resisted, she opted to simply serve the role of a friend instead.

     So we went to the mall and movies every weekend. We gossiped as I would have with other kids, and it created a space where my loneliness never took full effect. Not to say I wasn't lonely, despite my mother's best attempts, I still knew I didn't have friends. I knew that when I had homework questions and no one to ask for help. I knew that when I would go full school days without speaking a single word. I knew it, and I did feel it.

     One weekend, when my mom and I went to our weekly movie, we decided we were going to see "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."  This was a new installment into the "Harry Potter" universe, which was exciting to me as I spent a long time being a big fan of the series. Though I was at a phase in my life where I felt like I had grown out of a lot of my interests. I was so insecure that I resented everything I loved because I felt like I was stupid. So simple math, if I am stupid, that means everything I find pleasure in is also stupid.

     However, my preteen angst could not stop me from enjoying the movie. Honestly, I don't remember much of the plot now, but at the time, I could've talked about it for days. Which wasn't even the popular opinion among Potter fans. The reason it resonated so deeply with me was the attitude of the main character. He went about life with ease, which I simply could not master. Lucky for me, he shared his mindset with the audience. It was terribly simple. So relaxed, I was furious I didn't think of it myself;

     "Worrying means you suffer twice."

     It was genius! It made sense! Years of therapy did little to nothing for me, but this quote brought me sudden ease. I began repeating it in my head. At night, when I'd go to bed- worrying means I'll suffer twice. Walking in the halls at school and saying hi to classmates- worrying means I'll suffer twice. It allowed me to give up a need for control. If something is going to go wrong, fearing it will not change anything.

     I'm not going to say this quote single-handedly changed my life, but I will say my life got better in the months after seeing the movie. I made friends (though I still hung out with my mom as much as I could). Maybe therapy started kicking in, maybe I grew out of some tendencies, who's to say? But I will say with full confidence that in the last nine years, I can recall countless situations where I found my palms sweating, jaw clenching, and eyes getting hot that I looked in the mirror, said my magical mantra outloud, and finally was able to exhale.