The anxiety began when I was eating lunch and scrolling through youtube, trying to find something interesting to watch. I scrolled faster, considering each thumbnail more and more briefly as the tightness in my chest increased. “Hold up,” I thought. “I’m supposed to be tracking my anxiety for my appointment next week. Let me write this down.”

Here’s how to overthink your anxiety record: First, I spent several minutes considering the medium I should use to document my anxiety; paper and pen seemed reasonable, but what kind of format? List? Table? Stream of consciousness essay? I also considered the kind of paper I’d use, be it sticky notes, that half-used legal pad in my bookcase, small notebook–ugh. Too many choices. Let’s go digital. Thank goodness the Notes app is pretty minimal, or I’d still be waffling on what kind of font to use. (Speaking of “stream of consciousness”, I just realized that I could totally make a PowerPoint presentation, complete with awesome clip art and slide transitions. That would really prove my therapist right when she said I’d probably find a way to make it complicated because I’m an overachiever. Challenge accepted.)

So far, I have written down everyday things like realizing I wasn’t sure if someone introduced themselves as Janice or Janet and imagining the obviously catastrophic embarrassment when I inevitably pick the wrong one. I also have bigger things like my unknown life plans, noticing that Stella had put her sneaky paws on the counter and eaten chunks of chocolate cookies out of the pan (she’s fine), and also seemingly random anxiety with no discernable cause. Some of the “random” anxiety is probably due to sensory processing disorder and my tendency to steamroll over discomfort rather than make adjustments for my nervous system. It’s a work in progress.

I think I’ve spent a long time telling myself that anxiety isn’t an issue for me, which makes it a challenge to be mindful of it. After the OCD mostly disappeared, I guess I went “Well, that’s done. I don’t have anxiety anymore.” If only it worked like that. I keep having to reassess my understanding of what’s a normal amount of anxiety and in what contexts it’s normal. Seriously, I have no idea at this point. Do other people feel anxious when they have to walk by the check-out lanes on their way to somewhere else in the grocery store because they can feel people looking at them? No? What kind of lie have I been living?! I guess I knew that some of my anxiety was unreasonable, but convinced myself that it was minor enough that it didn’t need to be addressed. Now I’m just not sure what should be on my list of concerns. Time to go put “worrying about the amount I worry” on my list.

In case my therapist reads this: don’t worry, I will not be showing up with a PowerPoint detailing my anxiety, although that would be hilarious and probably a new one for you.