The Pain From Anxiety Must Go

Confessions and Resolutions for a better 2025

Andrea Piacquadio

Are you like me, does anxiety gather in some part of your body and cause pain? This is the subject of the story. How have you worked on relieving anxiety?

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Recently, I visited the chiropractor after many months of shenanigans with X-rays, appointments, and rescheduled appointments. Hopefully, my mind hatched an idea that is now turning into a good story.

As for the appointment, it was overdue and welcomed. My neck, shoulders, and upper-back have been problems for a long time. Probably twenty years, at least. There is an ever-present tightening that might be what a screw feels like as it is turned by the strongest man in the world.

My dull pain does not stem from an accident.

Likely, this constant discomfort has something to with bad posture and sitting in front of screens. When we type or read, many of us slouch forward. Then, there is the primary cause of my soon-to-be-frequent chiropractor sessions.

Anxiety. That’s my enemy. It is time for anxiety and I to walk out in the street, face each other with hands on pistols, and see who is the fastest. I mean, the time for talking out our differences peacefully has passed. I must win this time.

Anxiety is a fine word to use for all the worries and uncomfortable moments of life. Mental health is physical, as you probably are aware, and my worries tend to pool and settle down around my neck and shoulders. I reckon it has always been this way.

I carry troubles with me, of the day, the recent past, and of days far in the past. You might imagine the accumulation of negativity as a backpack so full that it begins to crush the man who labors to carry it further. No one human being is designed to bear this enormous weight.

I have anxiety disorder. To be clear, the pain comes from all those “little things” that pile up. I can do something to lessen the needless stress, but a certain amount of worry about valid concerns is reasonable.

The thing about my neck situation is that there is no easy cure. I will have to go to the chiropractor every week, most likely.

These facts prompted a commitment to begin the new year, including the rest of the old one, with determination to become a more carefree dude who does not sweat the small stuff. Yet, I know every “little thing” actually does matter. We are always being judged. There is always a scoreboard, even while we sleep.

I tell me, “I should get more sleep to feel more rested, alert, and productive.” Then, another version of me says, “You should stay up later working. Then, you can get more done toward your goals.” The point is that every decision is worth worrying about, right?

Wrong. I know better. But this resolution will be a challenge. It will take constant vigilance not to slip into old habits, and there are plenty to guard against.

Probably the oldest one is taking on the emotions of others as if I am part of their drama. Don’t be like me. When a person confides in you, do not interpret that act as a mandate to solve his or her problem. Hearing about a troubling issue does not make you responsible for anything.

Most people just want someone to listen.

But anxiety comes from anywhere. It grabs me without warning and doesn’t let me know that stress is building. Often, my throat hurts too, and it is hard to swallow or talk for more than a few minutes. Actually, any long conversation gives me a headache and intensifies the throbbing pressure that encircles my head like a noose.

I am afraid to say the wrong thing or the right thing. Maybe I should have dumbed-down my answer for him, but perhaps my answer was too vague and evasive for her. Am I standing out too much, or not at all? Did she really understand what I meant there? Is anyone really listening or might I just as well talk to the wall? Should I do more? Should I do less?

Do you regularly accept the job of beginning conversations so folks around you do not sit in awkward silence? Somehow, you are chosen to be the one who rescues everyone from minor disturbances, right?

This is me trying to be blatantly honest. However, I do not do any of that stuff nearly as much as in the past. But these things never go away altogether, but maybe it is time to try harder. Yes, definitely.

I have to care less about writing platforms and the false realities they create. Somehow, we get it in our heads that the world of this or any other website is the world in total. What happens here is (not) just like a cross-section of everyone loving or rejecting who we are and our beloved writing projects.

It feels that way, and I am a person ruled by emotions more than logic. Disappointment hurts. Now, if my favored team loses a game, that is a letdown where I can easily recover. But when the message is: “We are not too fond of what inspires you. Your carefully selected thoughts about your life do not matter to us.” This is symbolic brutality like a violation of my soul.

This thinking is flawed, and all common sense has left the building. This anxiety is self-defeating and must be “nipped in the bud.”

I invented the term “radical indifference” as a response to anxiety and a way to make my neck, shoulders, and back feel better. This applies to how I foresee my life from now on in several different ways.

There is that woman who traps me into conversations that begin normally but end up somewhere that is impossible to follow. There is always the mention of old wounds, and it seems I must have some opinion about them. These must stop. Is it appropriate just to run away in today’s society?

Well, radical indifference is stopping these chains of endless suffering most people take for granted. They are normalized. Anxiety and time-wasting compose a large chunk of each day.

I must be able to make decisions and then keep trucking with my motivation and concentration undiminished. You might have noticed that most of my barriers in life are other people’s petty contrivances. Oh, I have my own too that are made worse by the fact other humans exist. I cannot let human peccadillos hinder my drive to offer help to the world where all the people live.

Radical indifference is also writing and posting without analysis paralysis. This website is merely one configuration of a writer’s audience. I am not very visible here. What is most visible are the posts that somehow correspond to attention and profit. How? Why? I am partially glad I do not know.

Well, I have adopted an official New Year’s resolution for the first time in a long while. This one is non-negotiable. Look out world, here I come with my intolerance locked and loaded. My physical discomfort cannot continue as it has. It is time for peace of mind that relieves my bodily suffering.

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THANKS FOR READING.

DOES MENTAL DISTRESS CAUSE YOU PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS?

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