The Anti-Anxiety Plan

I'd awakened just seconds earlier, wondering how I would spend the day, only to be approached by the little glob of gray cells I call Princess Amy, emerging from deep within my mid-brain.

“Okay,” she said, “what’s your plan? And don’t bother repeating all that nonsense you’ve been mulling over; I’m already familiar with it. I know everything that goes through what you jokingly call your consciousness. It’s the things hidden in the depths of that koi pond of your subconscious that elude me.”

"Things? What things? No one told me about any so-called things."

"Never mind! Don't get your knickers in a wad over it. Just tell me how you think you can ease your anxiety. And I've heard about your plan to live in a fantasy world, so forget that."

“I’m not living in a fantasy world,” I said. “I’m writing my own story. Someone—someone with real credentials, though I can’t recall who—once said that the stories we tell ourselves become the lives we lead. Not fantasy lives, but lives we truly want to live. So I write about my actual daily life, shaping the stories in ways I can embrace. In this way, I’m the author of my own life.”

"And, how do you cope when things go wrong?"

"Things don't go wrong. I get to distribute happy endings all around."

She considered my words for a meditative moment. "But events in the real world don't always go as planned? What then?"

"I simply treat it like a plot twist and write it into the story. By the way, let's find another way to refer to the anxiety-filled world. It's not the real world; it's just as exaggerated as the stories I write."

"Well, put," she said. "You seem to be making something resembling progress. You may be salvageable, after all. But how confident are you in your progress? Do you feel satisfied with where you are, what you've achieved? Can you be content with where you are now, without feeling driven to constantly make more progress?" 

Amy," I said, "with more confidence than I usually feel when negotiating with her, "I’m not in jail, not in a mental hospital, and I'm still on this side of the grass. I’d say I’m in a good place."

"I'd say you're in paradise."

"Last time we spoke, you said something about my ticket to freedom from emotional tyranny is to reconnect with Joy and Optimism, and, let me think, who was it?"

"Reason," she reminded me. "All in good time. First, we need to make sure you're not getting distracted by all the righteous indignation you've accumulated in your solar plexus chakra."

"I don't know about chakras, but I know this conversation we're having feels different from any I can remember having with you before."

"Chakras are only a figure of speech. And this conversation is different. I've always maintained that everything I do is done for you, you big jamoke, but the difference this time is that you're actually paying attention."

"By the way, this Reason you mentioned; anything like Mr. Spock?"

"Funny you should ask," Amy said. "She's very much like Spock--more than you can imagine."

I laughed, and for the first time in memory, I felt that Amy and I were partners in my mental health.