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These Are the Lies Anxiety Wants Me to Believe

My anxiety tells me that things have to be completely perfect.

Vacations have to be planned to the minute, parties have to have every detail sorted out in advance, otherwise, things will be disastrous….or so I think.

When I'm in charge of hosting an event, I'll obsess over every little thing that can go wrong and drive myself crazy trying to figure out plans to counter each one.

My anxiety tells me that my friends don’t really even like me.

If someone doesn't respond to my text messages right away, I think they're mad at me. If I’m the last one to arrive at a party, I'm convinced everybody there was talking about me until I walked in the door.

I feel I have to constantly be at my best because they wouldn’t love me if they saw my worst.

My anxiety tells me that I have to be #1 at my job.

I'm terrible at delegating because I'm afraid of admitting that I’ve taken on too much and worried that a task won’t be done correctly if I’m not the one doing it.

I get nervous every time I go into my boss' office, scared that every tiny mistake I’ve made will get me fired.

"Did I take too long of a break? Am I out of dress code? Did I mess things up somehow and cost the company thousands of dollars?" runs through my head in the few seconds it takes to walk from my desk to my boss’.

My anxiety tells me that I can't ask for help.

"People will think less of me if I can’t do everything on my own. No one cares enough to help me, even if I did ask. If I’m not good enough, I don't deserve help." The thoughts consume me.

My anxiety tells me lies, and every day is a fight not to believe them.

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