Never Walked In High Heels

It was as if he would panic and the world would stop. My friend would constantly worry about everything to the point that he would find it difficult to breathe and the plans we had for that evening were inevitably discarded. Constantly, he was obsessed about his health, about his bank account, about what would happen to him in the future. Every single cough he had was a sign of pneumonia. Every purchase at the store was draining his bank account and every missed opportunity that he felt he rightly deserved was just another symptom of the world oppressing him so that he was convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he had no future. I’m not speaking about anxiety attacks. While most people learn to control them, they are inexplicably horrible and a documented medical condition which has puzzled scientists and led doctors to take constant action; prescribing medication to correct such a health issue. Panic attacks are certainly not to be dismissed. But my friend was a person who constantly had anxiety in the form of worry and ultimately it developed into a severe form of narcissism. I never put the words narcissistic and worry together. To me they always seemed to complete opposites. After all, a narcissist thinks he can do no wrong, so why would he worry? But if you think about it, worry is the narcissistic insistence that life goes your way, that troubles don’t come because you shouldn’t have to handle them and that if they do come, such trouble ought to be brought to a swift and immediate end as quickly and with the least amount of inconvenience as possible. Constant worry means that the world must operate within your frame of perception; and there is not room in life for any sort of deviation.

As if this wasn’t enough, worry has to spread. One rarely keeps his worries to himself, instead expressing them with the hope of burdening others and invoking sympathy is a common activity for those who insist on worrying about everything. The listener therefore either begins to worry about the same thing or worries about the friend. Therefore, more burdens are introduced into the relationship. It’s like importing troubles to another mans conscience when all of those troubles ultimately serve you.

And as a result, in the case of my friend and I at least, it killed our relationship. My plans were constantly put on hold due to his anxiety attacks and consistent insistence that we stay home because he was worried about what might happen if we were to go into the outside world. Worry ultimately shrinks the safety zone in which anyone is able to operate. It kills life, limiting the deeds that we can accomplish without fear and the useless attempt of self-preservation. If someone constantly and without good reason is worrying that he might someday be hit by a car, he will first avoid busy streets and intersections, only operating on side roads, and then ultimately only operating on roads that are rarely visited by any form of vehicle until finally he is unable to be on a road at all. Fearing even the sidewalks. His world shrinks, and thus he limits himself and the immense joy that comes with experiencing a full and risk inherent life.

Worry is, of course, natural within all of us. When I first moved to London, I was one of those individuals that would worry about everything. All of a sudden I had graduated college and I was 22 meeting a metropolis on my own for the very first time. The pit of worry in my stomach was constantly deepening. A good friend pointed out that, while worry is natural, it comes with the realization that we are taking part in a tiny corner of the world But then he said something else. In his letter to me he added “But don’t worry, you were supporting the world long before you were ever aware of it?” Worry is a form of narcissism specifically because it puts you at the center of the universe rather than letting the universe unfold naturally and through the winding roads of life, finding your appropriate place within it.