Columns

I Stopped Feeling Stressed For Three Minutes And My World Collapsed Around Me

shutterstock_297916046

Stressed is no longer a feeling for me. It’s a characteristic. It’s a part of my being. I wake up, I pee, I eat breakfast, and then the rest of the day is devoted to stressing. I’m fully expecting to not make it past 29 with the incredible high levels of anxiety and frequent chest pains that I experience from mundane, daily activities. Picking a nail color? Might just gnaw my fingers off my body. Parking lots? My own personal hell. Ordering food for delivery? Smite me almighty smiter! But one day, while I was scrolling through Pinterest, I saw a quote that changed my life.

“It’s fine.”

I had never thought of that before. Maybe everything I was doing was only hurting myself instead of protecting myself from the unknown. I decided from that moment forward, I would stop stressing. And within the first few minutes of not being stressed, everything went worse than I could have even imagined.

School is clearly the main stressor in any college student’s life. So my newfound calm self decided to check my grades. Now that I had a level head, I would be able to rationally deal with whatever I saw. It turns out, all my professors had gotten together and decided to sabotage my grades. My GPA was a -3.6. It was NEGATIVE. I took a deep breath. It’s only halfway through the semester. I had time to bring it up. It’s going to be fine.

To take my mind off of my grades, I checked my phone. The guy who I’d been talking to recently hadn’t texted me back in a few hours. Either he was married or dead. I did a little investigating on social media, and found out that he had eloped with my ex-best friend in Hawaii and then they both fell into an erupting volcano. So he was both. What a jackass! He was supposed to text me this weekend when the lights turned on at the bars! Ok, girl. Keep it together. It’s going to be fine. There are more guys. Just go to the gym and sweat it out.

As soon as I got to the gym, it was closed. Not only that, when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the locked door, I had gained 647 pounds. The moment I stopped thinking about how much I weigh, I ballooned to an astronomical weight. It’s totally fine. As look as I feel good then it doesn’t matter what I look like. And there’s nothing that a little Facetune can’t fix. I rolled myself back to my car and went home to relax.

I reflected upon my day of no stress, and just cried, like, a bunch. I stopped stressing and suddenly my world as I knew it was destroyed. Maybe the stress was stopped from all of these bad things from happening. It all makes sense. My life – stress = pure chaos. Looks like I’m doomed to a life of worrying every second of the day. I went to bed stressing about stress and when I awoke, I was skinny, doing well in school, and had everything back together. I guess debilitating anxiety is a small price to pay to live a normal life!

Email this to a friend

Ali Hin

A born and raised Jersey girl, she can always be found covered in sand and pizza sauce. Her personal brand is "that girl." She prefers wine in bottles because she thinks outside of the box. Send fan mail to [email protected] or by smoke signal.

For More Photos and Videos

Latest podcasts

New Stories

Load More