Money anxiety

[DutchGirl]

I thought about putting this in the finance section, but I feel it's more of a mental health topic, at least for me.

I am someone who is susceptible to stress, anxiety and also depression. (I believe anxiety and depression often go hand in hand in people).

I notice that even with my now solid financial footing I still have money anxiety. For example, I'm awaiting a bonus right now. I don't need this bonus at all. Not for my day to day finances and not for ultimately reaching my financial goals. Still, I can hear myself think: Hurry up with that bonus! I want to see it in my bank account! I want to know how much it is exactly! What if it's not coming this year? Or what if it's much less than expected? (There is no reason why it would be different this year, but that's anxiety for you). I'm checking my mail and my bank account more often, hoping to see the announcement respectively the arrival of it.

Another example is the fine I might still be getting for riding through a red light - I would totally deserve it by the way and it was stupid of me running that red light out of inattentiveness - I got lucky that I wasn't in an accident! While this possible fine will in no way change my money trajectory or my wealth, I am still thinking way too much about whether or not the cameras were on that day and a fine will come.

It's one thing to anticipate some type of reward or happy day and be excited about it. I could be excited about the bonus. It's one thing to make better driving decisions based on an error you made in the past (like running a red light). But it has crossed into anxiety territory for me.

Is this recognisable for other people?

I've learned some skills to stop worrying all the time about other things. I guess it's time to use these skills on this specific topic, too.

[zbigi]

I'm checking my mail and my bank account more often, hoping to see the announcement respectively the arrival of it.

Not the big answer you were hoping for here, but I personally solved this particular problem by enabling a notification in my banking app for whenever new money arrives into account. Thanks to it, it's pointless to periodically log in and check.

[GandK]

I've been in therapy on and off for years for some of this. Here's some of what I've learned, it may help:

When someone chronically frets, or is chronically depressed, there is an underlying reason. Most of the time it's because of insecurity (anxiety) or trauma (depression) that either occurred during one's formative years, or something big and identifiable that has happened more recently. But you can think of your default internal stress level as a dial, and although everyone's setting from birth is slightly different, something will have happened to you if your default is set on 8 instead of 2.

Your best bet is to find out what that thing is. You can ask yourself questions, use therapy, whatever. But the chances of you stopping your anxiety completely without chemical intervention are basically zero until you can identify it's source. Yoga and essential oils and doing your favorite hobby are all band-aids.

The other big problem with leaving issues unresolved is that they're like arrows shot into the body. And instead of having them removed and actually healing, your flesh sort of heals around them and you walk around with them sticking out of your body for the rest of your life. You end up telling people who get close to you, often in a variety of unhealthy ways, "Don't interact with me in such and such a way, or about X issue, because you'll hit my arrow and it hurts." A lot of us have 4 or 5 of those arrows. It will prevent healthy relationships if you make those you love dance around certain topics in order to interact with you without you either blowing up or collapsing inwards upon yourself.

HTH.

[Sclass]

More money helped mine go away.

Of course I have anxiety over investment losses, inflation, diminishing returns and tax audits. But I’ll take that over the older worries like not eating. Or not being in my boss’s good graces.

Age helped. I outgrew a lot of that anxiousness stuff. But I lost my youth too.

Looking back it’s a part of life and feeling alive. Nowadays I’m scared of dying and it has cut into that feeling of being alive. I miss it to some extent even if it meant having suicidal thoughts. I try to avoid “near life moments” now.

Today I seem to worry more about how I could have handled things better in the past. Money, family and career. I need to work on that. it’s water under the bridge. Gotta look forward.

Looking back a lot of my unhappiness was brought on by unpleasant people I was forced to deal with. Now I’ve dealt them out of the picture and the world is really different. Money has been good for this.

Just my thoughts. Good luck with your journey.

[Sclass]

…HTH.

Wow, I think this might just help me. It rings true. I’ve avoided therapy and ignored requests that I get some for years. I think you just saved me a few thousand in counseling bills. Thanks. I think I’m going to do some soul searching today in light of this.

[chenda]

Wow, I think this might just help me. It rings true. I’ve avoided therapy and ignored requests that I get some for years. I think you just saved me a few thousand in counseling bills. Thanks. I think I’m going to do some soul searching today in light of this.

Same here, GandK's post really struck a cord. I'd have no idea where I would start with it though or how I'd treat it.

[Married2aSwabian]

When someone chronically frets, or is chronically depressed, there is an underlying reason. Most of the time it's because of insecurity (anxiety) or trauma (depression) that either occurred during one's formative years, or something big and identifiable that has happened more recently. But you can think of your default internal stress level as a dial, and although everyone's setting from birth is slightly different, something will have happened to you if your default is set on 8 instead of 2.

Absolutely.

As described in the 50 YO book, “I’m OK, You’re OK, our minds are basically like a DVR recording events that happen around us and to us from birth. The book seems dated in some ways, but the premise that we record these feelings related to events that often happened when we were defenseless children, makes sense. Often these things are only remembered in the subconscious…but they’re there. As you write, they can be like arrows still stuck in us that have a big impact on how we behave today.

Identifying these things, whether through therapy, mindfulness, dreams, or drugs (legal or illegal) is the first step.

Another interesting concept that I’ve read a lot about is Samskaras:

Here’s a good overview:

https://yogainternational.com/article/v ... -affect-us

Basically, our thought/habit/action patterns are like erosion of the soil by rain water: they start very small and gradually and become deeper and wider with repetition.

[chenda]

Identifying these things, whether through therapy, mindfulness, dreams, or drugs (legal or illegal) is the first step.

What would be the second step ?

[GandK]

I'm glad @Sclass.

Same here, GandK's post really struck a cord. I'd have no idea where I would start with it though or how I'd treat it.

Well, treatment is another kettle of fish. It can take years to fix the problem once you find it, depending on what it is. That's why some people, like me, are in therapy for years. We didn't twist ourselves into emotional pretzels overnight, and untwisting can be just as time consuming.

But. Step one (of fixing anything) is definitely identifying the exact problem. If I were starting from scratch, and I the problem wasn't obvious to me (e.g. someone close died when you were 19, and you've had depression on and off since), then the first thing I'd do is spend some time physically on my own identifying the times in my life when I felt the most shame. Shame is believed to be the strongest human emotion and is also extremely likely to cause behavioral change in people, so it ought to at least provide strong clues.

The author Brené Brown has done a lot of work on shame and on vulnerability; in addition to her books, she has talks all over YouTube.

[GandK]

What would be the second step ?

Well... my next step was to write out, in excruciating detail, what went wrong. That sucked worse than most bad things have sucked in my lifetime.

Then I identified what I did have power over and what I didn't, in my negative life-changing situations. That also greatly sucked, but it was the beginning of healing.

Then I wrote about why what happened was wrong and about what, had it happened instead, would NOT have caused trauma. This was way less sucky because I'd moved on to envisioning a different and more positive life scenario. I did deal with blame here, though, which was uncomfortable.

Finally (what I'm still doing, I confess), I identified what I can do today, and can't do today or in some cases ever, to heal and to care for my own needs. This is the part I've actually needed therapy for... I don't have the skills to identify new ways of thinking for myself. Probably most people don't.

Apart from Brené Brown's work, McCloud's book on Boundaries was key for me.

[chenda]

Thank you very much GandK, lots to think about there.

[Married2aSwabian]

What would be the second step ?

For me, meditation helps tremendously. Started when the pandemic did - can’t go out, might as well “go in”. I’ve also gone to therapy only about once / month for past five years. That also helps to work out what’s going on with thoughts and emotions.

Just mentioned Jack Kornfield in my journal this morning. His book “The Wise Heart” offers great insight into Buddhist psychology. One of the main themes there is that we all have suffering, which is caused by attachment and clinging (to ideas, things, people, etc). Whether the root cause is: something that caused(es) us to be fearful, angry, depressed, anxious, whatever…we do not have to hold onto that our whole lives. So after identifying what it is that’s causing the incessant negative thoughts (monkey mind), one has to work on letting go.

He makes a great analogy to getting a rope burn - let go of the rope!

As GandK mentioned, there’s no quick fix. Mindfulness emphasizes to notice what these mind states, thoughts and feelings are and just acknowledge and accept them. Working on contentment and compassion are also common themes that are quite helpful.

[Sclass]

I love the arrow analogy.

It reminds me of a close relationship I had in my youth. My girlfriend had been regularly raped by her dad. The closer we got the more she destabilized us. It was insurmountable together.

Now I have this image in my mind of clumsily driving old arrows into her. Haunting image. I lost patience in the on and off thing and moved on. Hope she’s a happy now. I said some really mean things in parting. Like “get some help” comes to mind.

Kind of spooky. I think our arrows actually brought us together in the first place. Hers were pressed by romantic attachment. Mine were pressed by tyrannical father figures. Our dads did a number on us.

[chenda]

For me, meditation helps tremendously.

Unfortunately I've had very bad experiences meditating. It led me to feeling very detached from my body and lead me to...well I'll spare the details but I ended up been detained by the police (as a suspected victim not perpetrator)

Yeah the idea of been detached is big in Buddhism and certain western cognitive therapies. I'm not sure I agree with it though. The idea of righting past wrongs appeals to me more. I have a BPD so I tend to view things in very binary terms e.g. good person Vs bad person. I like this place, I hate that place.

I did see a therapist who tried Dialectal Behavioural Therapy and my god what a lot of bollocks that was. Maybe I just had a particularly useless therapist but her advice seem to boil down to asking me what I was having for dinner. Then she would tell me to practice mindfulness and 'taste' the food mindfully. I mean seriously

Though I am starting to engage in some spiritual practices so perhaps that will bare some fruit.

[rube]

More money helped mine go away.
...
Age helped. I outgrew a lot of that anxiousness stuff.

This is also valid for me. More money and getting older helped.
I still have some, but in general I am more relaxed as I used to be. It is only money and some things here and there that cost some more won't make a change anymore to how we live, so I try to not care too much.

I do still have difficulties though with completely (unnecessary) waste*, regardless of the amount of euros involved.

[Lemur]

To define terms of when someone says "they've anxiety." Anxiety has a purpose for humans - to help prepare one for the fight or flight response when in actual danger. For people who "have anxiety", this fight/flight response triggers easily and/or they're in a constant state of perceived danger.

This thread reminds me so much of why I always like David Reynold's works. He himself was influenced greatly by Morita Therapy.

The goal of Morita therapy is to have the patient accept life as it is. This does not mean that the patient cannot set and achieve goals, but be able to be satisfied with their life in the moment. Morita therapy places an emphasis on letting nature take its course. This is not to say that patients should be resigned to their mental illness but to respect the laws of nature. Feeling emotions is a law of nature according to Morita therapy. Morita therapy helps its patients understand that experiencing emotions, positive or negative, is a facet of being a human being.

As someone who has dealt with anxiety his whole life, I can understand the viscous cycle it presents. Namely, something triggers your anxiety (in your case money from a bonus) and then you get anxiety about your anxiety through rumination and overthinking. In an anxiety disorder, this is something of a normal state of mind that never really goes away. I like the dial analogy.

I don't know if there are deep underlying causes in our psyche, from childhood, or what have you. There could even just be a genetic component. My mom has mental illnesses (bi-polar, anxiety) and so does my grandmother. I am one of 5, and all of us have anxiety. Specifically social anxiety, performance anxieties, rumination, etc.

Anyhow, David Reynold's popularized an idea for me that there might not be anything I could do about my anxiety. That I need to accept it for what it is. Like going through the stages of grief for my own psyche. To accept it for what it is...I personally found this empowering. Those hunter gatherers that would always anxious were also first prepared when a lion came into the area anyway. And also it let me understand though I can't always control my feelings - I can always control my actions & behavior. And this this mantra was born:

1.) Accept your feelings.
2.) Know your purpose.
3.) Do what need to be done anyway.

In a final analysis...I deal with occupational anxiety and perfectionism anyway. I'm not a professional certainly; can't even 100% fix my own issues and I may never but if it helps you, accepting might be a great form of relief. I would say generally I would be like anxious level 8/10 and now I operate at maybe a 3 or 4. And that one usually has causality - it is 9-5pm from Monday to Friday.

[DutchGirl]

Unfortunately I've had very bad experiences meditating. It led me to feeling very detached from my body and lead me to...well I'll spare the details but I ended up been detained by the police (as a suspected victim not perpetrator)

Ouch. I had something similar with trying to write down my dreams. I had read in a women's magazine that that would be a good thing to do as a step towards becoming a lucid dreamer (and fly in my dreams - which is sometimes granted to me in a dream and which is awesome, but which I wanted to be able to do whenever). However, what it lead to was a period of over a year during which I had derailed my sleep patterns and just couldn't sleep or would wake up in the middle of the night without being able to fall asleep again. Since then I just try to not mess with it and be happy with the sleep and the dreams that are granted to me.

I think that sometimes focussing too much on something can make things worse.

Which is why I do like Lemur's idea of letting it go and accepting that I have anxiety every now and then... Or am I just lazy?

[Humanofearth]

I think you’re highly aware of the value of money and have a low time preference so you know the effect compounding has. That said, I think this dissipates once you’re wr <1%.

[Jean]

I've Always Seen my anxiety as a strength. Accept it, and indulge in it. Checking your bank account has no négative conséquence. If thé Time Lost doing so is a problème, juste set a notification up.