Anxiety

You wake up with a sense that something is wrong. Nothing specific. The wrongness is ambient and doesn't attach to anything in particular.

You receive good news. Within a few hours you've found the angle from which it could still go badly.

A message goes unanswered. By evening you've generated three explanations for what you did or said that caused it.

You're asked to contribute in a meeting. Before you've decided what to say, your voice has already changed. The change makes the thing harder.

You cancel plans you were genuinely looking forward to. They had started to feel like obligations. The relief is real, but so is the loss.

You rehearse conversations that never happen. In detail. They still take something out of you.

Physical tension builds in your chest or stomach at a predictable time each day, regardless of what's happening that day.

You can imagine negative outcomes in specific detail. Positive outcomes come as vague generalities. The difference in resolution is consistent.

You apologise for things you didn't do wrong. Not out of politeness — it reduces the perceived probability of conflict.

Being unoccupied makes the anxiety worse. You feel more anxious at rest than when you're doing something. The doing is regulation, not productivity.

A minor physical sensation catches your attention. You note it. You note it again. By a certain point you've spent significant attention on it.

You replay a social interaction looking for what you should not have said. This happens after straightforward conversations, not just difficult ones.

You're somewhere pleasant. You notice you aren't fully there — part of you is already on the next thing, or still on the last thing.

A small administrative task — an email to send, a call to make — acquires weight out of proportion to what it is. The weight makes it harder, which makes it worse.

You ask someone if something is fine. They say it is. You feel better briefly. Then you need to hear it again to keep the feeling.