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Comment by gnulinux | Hacker News Reader

I'm constantly stressed. Therapy and weightlifting help but don't solve it. I always find something to be stressed about. For years, I was stressed in school, then graduated and started being stressed about being lonely. For the last year, I always thought about how lonely I am, so my therapist suggested me to get a pet. I got a cat. Now I don't feel lonely, but every time I'm not home, I just worry that something bad will happen to the cat. I always worry that he is sick, or jumped somewhere and injured himself. Or that there is a fire in my house and my cat is grilling.

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Sounds like you have an anxiety disorder to me. Stress is situational. Anxiety is stress when it’s not appropriate.

I experience a lot of what OP describes but obviously am not OP. It's tough though, who wants to take the anti-anxiety medication that we don't really understand every day for the rest of their life? Just for you to eventually not need it? Why would I all of a sudden not need it? Doesn't even make sense.

My doctor always tries to get me to take it but it just seems like a bandaid. Granted, I don't claim to be able to fix it myself either, but the last thing I want to do is mess with my brain chemistry more, especially since I'm starkly aware of the arrogance of humanity (i.e. nobody really knows what is actually going on).

EDIT: I feel like baby(user comment below) might be on to something. I constantly am in fear of something bad happening and stress about that far more than I stress about things that have already happened. But I do experience both.

imo, some people are clearly in situations where continuous medication is worth the trade-offs...

For milder cases, medication can disrupt negative feedback mechanisms. eg Adderall didn't cure my ADHD but a few months at a high dose gave me momentum to build organizational habits and understand what "normal" meant. Now I just take the occasional low dose in response when life gets hectic to stay on top of what matters.

Watch this: https://t.co/jI6WJPvoAS?amp=1

It talks about stoicism, and how accepting what is happening is the path to tranquility, and happiness.

It seems like stress is mostly about fear of something that hasn’t happened (and perhaps never will) and lack of acceptance of bad things happening.

it helps to put risks into perspective. cats may not know everything that's dangerous in a home, but they're pretty clever and resilient. they're very unlikely to die in a accident at home.

basically, there's 2 not insignificant accidental causes of cat death:

(1) getting run over or attacked by other animals (dogs, other cats, coyotes, etc.) so keep them inside, and

(2) eating something that's severely poisonous [1] (mild poisons usually just upset their stomachs) so keep those things out of reach.

accidental fires are very rare and you don't need to worry about them (unless, for example, you leave candles or fireplaces lit when not at home).

this goes for life in general too. most of us know not to worry about lightning strikes, but most dangers we worry about are even less likely, like dying in a plane (or helicopter) crash or via terrorist attack. it's way more likely to die in a car accident, by heart attack, or due to cancer, and most of us don't incessantly worry about those things either.

[1] https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control

Me too.

A strong dose of CBD before bed seems to help the forthcoming days. I'm much calmer.

I do like CBD, it doesn't seem to help me as much as it helps average person, but it's still a little helpful. Yet, I have this anxiety against weed too and even if it contains 0% THC, simply smelling weed increases my heart rate and triggers anxiety. Which is weird, because I used to (last 5 years) not be able to smoke weed (THC) at all because of severe anxiety but nowadays I can tolerate a puff or two in parties to chill, yet in my spare time 0% THC weed with CBD can still induce anxiety. Most of the time I'm ok, but occasionally it triggers me. Anxiety is weird. It feels like living with a skittish animal with zero intellectual capacity in my brain.

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