So one thing that's really fun about anxiety is what happens when you hear about something unpleasant. Take, for example, the day when I learned that slitting one's wrists can end in death. Now, I'm not really sure what a normal person would do with this knowledge, other than acknowledge that people sometimes commit suicide using this method and avoid stabbing themselves in the wrist with a very sharp knife (I'm pretty sure they'd avoid letting other people do this to them, too, although most types of stabbing are generally the kind that you'd want to avoid due to stabbing being painful and potentially fatal and all), but it's doubtful that most people would think about this tidbit of knowledge in situations where this knowledge isn't immediately applicable (i.e., situations where nobody is trying to kill themselves or someone else via wrist slitting).
When you have massive anxiety, on the other hand, learning about one of the ways a person can die is like learning there's a mentally unbalanced serial killer living in your neighborhood. Sure, maybe the killer only goes after a certain kind of person and you don't fit the criteria, but that doesn't mean you won't be as careful as possible to avoid any sort of encounter with this person. After all, it's generally not fun to have a run-in with a serial killer. And even when that serial killer's been captured by the police and sent to jail, there's still that feeling of unease and paranoia that keeps you on your toes. That's the feeling that stays with me years after I've learned about one of the ways people can die.
It's hard not to think about all the ways you can die when you've got anxiety. I mean, it's like you've got all this energy in your system that can only be used for worrying, so you might as well use it on
something, right? Personally, I prefer worrying about things that are easy to fix than something that's difficult to deal with. It's so much easier to worry that way. And to make yourself feel better by coming up with solutions to all those little problems that don't really matter and wouldn't be problems if you weren't so worried about everything to begin with. This is why I have a love-hate relationship with my dishwasher.
Ever since I graduated college, I've been living with my parents in an apartment above our gallery. It's been remodeled fairly recently, and while we still have an old refrigerator and oven/stove combo with only one reliable burner, we were able to replace our laundry machines and dishwasher, which for the longest time was only useful as a very large, out-of-the-way dish rack. Granted, having such a large space right next to the sink for dishes to dry is wonderfully convenient, but having a working machine that washes those dishes for you is even better. Thus, when we remodeled the place, we decided to keep the fridge and the oven/stove for the moment and replace the appliances that desperately needed replacing. Of course, the stove falls under that category too nowadays, but it didn't at the time and we can still use the oven and that one burner so we're keeping it for the moment. Anyway, I think I'm supposed to be writing about the dishwasher right now, so we'll go back to that.
Our new dishwasher is wonderful. It works and it's quiet and it's clean and shiny and it's quiet and it does its job well and it's friggin' quiet. My mother was so thrilled to have a quiet dishwasher that she would turn it on before company came over and tell them that the dishwasher was running so that she could hear them be all amazed because it was so quiet. Of course, I can hear it running from my room right now, but that's because the door's open and the rest of the house is quiet and I just heard my mom loading it so I'm really focused on the noise because I'm thinking about it and it's all your fault that I'm listening to my dishwasher because if I didn't want to tell you about it, I wouldn't be listening really carefully for the noise and I guess there's actually someone outside using a power drill or a saw or something that makes a loud "EEEEEEEEEEEEE" sound which is actually louder than the dishwasher even though whoever's doing it is outside.
That's how quiet our dishwasher is.
So you can see why I have a love-hate relationship with our dishwasher. Or, at least you can see why I don't just flat-out hate it. And to be honest, there's not really a good reason for me to hate it. At least, nothing involving the dishwasher itself. The only real problem it has is that it's not bolted in or whatever so if you open the door and pull the racks out there's a good chance the dishwasher will lurch forward because of the weight on the door and be all leaning and the racks will slide even further out because the door's lying at an angle and it's kind of freaky to have a dishwasher rack slide out when it's full of dishes that would probably break if they were hit with enough force, which probably wouldn't happen just from the racks sliding out further than they're meant to, but it's always good to be careful when things like this happen. Still, it isn't really a huge concern as long as you remember to keep an eye on things and unload the top rack before pulling out the bottom rack.
The real reason I hate my dishwasher is because I'm the one who has to unload it. I know this doesn't really have much to do with the quality of my dishwasher, unless there's a dishwasher out there that automatically puts the dishes away for you when they're clean, but that'd be ridiculously expensive and probably not the most reliable system unless it was a robot doing it and it was made really well and could be programmed to recognize every single dish you own and put it where it belongs - unless it didn't get cleaned completely, in which case it would simply put the dish in a specially designated place for someone to clean it, or maybe even clean it for you, if it was waterproof and stuff. But since that doesn't exist around here (it could easily exist somewhere in Japan or Bill Gates's house or somewhere else where technology is awesome and there's a bunch of geniuses with nothing better to do than make robots that can unload dishwashers for you (I don't actually know if Bill Gates has a bunch of geniuses with nothing better to do living in his house, but if I were that rich and successful, I wouldn't see any reason not to have 'em)), and since I like to be a contributing member to my household, it has fallen upon me to unload the dishwasher whenever necessary.
Now, I don't really have a huge problem with unloading the dishwasher. It's a simple enough task - everything goes in a certain place, and I generally don't have to touch anything gross while doing it - so I mostly dislike it because it has to be done once or twice a day, and I just don't roll like that. Still, it's relatively painless, and it's only because of my anxiety that I occasionally feel horribly uncomfortable while doing it.
As I was saying earlier, I have a tendency to think about all the ways I could die when there's really not a reason to be thinking about it. The dishwasher manages to bring out this tendency a lot because of what it frequently contains when I go to unload it: sharp, pointy knives. Sharp, pointy knives are a good way to kill someone. Not that I'm recommending people to use sharp, pointy knives to kill someone because killing people is messy and bad and emotionally scarring and most of the time will get you into way more trouble than it's worth, but when it comes to all the different ways you can die, sharp pointy knives tend to be pretty high up on the list in terms of how easy it is to kill someone with them, whether on purpose or by accident. I think it has something to do with the fact that they cut things, and bodies are one of those things that shouldn't really be cut up because they tend to work a lot better when they're all in one piece.
Because I worry so much about all the ways I (or somebody else, for that matter) could die, and because knives are a pretty easy way to make death happen, I sometimes get a little edgy when I have to put the knives away. This is why there's one skill that every person with anxiety needs to learn in order to make their lives happier and easier. You see, if you learn how to ignore the thoughts that go through your head when your anxiety flares up, or at least push them into a corner of your mind where they can be out of the way while you complete whatever task it is that needs to be done, you can get a lot more finished on your own without having to ask someone else to do things for you while you hide in the other room and rock back and forth in the fetal position while you try not to think of all the horrible things that could happen to the person who's doing whatever it is you asked them to do. However, being able to ignore those thoughts doesn't mean you can get them out of your head completely. Thus, whenever I unload the dishwasher, even though it looks like I'm just casually doing a household chore without so much as a single problem, there is a furious race of thoughts going through my head. That race of thoughts usually looks something like this:
Okay, time to open the dishwasher door OH SHIT YOU PULLED THE BOTTOM RACK OUT FIRST NOW EVERYTHING'S GOING TO FALL OUT AND BREAK AND YOU'RE GOING TO DIE BECAUSE YOU FELL ON IT AND GOT STABBED WITH LOTS OF SILVERWARE AND BROKEN PLATES AND STUFF okay maybe not but the dishes could still break and then mom and dad won't be happy and you'll have to get new dishes PUT IT BACK PUT IT BACK PUT IT BACK
Okay, it's back in place, time to put cups away, aw crap they're wet on the bottom
dry them off or they'll cover everything in mold and you'll have to drink moldy water ew ew ew ew
Oh crap you left the cupboard door open don't hit your head on it because you've done that before and it is painful oh it's not in a place where you could hit your head on it BE CAREFUL ANYWAY YOU MIGHT HAVE A WEIRD SPASM OR STAND UP WEIRD AND SOMEHOW HIT IT BY ACCIDENT ANYWAY.
Sweet, only have the silverware to put away now... Oh my God you have a knife in your hand be careful you might drop it and stab your foot with it and then it would bleed everywhere and you'd have to go to the hospital because your foot's got a giant hole in it oh phew the knife's put away now.
Oh God you have another one in your hand careful careful careful don't stab your arm or something don't touch the sharp part it will make you bleed okay that one's away now.
OH GOD ANOTHER ONE DON'T LET IT NEAR YOUR WRIST THAT WOULD BE PAINFUL AND YOU WOULD BLEED AND YOU'LL HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND THEY MIGHT THINK YOU'RE SUICIDAL EVEN THOUGH IT WAS AN ACCIDENT AND YOU MIGHT END UP IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL WHERE THEY'LL DO HORRIBLE THINGS TO YOUR BRAIN BECAUSE IT'S NOT A GOOD ONE IT'S ONE OF THOSE BAD ONES THAT YOU SEE IN MOVIES AND oh good it's where it belongs now.
AUGH THERE'S ANOTHER ONE
WHAT IF YOU GO MOMENTARILY CRAZY AND DECIDE TO STAB SOMEONE WITH IT THEN THEY'LL DIE AND THERE'LL BE BLOOD EVERYWHERE AND YOU'LL HAVE TO GO TO COURT AND THERE'LL BE A FUNERAL AND EVERYONE WILL BE SAD AND EVERYTHING WILL BE RUINED FOREVER WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU MURDER IS BAD DON'T DO IT okay there we go, it's away now.
OH JEEZ ONE MORE WHAT IF IT SLIPS OUT OF YOUR HAND AND FLIES INTO THE CEILING AND GETS STUCK FOR DAYS UNTIL IT FALLS OUT AND LANDS IN SOMEONE'S HEAD AND SPLITS THEIR HEAD OPEN AND THEY DIE? I DON'T CARE IF IT DEFIES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS AS WE KNOW THEM IT COULD STILL HAPPEN! PUT IT AWAY PUT IT AWAY PUT IT AWAY okay good there we go.
And yet, with all these thoughts rushing through my head, I am perfectly capable of unloading the dishwasher in a normal fashion without any outward signs of anxiety. In conclusion, I am the world's greatest actor.
