What's the difference between worriers and laid-back types?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been reading some current threads in IMHO – the Therapy thread and the Panic Attacks/Anxiety Support Group thread. Some others, too.

Anyway, it gets me thinking about a fundamental personality split between my wife and I. She frets about everything all the time. Conversely, I am “oblivious” to much of what she frets about and the small stuff rolls off of my back. She believes in “the imaginary audience” and thinks everyone in public is listening to her, talking about her, getting ready to do something to her. Conversely, I always tell her “they aren’t paying attention”, “they aren’t listening”, “we’re not getting pulled over”, etc.

To her, I don’t care about anything at all, and it annoys her at times. Flip the stories, and I feel the same way – I just can’t devote all that emotional energy to all that stuff all the time.

We approach people differently, too. When I attend school events, the teachers are congenial, the principal is a flirt, and the other parents are pleasant-to-friendly. When she attends these same events, all these same people are talking behind her back, inspecting our children’s clothing too closely, being cliquey, etc.

So, anyway, I’m collecting opinions here. Are worriers born, made, or either/both? Why don’t repeated positive outcomes of (anything) get a worrier to let up on the emotional brake pedal the next time (anything) occurs? Can a clinical “worrier” get relief through therapy or medication?

EDIT: Wasn’t sure if this needed to be added but my use of absolute terms like “everyone” and “all the time” is not meant to represent actual absolutes.

2

This is just a guess, but I’d look at it as a self-esteem issue. People with low self-esteem lack a basic trust in the world and their place in it. People with high self-esteem know that they fit in, and anywhere they don’t is just an abberation.

I’ve been playing with a particular model of this lately. Self-esteem is defined as a combination of confidence (achieved through courage) and well-being (achieved through assertiveness.) Does that describe you? Does it fail to describe your wife?

3

I just dont get the “why” in worry- once I have made the decision. I dont worry about the economy, or things outside my control, either. Why? What good does it do?:confused:

4

I don’t know … but it’s not a logical process for worriers like my wife. That much I know. I’ve never once successfully talked her out of worry. Even when referring to similar, recent things that went well: "Remember, you were worried about X, and everything worked out just fine? Well, (today’s issue) is just like X again … it’s going to be fine."

No dice.

EDIT: tdn, I read your post and am thinking on it.

5

I have similar issues with my wife. She worries about everything; my attitude is that things will work out.

My favorite quote on the subject: “Worry is interest paid on a debt that never comes due.”

6

tdn, I think that a worrier’s self esteem is eroded by the constant worry, which can’t be turned off, rather than the other way around. I can’t give any cites, but I vaguely remember references to the brain scans of worriers being lit up in certain (obviously not remembered) areas.

Some worriers benefit from anti-anxiety meds, too, and I can’t see any way that anti-anxiety meds could shift self esteem directly. Talk therapy can promote an awareness that “I’m worried because I worry - X isn’t causing the worry, it’s just what I’m thinking about while I’m worried.” That’s a hard thing to get across, though, if a person isn’t ready to hear it.

You have my sympathy, bordelond.

7

I only worry about things that have a good chance of happening and that are going to need a plan if they do. Once I figure out how I would handle the worst-case scenario I stop worrying about it. When we first bought our house I started getting unreasonably panicked if my partner was more than 15 minutes late getting home from work because I kept worrying that he had been in a car accident. I think that it was because it was the biggest responsibility that I’ve ever taken on where I had to rely on someone other than myself to make it work. Even though it was hard to think about it, I had to sit down and make a plan for exactly what I would do and how I would deal with all of our stuff and his shop and get the house sold before I ran out of money. After that I stopped the neurotic worrying, but years later he still calls me if he’s going to be late.

8

I think the OPs wife’s worries border on both obsession and paranoia; I doubt people are out to get her and I doubt they talk about her behind her back beyond the usual gossip that people are prone to. My wife is the same way and I constantly tell her that all the things she has worried about have never come to pass----makes no difference so I tune her out and let her worry. I can’t do anything about it.

As for me, I don’t worry at all: nothing good has ever come of it; it just isn’t worth the effort. I’d rather spend my spare time reliving old sexual escapades or fantasizing about some that never happened at all.

9

I can see that. In fact, I can see it both ways, with one feeding off of the other.

10

Worriers believe that if you don’t worry, you don’t care - that worry is the best and even the only way to live responsibly.

The laidback understand that this is not necessarily true. As a depressive (an ex-worrier who no longer sees much point in it), I don’t follow their reasoning, but I know it’s healthier than worry, which can potentially consume one’s personality.

For the opposing view, I’ll note that entire cultures have been built on worrying behaviors, and often have a very high rate of achievement.

11

That describes my wife. She’s a worrier. I don’t waste a second thinking about things that I can’t control. So she wonders why I don’t care about anything and gets very upset. When she presents me with her latest issue and I don’t get angry/upset/sad/whatever response she expects, she gets angry and accuses me of not caring about her/the kids/the future/etc.

Some people are worriers and some aren’t. Worriers won’t learn to stop worrying just because they have years of evidence that the sky hasn’t fallen yet. The sky will fall eventually and prove that they were right all along.

12

I am almost finished working my way through the book Learned Optimism, a classic on this exact topic. Dr. Seligman’s theory, which he has tested in a number of different circumstances (the workplace, sports, schools, etc.) is that the “worriers” you’re talking about are pessimists, while the “laid-back types” are optimists, and that while these two groups may experience the same situations, their internal explanations for what they experience are entirely different. Some of the quotes in your OP are identical to examples given in the book of the different ways in which pessimists and optimists see the world. Dr. Seligman also identifies some people as “ruminators” who think about things over and over and over again hoping to resolve them, as your “worriers” do.

Dr. Seligman proposes specific methods for changing yourself from a pessimist into an optimist, which according to him will provide all sorts of benefits in your life. I’m not sure I agree with everything he says, but some of it really seems to make sense. Those people in this thread who live with someone who falls into the pessimist or “worrier” category might want to take a look at the book and see if it’s something that might be useful. Dr. Seligman rejects the idea of affirmations or just telling yourself not to worry (which as some posters have pointed out never really works), and provides actual exercises to work through to change the way you think.

13

I was just ruminating on this a bit more. In the particular model I’m thinking about, worry is a form of fear of loss. In the case of the OP’s wife, it seems to be fear of a loss of social status, which seems to be far more common in women than in men. And fear of loss is usually the result of feeling that there isn’t enough to go around. A poor way of dealing with it is to not deal with it at all, which usually results in some sort of compulsive behavior – drug addiction, food addiction, gambling addiction, cutting, etc. A better – but still poor – way of dealing with it is to adopt a win/lose attitude. Someone must lose in order for me to win, or in the OP’s case, I must lose in order for others to win. The best way to deal with it is to act with courage, which builds confidence. This is a win/win, “the world is an abundant place” attitude.

Just a thought. I may be totally wrong here.

14

Could it be a hormonal thing for her? When I am on my period I get really worried and paranoid instead of your garden variety angry and sad versions of PMS. I can usually talk my way through my paranoia at that time of the month because I know it is totally a hormonal thing but if I didn’t know why I felt that way I probably would give into the thoughts that the whole world was out to get me. Do you notice her being like this mostly during her period or is it an all the time kind of thing?

15

That’s very interesting. Can you give us the Rdr’s Dgst version of it? I’m curious as to whether it meshes with my own philosophy.

16

It’s an all-the-time thing.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments and perspective.

17

So … did you essentially apply logic and talk yourself out of worry? If so, how? Did you have help?

18

I am a worrier.

I attribute it in part to growing up in a household that was often hard to predict. One of my earliest memories is of being harshly punished for popping a small plastic sandwich bag.

I often guessed what the outcome of my behavior would be, guessed at what was ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and I frequently looked back on behavior that had resulted in a major blow up and tried to figure out what I had done wrong, despite the fact that I had often done nothing ‘wrong’.

I’m sure that there is something about me that would push me into the worrier category even without that history, but I find that I worry the most in situations where there are few objective definitions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

19

It’s in my family’s genes. My mom and sister do it. My grandmother did it. And I see myself doing it, unable to stop. I understand the futility of worrying all the time. That doesn’t stop me from (inadvertently) waking up at 5 a.m. to prioritize my bill paying, trash can emptying and fire alarm checks for the day. However, I have proven more than once to be the calm in the middle of a storm because I have prepared in the event of such a scenario many a sleepless night. Those “See, I told you!” moments are few and far between, however.

20

Look, bordelond, I’m a chronic worrier, and it’s *you people *I don’t get. My husband, for example, is one of the most calm and collected people I know. I think there must be something wrong with him neurologically, like he doesn’t experience fear on the same level as other people. (I say all this tongue-in-cheek… I know I’m the one with the weird brain.)

Nevertheless, it blows my mind. If something goes ‘‘bump’’ in the night I am literally shaking out of terror, and he just sighs and says, ‘‘It’s the cat.’’

‘‘But you don’t know…’’

‘‘It’s the cat.’’

‘‘But what if–’’

‘‘The. Cat.’’

Literally I can feel the panic chorusing through my veins while he’s just lying there rolling his eyes at me. I want to shake him. ‘‘What is wrong with you? Do you not understand how TERRIFYING this is?!! Someone could be in the house right now!’’

The fundamental difference is that worriers constantly feed themselves negative thoughts, and, with time, we come to believe those thoughts have bearing on the present situation. Let me give you a typical example.

Say I make a mistake at work. My immediate thought: I should not have screwed up. Why can’t I do anything right for my job? This leads to more thoughts, until eventually in my mind I’m a panicked mess living on the street with no ability to get hired anywhere. I just put myself into a complete state of panic by thinking irrational things. There are a ton of different ways to think irrationally, and people with anxiety issues utilize just about every way possible–catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, mind-reading, etc.

Normal people do not do this. Normal people make a mistake and think, ‘‘Damn, I made a mistake. Better watch out for that in the future.’’ And they forget about it.

Meanwhile, the worriers keep on chewing it over, working themselves up into a froth. Why we do this I’m not sure–maybe the answer is different for everyone. For me, I know one component is I trick myself into believing if I think about something enough I can prevent bad things from happening. The principal lesson I had to learn was that my thoughts do not dictate reality in any way and they cannot impact the future at all. They are not necessarily accurate and cannot be trusted.

CBT stops this ruminating cycle by intervening early into the negative thought process. * Ok, olives, stop*, I might think. I know you feel bad for making this mistake but you’ve gotten consistently good reviews during quality assessments and this is the first major mistake you’ve made in a long time. It’s therefore hardly fair to say you never do anything right… It is extremely unlikely you will get fired for this, and even if you do, you’ll more than likely be able to get a new job. Just be a little bit more careful in the future and everything will be okay.’’

Basically we have to convince ourselves that whatever is happening is not the end of the world. We do so by taking a line-by-line accounting of our thoughts and disputing each one with factual evidence to the contrary. And yes, we have to go through that every single time we start having anxious thoughts. For some of us being worried is a full-time job, so this can get quite time-consuming. It is however highly effective and eventually it becomes automatic.

I’ve been getting really stressed and anxious at work lately, but I realized I haven’t been implementing these great strategies. So my new rule is that I’m not allowed to think while on the job. Sure, I can think about stuff I need to immediately complete tasks, but I’m not allowed to have superfluous thoughts about what I’m doing. I’m banishing, I’m never going to get all this work done, and ooh, she’s going to be so mad and anything else that tries to crash the party. No thinking allowed. So far so good.