Why You're Sweating the Small Stuff When the World is on Fire
I'm Carrie Smolen, a Los Angeles-based therapist specializing in anxiety and perfectionism. In my California therapy practice, I work with conscientious, thoughtful clients who are doing their best to hold their own lives together while struggling to exist within an increasingly chaotic world. If you've been catastrophizing about something weirdly small while actual crises swirl around you, you're not alone, and there's actually a logical reason for it. Here's what's going on.
I don’t know about you, but nobody I’ve been encountering lately knows how to answer the simple pleasantry, “How are you doing?”
I’ve been defaulting to versions of, “Not too bad, all things considered,” or, “My immediate sphere of existence is alright,” or even just an emphatic, “I MEAN” accompanied by an exasperated look. I don’t need to detail all the reasons (there are lots of folks writing about it all so much better than I ever could), but I think it’s fairly safe to say that if you’re an empathetic person that cares about the planet and other people, these have generally not been fun chill times.
On a global scale, there is a lot of cause for unease, no doubt. But lately, it seems like everybody is also really worried about… other stuff. Our freak outs are running the gamut; all the way from discovering new concerns about big things, like our relationships or our health, to panicking about completely nonsensical and trivial things. The other week, I was distractingly on edge that I had written an important check incorrectly. This is something I have never done in my life, yet I was compulsively checking my account to see if the withdrawal had gone through. I know that the recipient of a faulty check would almost certainly notify the sender if that does happen, because they’d want the money… but my brain was not interested in logic.
As a therapist, I’ve also noticed an uptick in new anxieties in my clients.
Challenges they had previously felt confident working through lately feel insurmountable. Dynamics that weren’t bothering them now seem doomed in their eyes. Problems that weren’t problems a little while ago are definitely problems now. The what-ifs are what-iffing hard.
What’s the deal?
Well, our brains obviously do not like feeling overwhelmed by global uncertainty. The horrors happening all around us are so plentiful and so important. We’re all continually trying to find a balance between staying informed, so that we can take action, and giving our nervous systems breaks from witnessing atrocities.
There’s so much discourse about how as humans we were never meant to take in this much information this quickly, but just as much about how its our responsibility not to look away. Many of us feel like we’re not getting that balance right, and then feel both horrified (and devastated and defeated a bunch of other kinds of terrible) and guilty at the same time.
So what happens?
Our brains take all the feelings that everything happening in the world kicks up… the fear, the anger, the sadness, the helplessness, the guilt… and they displace them onto something that feels more directly within our control. On an unconscious level, your mind might be saying something like, “Woah it is way too overwhelming to think about how stressed I am about what the government is doing, but you know what does feel more feasible for me to do? Hone in on everything I don’t like about my boyfriend.”
Or maybe, “Yikes, I am so scared about the safety of people in my community, but that is a huge scale problem. What if instead I just focus on making sure I’m getting this scientifically arbitrary number of daily steps in to appease my wrist computer?” Or maybe, like I did, you’re suddenly feeling like you might have forgotten how to do simple things that you almost certainly haven’t forgotten how to do.
If you find this happening to you, be gentle with yourself about it.
Remind yourself how normal it is and how it’s a sign of your sensitivity (good thing) and compassion to be experiencing all these feelings, regardless of how they’re manifesting. And please do NOT beat yourself up for having these smaller-scale worries by comparing them to all the cruelty happening in the world.
Is it good to step outside ourselves and put things in perspective? Of course. But does it help to shame yourself for having these more individual concerns when you “should” be focusing on how to aid the more universal ones? I personally don’t think so. I don’t actually think the way to get to a solid place, where you have capacity to take action, involves being mean to yourself in general.
See if you can slow down a little, and be kind to yourself. Recognize what is happening and lean on tools that tend to be helpful for you during especially anxious times— talk to someone, journal, go for a walk, read a soothing book, watch a comfort show, whatever sounds good to you. And give yourself some grace around how you’re tending to your needs (even if in a vacuum those methods might not be your favorite, because we sure as hell are not in a vacuum right now).
Does this resonate for you?
If you've been freaking out about something objectively silly lately, just know you're in very good company. Finding the humor in it is a great way to soften the impact and a good reminder that we're all just out here doing our best.
If you're a California resident and you've been noticing your anxiety showing up in unexpected ways lately, you're not alone. I offer online therapy across California for people navigating anxiety, perfectionism, and the particular overwhelm of trying to stay sane in a chaotic world. Book a free consultation and let's see if we'd be a good fit.
VIRTUAL THERAPIST • LOS ANGELES
Hi, I’m Carrie (she/her).
A therapist for thoughtful, overwhelmed humans trying to be good people in a complicated world.
As a therapist for folks all over California, most of my work centers on helping clients with issues related to perfectionism and body struggles.
I love to come along for the ride as people get clearer on who they are, what they need, and how to move through life with more ease, self-trust, and permission to be unapologetically imperfect.