The Recipe For Anxiety You Didn’t Ask For

If you’ve ever woken up after a restful night’s sleep and wished you’d spent those precious hours tossing, turning, and periodically whisper-crying, this recipe is for you.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Have you ever thought, “Dang, I am doing too well recently. I better stop myself before I get too relaxed or heaven forfend, content”?

Have you ever enviously watched a jittery stranger fearfully bite their nails or bounce their knee so forcefully that the entire bench shook, thinking, “That could be me”?

When was the last time you thought, “Today was too easy and enjoyable. I need something that’ll ruin it, STAT!”?

Brewing up some steaming hot anxiety has never been easier with this simple recipe! All you need is time you’re running out of, friends you alienated in your head, and something to fidget with.

Before you know it, you too can understand what it’s like to simultaneously feel too anxious to sleep but also more anxious than you would be if you could.

Ingredients:

• Approximately a lifetime of rejection (to taste)
• Three tablespoons of general shame
• One cup of late-night agonizing
• Three completely innocuous memories
• Tense, sore muscles in your face, neck, and chest
• No more than a dash of perspective (optional)

Steps:

1. Simmer the lifetime of rejection on low for as long as you can. All day is best.
2. Add the tablespoons of shame one by one. Examine every grain to ensure it’s spread evenly throughout your life.
3. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil of deep self-hatred.
4. Painstakingly pour in the late-night agonizing. Worry about spilling it so intensely that you spill a drop or two anyway, then worry about the fact that you spilled it. And if you don’t spill a drop, worry about why you didn’t. It’s all part of the process.
5. Take the memories and continue to dissect, dice, and dissemble them until they’re utterly unrecognizable from the lived experiences they record.
6. Add the tense body parts all at once when they’ve become their most potent. Do not breathe or relax at all. Otherwise, you’ll risk losing the tough and immovable texture that gets stuck in your throat. That’s what we want to see in a well-braised anxiety!
7. Add the dissected memories to the roiling potion on the stove and repeat steps 1–5 until you have completely destroyed any chance of falling asleep.
8. Allow it to congeal in the back of your mind for every sleepless minute until sunrise.
9. Enjoy with a side of icy guilt in the pit of your stomach and a tall glass of unidentifiable dread. If using, add perspective as an afterthought. You wouldn’t want it overpowering the dish!

Notes:

• If you can’t make your own general shame, the narratives you never asked to be a part of but heard from someone else will do just fine. You can even whip some up on the spot — they’re even more potent when they’re fresh and catch you off-guard!
• This recipe works best with late-night agonizing, but the daytime variety can still be very effective. Just be sure to sift out any distractions, self-care, or coping tools first.
• Tense body parts are pretty easy to come by. But if needed, you can swap them out for knee bouncing, pen-chewing, and, in a pinch, some nervous, albeit insincere, laughter does the trick!

And there you have it.

Anxiety. The kind that leaves a delightfully bitter taste on your tongue, all in less than ten steps and an evening of your life.

If you buy your ingredients in bulk, you can have this tasty dish to greet you every morning — once you finally put your phone down and peel off the sweat-soaked covers, of course.

This style of writing is pretty new to me, but if you enjoyed it, please let me know with some claps and/ or a comment. It was so fun to write, and if y’all like it, I have so many more ideas!

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