anxiety

A look at anxiety in its many forms and manifestations; what is the nature of this specific pattern of extreme fear and worry?

The Psychology of Losing Yourself While Pleasing Others
The Woman Who Forgot Her Own Name Rachel stood in the grocery store for eleven minutes, staring at yogurt. Her husband preferred strawberry. Her daughter liked vanilla. Her son would only eat the kind with cartoon characters on the lid. Her mother-in-law, visiting this weekend, had mentioned she was trying to eat more protein.
By Ameer Moaviaabout a month ago in Psyche
Consent in Photos
Some images rattle around your body. You catch it for a second. A fraction of a breath. And in that moment you know that it will stay with you forever. I just saw an image like that. It's an image I didn't agree to see. And I'll bet my life that the man in it didn't agree for it to be taken either.
By Kirstyn Brookabout a month ago in Psyche
When Confidence Is Just a Mask for Fear
The Man Who Never Let Anyone See Him Sweat Jordan walked into the boardroom like he owned it. Shoulders back, chin up, that easy smile that suggested he'd done this a thousand times before. He made eye contact with each person at the table—firm, confident, just long enough to signal certainty without aggression.
By Ameer Moaviaabout a month ago in Psyche
The Emotional Cost of Always Trying to Be Liked
The Day She Realized She'd Disappeared At her own birthday party, surrounded by forty-three people, Claire felt completely alone.
By Ameer Moaviaabout a month ago in Psyche
Why Some People Apologize Even When They’re Not Wrong
Emma said "sorry" seventeen times before noon. Sorry for asking a question in the meeting. Sorry for walking through a door someone was holding. Sorry for her email being too long. Sorry for her email being too short. Sorry for needing to use the bathroom during a Zoom call. Sorry for existing in spaces that other people also existed in.
By Ameer Moaviaabout a month ago in Psyche
How Constant Comparison Slowly Breaks Self-Worth
It started with a wedding photo. Jessica was scrolling through Instagram at 7:23 a.m., still in bed, coffee cooling on her nightstand. The algorithm served her a picture of someone she'd gone to college with—Amber, who she hadn't thought about in years.
By Ameer Moaviaabout a month ago in Psyche
Promise That You Will Sing About Me
I think about death more than I admit. Not in a dramatic way. Not in the kind of way that begs for attention. More like a quiet question that keeps tapping on the glass when everything else goes silent. Usually at night. When the lights shut off. When the world finally stops asking things of me.
By Jonathanabout a month ago in Psyche
The Psychology of Feeling “Not Enough
The Morning She Stopped Being Enough Sarah stood in front of her closet at 6:47 a.m., paralyzed by a decision that shouldn't have mattered.
By Ameer Moaviaabout a month ago in Psyche
The Weight of White
Arthur couldn't sleep. Again. It wasn't the usual restlessness, the buzzing hum of late-night traffic, or the faint wail of a distant siren. Tonight, it was a profound, suffocating quiet. He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, the cold floorboards biting his bare feet. He rubbed his face, the stubble coarse against his palm. Something felt… different. He padded to the window, pulled back the heavy curtain.
By HAADIabout a month ago in Psyche
The Obsidian Bloom
Elara found it by accident, or maybe her feet, numb with a sorrow she couldn’t quite name, just carried her there. A crumbling wall, ancient and choked with desperate, grasping ivy, behind the forgotten greenhouse at the edge of town. A ragged gap, just wide enough. Through it, a light. Not sunlight. Something else, shimmering, cold. The air inside hit her like a blast from a deep freezer, but it wasn’t unpleasant, not like the suffocating, humid stickiness of August. It was clean. A profound stillness pressed against her ears, quieting the frantic, buzzing static that had lived inside her head for months.
By HAADIabout a month ago in Psyche
A Bruised Sky on the Tongue
The morning light, thin and watery through her window, bled into her mouth before it even touched her eyes. Not just a visual thing, no. For Elara, the color blue had a taste, a constant, low thrum against the back of her tongue, a cold, metallic tang that clung like forgotten copper pennies. She woke with it, breathed it, carried it through every hour, a secret, unshakeable burden. This morning, it was the pale, washed-out blue of a winter sky, sharp and brittle, like sucking on ice that had been scraped with a dull knife. She reached for her coffee, hoping the bitter black would cut through it, but it just added another layer, a murky undertow of cold. She swallowed, trying to dislodge the feeling, to scrape it off with her teeth.
By HAADIabout a month ago in Psyche
The Grey Shore
Elias sat at his desk, staring at the screen. Spreadsheets. Always spreadsheets. The fluorescent hum above was a dull throb in his skull. Outside, the city traffic groaned, a constant, ugly growl. He was thirty-two, lived in a cramped third-floor apartment, and felt a quiet, persistent emptiness. Not unhappiness, exactly. Just a flatline.
By HAADI2 months ago in Psyche