The other day I experienced one of the most annoying aspects of anxiety. I’ve experienced it many times before but this time I recognized it as it was happening. I’ll call it the anxiety loop.

The anxiety loop will be familiar to the seasoned worrier. It’s where you try to think through your own thoughts while you’re anxious. Do I have this symptom or do I only think that I have this symptom? It’s basically anxiety tinged metacognition.

I’ll try to illustrate.

So, on this particular day, I wanted to re-season my cast iron pan (where you heat it in the oven with a fine coat of oil to make a non-stick surface). I had done a bad job seasoning it the first time and I used soap on it to get rid of it and kept using it unseasoned (using soap is the nuclear option of cast iron pan care).

Just to get a glimpse into my mind, this state of affairs was already causing anxiety.

I was getting black flakes in my scrambled eggs. What the hell were those? Burnt food particles? Little pieces of iron? Are they carcinogenic?

I also procrastinated seasoning the pan because the best solution I found on the internet seemed really intensive and called for flaxseed oil, which I did not have. What if I did it wrong? It said I should heat the oven as hot as it would go. How hot is that? Do I have an oven manual somewhere?

Just to be clear, I recognize that I am using this much mental energy on the maintenance of a pan. Welcome to my brain.

I’ve found that the anxiety loop is part of a five step process: stimulus, free associate, research, anxiety loop, wait.

1. The Stimulus

The anxiety needs to begin with an event.

So, as instructed, I put a tablespoon of flaxseed oil into the pan and turned my oven as high as it would go. I randomly chose 525 degrees. Soon the oven started to smoke and set of the smoke detectors in my apartment.

2. Free Associate Horrible Consequences

This is where I shine. My brain likes making connections and imagining bizarre disaster scenarios.

Smoke could mean smoke inhalation which means that I could die like the dad in This Is Us. Just drop dead. But I didn’t see thick black smoke like in a fire, maybe it was carbon monoxide. Yeah, that has to be it. Carbon monoxide. And that’s what set off the smoke detectors because smoke detectors also probably detect carbon monoxide.

I saw a commercial where a guy gave a testimonial about his carbon monoxide detector, without it, he may have died. I don’t remember the man or the details of the commercial but the lesson was clear. I could die!

3. Research

I imagine the seventies must have been the sweet spot for the anxiety ridden. It was way before search engines and if movies from that period are any indication, valium was readily available.

But with this being the teens, I went to google. I checked out smoke inhalation, safe temperatures for ovens, and symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.

4. Anxiety Loop

Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include: dull headache, dizziness, nausea/vomiting, shortness of breath, confusion, and blurred vision, among others. So, naturally, I mentally checked myself for all of these things and so began the anxiety loop.

Do I have a headache right now? I’m not vomiting but am I nauseous? Am I confused? Is this confusion? I’m confused about confusion, so, that must be confusion, right?

If anxiety were a chemical reaction, the anxiety loop would be the rate limiting step. This part can last for a while. This is the part where I debate whether or not to seek medical attention or call a lawyer or call my friends to tell them I love them. It all depends on the crisis.

5. Wait

Once my brain has run around and worn itself out, much like a toddler who has sugar crashed, all I can do is wait.

I was willing to bet that I did not have carbon monoxide poisoning and that I was not going to die in my sleep. I still felt like I was rolling the dice, though.

Epilogue

So, I’m not dead. I lived to tell this absurd, navel gazing tale.

This is what it’s like, though, living with anxiety. It’s weird, specific, and common sense resistant.

Meditation and medication have helped. They don’t stop the onslaught, though. To paraphrase Dan Patrick, you can’t stop anxiety, you can only hope to contain it. What’s changed is the intensity and the recovery time. Both have been diminished.

I can’t tell if overthinking and anxiety are two side of the same coin or the same side of the same coin.

By the way, I’m supposed to repeat the flaxseed oil process four more times to get the perfect matte finish. I’m going to modify the process a bit so I don’t set off my smoke detectors. I’m not taking any chances.