Severe Worriers

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I'm wondering is anyone here, or have in their family a severe worrier?

My Mom is a professional worrier, with a master's degree in it it seems. She gets it from her Mom according to her siblings. I see her sitting and worrying and have lived with her worrying about me in the past. It accomplishes nothing.

I understand thinking hard on a problem, finding the best solution you can and follow the solution. If it changes, then think and find another solution. In the thinking consider the out come of all the thoughts, and try to have a contingency plan, but continuing to worry - I don't understand.

So, are worriers here? Can you explain?

Or do you have a family member or more that is a professional worrier, or just one in training?
 
Well one way to look at worrying is if nothing bad happens then you get to be happy about it.:lil guy:
Plus you feel like you had not had worried than you would be surprised and not set up for the bad news.:huh::eek:

My mother was one and I got a little bit of it but was cured after the crowd was born.:cool:
 
I don't consider myself a worrier, but I do think about things and wonder what I can do about them. When I was teaching, if Johnny or Suzy were struggling with something, I would wake up about 2 in the morning, sometimes with a strategy to help them. I don't consider that worrying. But that is what some people do.

Some people worry. Some people complain. I have always been a person who thinks about solutions to situations. It is not, "Oh, no! My tire is flat. What am I going to do?" My thought process is, "Oh, it feels like the tire is flat. I'd better find a safe place to pull over that is out of traffic that is level and will hold up a jack." Then I do that, pull over, park, turn off the car, get everything I need out of the trunk, find the right spot for the jack, loosen the lug nuts, jack the car up, remove the lug nuts, remove the tire, put the spare on, put on the lug nuts with my fingers, tighten them with the cross tool (not the lame tool that comes with cars), lower the car, load everything back in the trunk, close the trunk, drive down the road, find a place to repair flat tire, get tire repaired asap. No worries.

I do think some of worrying is learned and some of it may be personality. I was raised by farm people who had to fix their own stuff. Worrying produces nothing.
 
Weedygarden said:
I don't consider myself a worrier, but I do think about things and wonder what I can do about them. When I was teaching, if Johnny or Suzy were struggling with something, I would wake up about 2 in the morning, sometimes with a strategy to help them. I don't consider that worrying. But that is what some people do.

Some people worry. Some people complain. I have always been a person who thinks about solutions to situations. It is not, "Oh, no! My tire is flat. What am I going to do?" My thought process is, "Oh, it feels like the tire is flat. I'd better find a safe place to pull over that is out of traffic that is level and will hold up a jack." Then I do that, pull over, park, turn off the car, get everything I need out of the trunk, find the right spot for the jack, loosen the lug nuts, jack the car up, remove the lug nuts, remove the tire, put the spare on, put on the lug nuts with my fingers, tighten them with the cross tool (not the lame tool that comes with cars), lower the car, load everything back in the trunk, close the trunk, drive down the road, find a place to repair flat tire, get tire repaired asap. No worries.

I do think some of worrying is learned and some of it may be personality. I was raised by farm people who had to fix their own stuff. Worrying produces nothing.
Click to expand...

Most farmers didn't have time to worry unless it was about rain or lack of it for their crops.
Modern technology is making us all unhealthy and stressed out. Yet it helps too so it is another two edged sword we deal with.
 
I had an elderly friend who knew she was a constant worrier. Her son would tell her that she 'would worry that there was nothing to worry about' and she would smile because she knew it was true. Her Dad was also a constant worrier so it's may be either genetic or a learned behavior. I thought it was her way of caring about everything and everyone. She was also very curious about people and would talk on the phone with her friends sometimes eight hours a day.
 
Meerkat said:
Most farmers didn't have time to worry unless it was about rain or lack of it for their crops.
Modern technology is making us all unhealthy and stressed out. Yet it helps too so it is another two edged sword we deal with.
Click to expand...
My grandparent's land had been homesteaded by my grandmother's sister from 1917 to 1920, and then I don't know what happened until 1931 when my grandparents purchased the land, except they had excellent crops. We all know about the 1930's. It was very tough going, and they just had to keep going forward. Grandma foraged for weeds that she learned were edible. They also had family loan them money, which caused conflict from others in the family.

No time to worry, just lots of work to do. They prayed about all kinds of things long after the thirties were over.
 
Prepare for the worst and hope for the best is rational thought and preparing for a potential problem in a relatively unstressed manner. This might be buckling your seatbelt or stocking extra food.

Worriers might resist the stocking of food as that would acknowledge the potential of needing the extra food and that is scary. Fear is the controlling factor in their lives. Fear of embarrassment, fear of dying, or the fear that they missed something dreadfully important that they should be worrying about. These fears and the attendant worry control all aspects of their life. It can stop them from doing things or enjoying things.

These people can be very adept at hiding these fears. Most people might just get a glimpse and think of that person as just having a funny quirk. Someone very close will see the all encompassing nature of their condition.

The strange thing is that their worry can prevent their being able to protect themselves from real hazards. A person who worries about the dangers of having a gun in the house can't protect herself from a home invasion. They will worry about the food going bad and poisoning them or what someone might be thinking. They will worry about more things than there is space here to list.

Yes, someone in my life is a worrier.
 
Funny about my Mom the worrier. When I was 22/23 and married, my then hubby was a traveling salesman. All 48 contiguous states. Some Days we were in 3 states in a day.
Well, occasionally he would fly ahead for an appointment and I'd drive from Washington State to South Texas by myself, or some such drive.

The first time I did a much smaller drive and let Mom know ahead of time, I got all the Mom worry statements. Drove me nuts.

So, I learned that I tell her AFTER I do something. And she had lots of good worrying when I was learning to fly, and when I solo'd = told her afterwards.
 
Sometimes, in the small hours of the morning when something wakes me up I am a worrier, mostly about stuff way outside my ability to prepare for or control it..... Mostly, I am a "What iffer". Define the shortcoming, and make plans to correct it, and I sleep well.
 
Could it be anxiety or panic disorder
I knew a woman who was nervous about everything. She was really nice and sweet, but wow did she worry about everything! And she had some phobias too, really bad. Plus she ate lots of sweets and drank coffee like there was a hurricane coming. Wait. Well, she drank a lot of coffee, too much I'm sure. Her hands shook most of the time, she was very thin, and she smoked like a chimney. Beautiful woman, just wish she could have gotten the help she needed. But that was back when we were all kids.
 
Weird, I just looked for her online and found she passed away less than 5 years ago. A photo of her, still beautiful, looked like she put on a little weight and her obituary included information about how she was so healthy and into fitness. So she turned her life around at some point. There is hope.
 
My mom has always figured out how to come up with problems even when there were none. Some people are good at finding problems, others are good at avoiding them and/or finding solutions.

If there are legitimate concerns, that's another story. Worrying about those is normal and so is trying to find a solution. Sometimes, there is no solution and being down about it is normal. But dwelling on the issue 24/7 isn't healthy.
 
My Mom was a world champion worrier.
She worried about everything you could imagine.
I try to not worry about things I have no control over.

I read a story about a guy that just got home from the Army.
His Mom asked him where he was going one night because she would worry about him if she didn't know.
He said I just spent a year in Vietnam.
She said I didn't have to worry then.
I knew where you were. :)
 
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