SPEAK
4
CONFESSIONS OF
CONFESSIONS OF A WORRYWART
A litany of chronic compulsions by Liz Nartowicz
At the age of 8, I was convinced I had HIV. After learning about the virus from my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Curnes, I rushed home and insisted I be tested immediately. I couldn't understand why my mom found my request so absurd. After all, she admitted she was never tested herself, so how did I know she hadn't passed HIV on to me?
Turns out I was STD-free. But that didn't stop my worrying. At 9, a lecture on the
importance of sunscreen from my dad spun me into a nerve-racking wreck. Fearing skin cancer, I lathered myself head-to-toe with Coppertone 45 every day until Christmas. I only quit then because my dad refused to maintain my sunscreen supply.
I am not a hypochondriac. I'm just what my parents call a worywart, a chronic warrior. Blame it on my earth sign, Capricorn, but I've always been compulsively concerned. And
my fears have run the gamut.
I used to worry Santa Claus watched me undress. I fretted over wasting water because I didn't want the world to run dry. I cried if I didn't finish dinner because there were starving children in countries I couldn't yet pronounce. I feared I might become pregnant without having sex like the Virgin Mary. But my biggest childhood hangup was my morbid preoccupation
with what happens after death.
GREG GRIESENAUER
I didn't believe in heaven, hell, reincarnation or any of the possibilities my Unitarian Fellowship posed. Instead, I was positive that souls remained trapped within the body after death. Because of this conviction, I concocted my own Snow White scheme to compensate. To ward off otherworldly woes, such as loneliness, I was to be placed in a glass casket, equipped with my favorite books and stuffed animals. My parents were to visit me every day, I even drew up a contract to ensure my last wishes were respected.
By high school, I'd grown out of these fears. Sadly, new anxieties replaced them. I became compulsively prepared. I walked around with a full-fledged pharmacy in my purse: tissues, tampons, Band-Aids, Prozac, Xanax, you name it. I hauled an entire wardrobe in my red Mazda MX6. Anyone peering into my windows would have thought I lived in my car.
My compulsions followed me to college. As a freshman I started counting down the days until graduation with ice fear of joining the real world I also broke out in hives for the first time because of an English paper. My face has erupted once a year since.
By my junior year I was smoking a pack of Marlboro Lights a day to calm my nerves. And in my senior year, I've worried myself to the emergency room ... twice.
Excessive worrying has been hard on my stomach, to say the least. When my stress is in high gear, I can't even keep down a cup of Campbell's. Stress has cost me a semester's worth of tuition (I had to drop out), handfuls of hair (it fell out) and an early mid-life crisis. While I was throwing up my chicken noodle soup one day I realized that if I wanted to survive I needed to change my attitude.
To make it to class — and throughout the day — I started stripping my life of unnecessary worries. I stopped trying to make my outfits match perfectly. I stopped berating myself over Bs and Cs on papers. Soon, being five minutes late for a meeting no longer sent me into a perspiring panic. By chanting my mantra, "It's not worth my health," I overcame countless quirks within months.
Deep down, I'm still a worrywart. I still catch myself worrying about global warming and growing up. I still lug an oversized green-and-white shoulder bag, brimming with pharmaceuticals. I still play out "what ifs" in my head. The only difference now is I don't allow my worrying to make me sick.
I've learned that I can't control life. I can only manage my own to the best of my ability. I am proud to say I am doing a good job at that. I gave up smoking, donated 15 pairs of jeans and even quit a job I adored to handle my stress. I'm still not ready for the real world, but at least I've quit the countdown.
04. 06.2006 JAYPLAY <19