Worry Warriorhood

Your guide to becoming a better fretter

An audio version, read by me, is available here if you prefer. ⬇️

It’s already been a busy year for my nervous system, what with the churn of headlines, conflicts framed as necessities, actual necessities cast off like the latest public health guidance, and the deleterious effects of being in a country run by an oil-igarchy. At this point, I’m so jaded it’s hard to be sure if the recent supermoon was spiritually significant or just a moon with better PR.

New Year’s resolutions are in full bloom, evidenced by the doubled numbers at my morning gym classes. As if muscle tone could stand in for sanity. Also, after a $250K win eight years ago, a man in my state won $50,000 in the lottery again this week. Sure, he could just be luckier than Jack Sparrow, but it’s more likely he’s deeply embedded in a lottery-fixing cabal.

On the bright side, I can say that the entire last decade has been an opportunity for growth, and that every day since November 2024 has brought unparalleled motivation to sharpen my worrying techniques. Though I come from a long line of fretsperts, this is a craft that requires discipline. Where once I might have waited to panic until after three or four people told me “It’ll be fine,” now I’m there before the sentence is finished.

I bet some of you are gnawing off the last of your fingernails right now, so I’ll waste no more time. Here to support your next meltdown are my tips for those ready to train seriously—welcome to Worry Warriorhood!

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

Anticipation

To be a dedicated handwringer you must master the art of anticipation. While waiting for bad things to happen, go ahead and let yourself experience the distress, feel into the turmoil, be with it, let it move through you, like a colonoscopy prep. This is called endurance training. If nothing terrible occurs, this simply confirms that your angst paid off.

Scale

Next, scale matters. Local anxiety is for underachievers. Serious worry is global. Why stress about one problem when you can agonize about all of them simultaneously? The trick is to sustain a persistent low-grade alarm, noticeable enough to wreck your sleep, not so obvious that anyone notices you’re not okay.

Language

I also find that language helps, especially using phrases like “I just have a bad feeling,” or “this can’t end well,” which allows me to catastrophize without committing to specifics. Specifics invite solutions, and solutions are antithetical to the worry warrior’s way of life. They are, in fact, a known gateway drug to optimism. It’s important to be informed, never soothed, to read just enough to confirm that your trepidation is reasonable. But you’ll want to avoid any article that includes the word “hope.” Hope leads to emotional whiplash, which is hard on the joints.

Inertia

If you feel compelled to take action, redirect that energy toward watching reruns of The Twilight Zone. And whatever you do, don’t take a walk. Walking invites perspective, and perspective has a way of interrupting a perfectly good spiral.

Cosmology

Astrology can be useful here. When the moon does something dramatic, or there’s any sort of planetary fuckery, you can add a cosmic explanation to that relentless sense of foreboding while also keeping one eye out for an alien invasion. The level of devastation that could fall out of the sky is vast, unknowable, and completely out of your control, which is exactly the kind of overwhelm the seasoned worrier is meant to cultivate.

Self-regulation

At some point, someone will suggest breathing exercises, community connection, or touching grass. They’ll mean well, of course, but now is not the time for calm. Our nervous systems are in tactical mode, scouting for horrors on the verge of existence. There will be time for calm later, if there is a later.

Discipline

Finally, exceptional worry demands restraint. I find it best to not burden others with the full scope of my imaginings. I share only the socially acceptable version, the dry, ironic, or lightly humorous. Trading jokes with an acquaintance about the AI apocalypse, climate destruction or the end of democracy while you shop for bird seed is existential dread that’s learned how to behave in public. It’s so cute.

Photo by Michelle Tresemer on Unsplash

Above all, remember this: worrying is not weakness. It’s caring in advance. It’s meeting our fears before they materialize, paying interest on debts we don’t owe. And if you ever find yourself feeling lighter, calmer, or briefly at peace, don’t be dismayed. Even the most committed fretter occasionally slips, distracted by a puppy or the unexpected kindness of strangers. When that happens, don’t worry about it. The world will give you another reason to brood soon enough.

~Elizabeth

This piece started with me staring into a backyard fire, thinking about what I might like to bring into my life this year, and what I’d like to release. Anticipatory trauma came to mind—which is kind of like a hobby for me, really—and, well, this essay is the result. Thanks for coming along!

Now I get to hand the mic over to you. What’s your top-tier, professional-level worry? Any catastrophic scenarios you’ve been training for? Let’s keep the satire alive in the comments. Bonus points if it involves planetary alignment, alien invasions, or an imploding lottery system.

If this essay scratched an itch—or added one—consider supporting my work with a $5/month subscription or a one-time Ko-Fi donation. No guilt required. Likes 💚shares, restacks ♻️ or existential validation all help keep the fire stoked.

Until next time, take good care.