When you suffer from anxiety it can seem like nothing is under your control. The more fearful you feel of not being in control, the more you try to structure your world to feel safe. Perhaps you had previous experience with feeling powerless and you never wish to feel that way again. One you may deal with feeling anxiety is to overcompensate by exerting great control over your current environment including the people around you. The people in your life may call you a “control freak” and resent your attempts to create structure and order. Yet when you don’t exert your control you feel great anxiety.
So what can be done? Chances are that if you have been labeled as a control freak by others, you may see no reason to change your ways because this is how you manage some of your anxiety. You may not even be conscious that you are doing it. Hopefully this post will help you to become aware if you do have this issue or to promote understanding if you have someone in your life that is controlling.
Hypothetical Case Number One: Mary had a rough childhood where she was the victim of sexual abuse from a neighbor. Her family did not believe her when she talked about the abuse and so she lived in both shame and fear. Years later she did marry and had two children, a boy and a girl. She allowed the boy great freedom but Mary could not allow the same freedoms to her daughter. She would not permit her daughter to go anywhere alone. She did not allow her daughter to go to any after school activities nor did she allow her to go on sleepovers. Every activity or outing was carefully monitored. The daughter, unaware of her mother’s past, simply grew more and more resentful of her mother’s control. In her teen years the daughter became rebellious, causing Mary to feel extreme anxiety.
Hypothetical Case Number Two: George grew up in the inner city with parents who struggled to keep afloat financially. His father worked a couple of menial labor jobs and one was being the janitor at George’s school. George was embarrassed by this and didn’t let any of the other kids know that his dad was the janitor. His mother struggled as well and found jobs where she could at the grocery store or beauty parlor washing hair. She would come home and tell George that things wouldn’t be this way if only his dad would have gone to school. George took this to heart and got good grades. He won a scholarship and went to an Ivy League college. But he always felt inferior somehow. He felt he had to prove himself that much more.
After college he married and had children. George pushed the children early on and made sure that they got into the best schools and academic programs. Starting in elementary school the children did three hours of homework every night which was monitored by George. The children had no time for fun because George was using every bit of their time to grill them for school. As the children became resentful George reasoned that he was simply giving his kids the best chance for a good future.
