Why I'm worrying about everything

Having recently written a book about how to calm down, conquer stress and stop worrying about everything, I’ve started to feel a bit fraudulent. Right now I’m not calm. I am worrying about everything. Stress has conquered me.

I have decided to sell our home and move into a rental property with my wife and kids. I forget the precise reasons we made this decision – it all seemed so simple at the time. Not any more. As our sale drags on, stumbling blocks emerge daily and all of my time seems to be taken up by passive-aggressive email exchanges with brokers, agents and solicitors.

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I have already agreed to a year of renting, financial commitments have been made, small (‘informed’) gambles have been undertaken and, as I write this, it looks as if the whole delicately assembled Rube Goldberg machine could well implode. My nights are interrupted by frantic thoughts of financial disaster, homelessness or – worse – the prospect of moving in temporarily with my mother-in-law (haven’t you heard? Mother-in-law jokes are back for 2025).

This being Big Issue, it’s a bit rich of me to moan about a property deal. I am lucky to own a property. But stress is not about the objective reality of our predicaments. It is about our emotional responses. Many of you would be able to cope with the let-downs, nasty surprises and insecurity of moving your family from one home to the next. Perhaps you were born with steelier nerves than I. I’m absolutely bricking it and unable to stop my mind whirring with worry. Am I weak? Stupid? Self-absorbed? Yes, to all of the above. I am human.

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Judge me for my privilege if you like. But to suppose that any of us are able to maintain a rational perspective in times of disruption is naive. We are emotional creatures, and emotions are supremely difficult to control. Our vast capacity to worry is what puts us at the top of the evolutionary tree. We evolved fastest from prehistoric amoebas precisely because we were neurotic. We were more alert to dangers than rival species, which helped us to stay one step ahead of them. Just take a look at any dogs or cats in your neighbourhood. The complacent idiots wander about thinking only of their next meal, they never think about what horrors tomorrow might bring. They live from one moment to the next and, as a result, death, sickness or starvation can creep up on them at any moment.

The hum of low-level dread is a life sentence for most of us. Once in a while those feelings of anxiety spike and start to shroud every other aspect of our lives – numbing us to pleasure, distracting us from joy and blinding us to the fact that all worries are fleeting and nothing is the end of the world. That’s the sort of bleak mindset I find myself trapped in at the moment.

And all this despite 10 years of therapy. I do all the stuff they tell you to: I eat well, I exercise, I get proper sleep, I talk (possibly too much) about my feelings and I take GP-prescribed tablets to stay on top of this stuff. I even bought a dog. Yet I find myself enduringly vulnerable to the human curse of shitting myself with worry.

So does this really make me a fraud? No. Stress comes and goes. However bad things get inside my head, I’m not turning the worry into anger and directing that at myself. There was a time I would have been ashamed for feeling this way. That shame would mutate into self-hatred which, in turn, would result in stupid coping mechanisms (booze and drugs).

Now at least I can see my feelings clearly, understand where they’re coming from, appreciate that they are normal and have faith that they will pass. Whatever you’re going through in your own life, try to keep that in mind.

Read more from Sam Delaney on his Substack

His new book Stop Sh**ting Yourself: 15 Life Lessons That Might Help You Calm the F*ck Down is out on 27 February (Little, Brown, £22) and is available to preorder from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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