JOURNAL
Your anxiety is an overprotective friend who needs better boundaries
Picture this: You have a friend who genuinely cares about you. They love you deeply and want nothing but safety and security for your life. But this friend has some serious boundary issues. They follow you everywhere, constantly whispering warnings in your ear about potential dangers, and lose their mind when you try to do anything remotely outside your comfort zone.
Sound familiar? That's anxiety.
Anxiety as an overprotective friend is well-intentioned but suffocating. Like an overprotective friend who constantly warns of potential dangers and discourages taking risks, anxiety can stem from a place of self-preservation but ultimately limits personal growth and enjoyment of life. Your anxiety genuinely believes it's helping. It's scanning for threats, preparing for disasters, and trying to keep you safe from all the terrible things that might happen. The problem is that this friend has completely lost perspective on what actually constitutes danger.
Your anxiety friend sees a social gathering and immediately starts catastrophizing: "What if nobody likes you? What if you say something embarrassing? What if they think you're weird?" It views your job interview as a potential life-ending catastrophe rather than a normal part of career progression. When you're running five minutes late, this friend is already planning your funeral because clearly something terrible has happened.
The exhausting thing about anxiety is that it never takes a day off. It's that friend who texts you constantly, shows up uninvited, and makes everything about itself. You can't have a quiet moment without anxiety piping up with something new to worry about.
In narrative therapy, what gets externalized is named in a way that fits well for the person concerned. Generally, the metaphors that become externalized (e.g. blame, bickering, guilt, worry, fear, jealousy) are those that are articulated by the person consulting the therapist.
Take a moment to visualize your anxiety as this overprotective friend. What does it look like to you? Some people see their anxiety as:
What matters isn't finding the "right" visualization—it's finding one that resonates with your experience. After some discussion, the person might come up with their own description which might be, 'the fear that comes' or 'the shakes' or the 'wobbles'. Whatever it is, it is important that it fits closely with the experience of the person concerned.
When your overprotective anxiety friend gets activated, you might notice:
Physical sensations: Your heart races like you're being chased by a bear, but you're just checking your email. Your chest feels tight, your breathing becomes shallow, and your muscles tense up as if preparing for battle. Your anxiety friend has hit the panic button for your entire nervous system.
Mental chatter: The volume in your head gets turned up to eleven. Thoughts spiral and loop, creating elaborate worst-case scenarios. Your anxiety friend becomes a very convincing storyteller, weaving narratives about all the ways things could go wrong.
Behavioral changes: You start avoiding situations that trigger your anxious friend. You might procrastinate, make excuses, or simply withdraw. Your world starts shrinking as anxiety convinces you that staying small and safe is the only viable option.
Emotional overwhelm: You feel trapped between wanting to live your life and wanting to keep your anxiety friend calm. The constant tension between safety and growth becomes exhausting.
Here's what makes anxiety such a complex friend: it's not entirely wrong. Every human experiences anxiety because it is an evolved behavioral response to prepare an individual to detect and deal with threats. Your anxiety friend evolved to keep you alive. In genuinely dangerous situations, this friend is invaluable—it helps you respond quickly to real threats and keeps you from making truly reckless decisions.
The problem isn't that you have this friend; it's that your friend has lost the ability to distinguish between genuine danger and everyday life challenges. Your anxiety treats a job interview with the same urgency as a house fire. It responds to social situations like you're entering a battlefield.
Your anxiety friend means well, but it's stuck in an outdated operating system that treats modern life stressors as life-or-death emergencies.
Externalizing the problem, a technique rooted in narrative therapy, helps clients come to see that they are not the problem—the problem is the problem. The goal isn't to get rid of your anxiety entirely—that's neither possible nor advisable. Instead, it's about developing a healthier relationship with this part of yourself.
Think of it like this: you wouldn't cut off a friend who cared about you, but you would set boundaries with a friend who was being controlling or invasive. The same applies here.
When anxiety shows up, try responding with something like: "I can see you're trying to protect me, and I appreciate that you care about my wellbeing. Right now, though, I think you're overestimating the danger in this situation."
Just as you might tell an overprotective friend "I hear your concerns, but I'm going to make my own choice here," you can do the same with anxiety. You can acknowledge its presence without letting it control your decisions.
We don't need to get rid of the monster, just to give up the struggle with it. And eventually it will lose its power. Instead of trying to silence your anxiety completely, try negotiating. You might say, "I understand you're worried about this presentation, but we're going to do it anyway. How about we prepare really thoroughly so you feel more comfortable?"
When anxiety flares up, get curious about what it's trying to protect you from. Sometimes the fear beneath the fear is worth understanding. Your anxiety friend might be trying to protect you from rejection, failure, or loss of control—all understandable human concerns.
Living peacefully with an overprotective anxiety friend requires ongoing attention and practice. Here are some ways to maintain a healthier relationship:
Check in regularly: Instead of being surprised when anxiety shows up, create space for regular check-ins. "How are you feeling about this situation? What are you worried about?" This prevents anxiety from having to shout to get your attention.
Challenge the catastrophizing: When your anxiety friend starts spinning worst-case scenarios, gently reality-check the situation. "Is this likely to happen? What's the evidence for this worry? What would I tell a friend in this situation?"
Make space for both comfort and growth: Honor your need for safety while also pursuing meaningful challenges. You can feel anxious and still choose to do something important to you.
Celebrate small victories: When you do something despite anxiety's protests, acknowledge both your courage and anxiety's presence. "That was scary for both of us, and we did it anyway."
Sometimes anxiety becomes so overwhelming that it significantly impacts your ability to live the life you want. Research shows that narrative therapy can improve intimacy and marital satisfaction, as well as help to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. Narrative therapy can help people who have trouble managing negative emotions, feelings, or thoughts about themselves.
If your anxiety friend is:
It might be time to seek professional help. A therapist can help you develop more sophisticated strategies for managing your relationship with anxiety and ensure that your anxious friend isn't running your entire life.
Instead of recognizing them as fleeting moments, mishaps, or complications, we let them define and control us. Externalizing the problem helps us gain a better perspective: rather than personalizing it, clients in therapy are able to separate themselves from the problem at hand.
You are not your anxiety. You're a whole, complex person who happens to have an overprotective friend along for the ride. Your anxiety is not a problem that needs to be fixed. It's a part of your human experience that needs understanding, boundaries, and occasionally, a firm but kind reminder about who's actually in charge of your life choices.
Your anxiety friend will probably never completely relax—and honestly, that's okay. Some vigilance serves you well. But with practice, patience, and self-compassion, you can teach this friend to trust your judgment a little more and panic a little less.
The goal isn't to silence your anxiety but to transform your relationship with it from one of fear and avoidance to one of understanding and collaboration. The days I choose to treat myself with compassion and compromise with my anxiety rather than demonizing it are often the days I cope with it the best.
Your anxiety is there for a reason, even when that reason feels outdated or unhelpful. With time and practice, you can learn to appreciate its concern while maintaining authority over your own choices. After all, the best friendships are built on mutual respect and healthy boundaries—and that includes the relationship with the anxious parts of yourself.