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The Illusion of Control
How the mind’s desperate search for certainty transforms fear into dominance
It always starts with something small.
A flicker of discomfort. A shadow of doubt. A whisper in the back of your mind.
“Better safe than sorry.”
So you carry the water bottle. You sit near the door. You check your phone, just in case. And for a while, it helps.
But anxiety is a liar that speaks in the voice of reason. And it never, ever stops at small.
One day, you look up and realize you’ve built your entire life around the desperate hope that if you just plan enough, anticipate enough, control enough — you might finally stop feeling afraid.
You might finally be safe.
Except you aren’t.
Because safety was never the point.
The First Panic Attack That Changed Everything
It happened on the subway.
One second, I was fine. The next, I couldn’t breathe. The air turned thick and wrong. My heart lurched sideways in my chest. The fluorescent lights seemed too bright, too artificial, like I had slipped into some uncanny version of reality where my body no longer knew how to…
