Having Anxiety and Expanding My Reading

This morning I woke up very pensive (which is normal to me) but two things have stood on my mind for the past few hours: anxiety and expanding my reading.

When I was 15 years old, I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. The depression I manage good sometimes but the anxiety is a daily battle. I battle with social anxiety, PTSD, and panic attacks. There are days that I wake up not knowing why I have anxiety and I have to play this question game:
– was it something I dreamt?
– maybe the book I’m reading?
– did I think about something last night that triggered me waking up anxious?
– was it something I read on social media? …… etc. etc.
I ask myself these questions because usually when I find out what triggered me, I can go to the root of the problem and fix it, control it, remove the anxiety in it of itself. (By remove anxiety I mean write how I feel, ask myself why that gave me anxiety, breathing exercises).

Today is one of those days that I woke up with anxiety and I have finally figured out what has me anxious. It’s this feeling of wanting to expand my reading. Yesterday I went to Barnes and Noble, the first section I always go to is YA. But while I was in the YA section, I realized that I had heard about pretty much all the books on there and I decided to walk around to other sections of the store. There were so many books that I had NEVER heard about and they sounded really good. But I kept placing them back on the shelf because I NEVER heard anyone I watch on Booktube or follow on Goodreads talk about them. So to me it was like “ehh I don’t know, what if I don’t like it?”

I’ve been really reflective these past few hours though. Maybe those books aren’t boring, just because they aren’t popular doesn’t mean that I should dismiss them. I find myself complaining about the same tropes (recurrent themes) and same personalities in characters, and what am I doing about it? Nothing, I keep reading the same books with the same stuff. Now this isn’t an attack towards YA or popular/hyped books (because some I will always love YA and there are popular books out there that are my favorites). I just feel like it’s time for me to expand my reading taste. Maybe I’ll feel less anxious, I’ll have a better reading experience, or I’ll find my next favorite that I would want to share with everyone.

I’ve been really getting into fantasy lately but I would like to read more adult fantasy. Sometimes I don’t know where to start though which frustrates me and then causes anxiety. My anxiety gets easily triggered and I hate getting triggered by something I love. All of this also connects with being comfortable and sticking to what I know, scared of taking risk. Because again, anxiety.

This time though I’m willing to take risk and go outside my comfort zone. I love reading and I would hate to get tired of reading because “I’m reading the same stuff” when in reality I’m not expanding and looking for other books.

I just wanted to share with you my thoughts this morning/early afternoon (here in NYC). Any thoughts? Any unpopular recommendations that you love?

Have a lovely day everyone!

While writing this I was listening to Coffee by Yuna and I Don’t Know by Nick Hakim.