I am not my anxiety.

A hearing aid turned up too high in a busy cafe does not invent anything. The cutlery is real, the coffee machine is real, the conversation at the next table is genuinely happening. It just delivers all of it at one volume, so that none of it can be sorted.

Anxiety works something like that. It is not a liar; it is usually pointing at something you actually care about. It is not a prophet either — it holds no information about Thursday that you do not also have.

It is a setting, turned up. A setting is not an identity.

You are the one doing the listening, which is a different thing entirely from the noise.