I am one of the many, many students of biology who believe everything in Nature experiences anxiety from change. Practitioners of animal rescue swear that the more abysmal the current circumstances, the greater the anxiety the life form will feel at any change in those circumstances. You've heard the cliches about how dangerous wounded animals are? It's true.

Keeping it human. . .

I recovering control freak. I've been working on it for allot of years, but I have gotten better with the therapy tools for managing my control freakitis far more than I have been able to *Cure* it, even with the ample evidence I have accumulated to show that the less I try to control, the more control I have. Ya can't keep a bicycle upright if I am constantly swatting at every fly I pass.

Gentle empathy, Pattern. Taking things as they come doesn't come natural to me, either, but the days without that long list of stress symptoms are worth the effort of learning.

I understand your feelings, I have the same. And sometimes it is really minor changes that set me off. I have to remind myself 'not to sweat the small stuff. I think part of it is a fear of making a wrong decision. I try to tell myself that if something doesn't work, I can always try something else. I'm stuck in making a decision right now.

I feel overwhelmed and engulfed by decisions and feel like If I make a mistake there will be grave repercussions, even though I do know that it's foolish. I am nuts.

I understand what you mean. I don't like change. But, change is inevitable in life, so I guess we just try to control what, if any, parts of the situation that we can, and deal with the rest of it the best we can. Sounds like the things you listed are pretty big things, so that is "normal" to feel anxiety over it. Maybe try to write it out on paper. Or sleep on it.

Honestly, I don't think anyone's good with uncertainties of change. Fear of making that one mistake that will take you down, is a real fear that paralyzes us from moving forward. I am a recovering control freak :) I am learning to stop trying to be god in my life. All we can do is to make the best decision we can in the given situation. The outcome? That's beyond our control. I am learning that even with my best judgment and efforts, I still make mistakes, sometimes with huge consequences. But I am also learning that even the biggest, baddest mistakes are redeemable! I am learning to be more flexible. Instead of demanding an outcome, I have to learn to accept whatever outcome I am served & move on. I have to be flexible and whole lot creative. I don't have to be in full control. Different outcome does not mean personal failure. I tend to see it as "wrong or bad choices"=mistakes=failure. But I am seeing how "black and white" my thinking is. The outcomes may be very different from my expectations, but they are not failures. I am learning to laugh at my mistakes then getting out from there to redeem the situation.