27-year-old Rima Parish has struggled with anxiety for almost her entire adult life. However, it has recently gotten much worse, with her being unable to shake the paralyzing fear that nothing is going to happen to her tomorrow.
“I can’t shake this nagging feeling that nothing is going to happen to me,” Rima said. “It’s been keeping me up at night for weeks.”
Rima said that while many of her friends struggled with anxiety and depression as well, she’s been having trouble commiserating with them.
“I have friends with anxiety and depression who can’t shake the feeling of impending doom, or that something bad is going to happen to them,” she said. “But that’s not the case at all for me. I can’t shake the feeling that nothing is going to happen to me, and so far I’ve been right.”
Rima continued, saying, “So, what, my whole life is just going to be one long string of nothingness? Am I going to die without anything having ever happened to me? I wish something bad would happen to me! Because then, at least, like, that’s something, you know?”
Reporters told Rima that, no, they didn’t know, and they reminded her that really bad things happen to other people and that those people probably would love to have nothing happen to them, which Rima totally understood.
“No, yeah, I totally get that,” she said. “Obviously I wouldn’t want something really, really bad to happen to me. But maybe like getting caught in the rain or tripping and falling and having a handsome stranger run to help me up. Something that would make me feel alive!”
Reporters found Rima’s examples to be, by and large, whimsical and fun things, if not outright good. Sources close to Rima confirmed that this was always the case with her.
“Yeah, she’s just upset that her life isn’t like a movie or one of her fantasy books,” said Rima’s mom, Fadia. “When she says that ‘nothing’ happens to her, she’s completely exaggerating and dismissing the fact that she’s living a totally average, if not good, life.”
Rima, naturally, was completely mortified by her mother’s statements.
“Why the hell would she say that?” she said, holding back tears. “I don’t read that many fantasy books, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want something magical and scientifically impossible to happen to me!”
At press time, Rima had finally shaken her fear that nothing was ever going to happen to her, as she had just been summoned for jury duty that morning. She then developed a new fear that things were going to happen to her, but that none of them were going to be interesting.
