In my life I tend to get a little obsessive. I’m a lot better than I used to be, but when something slightly, even only potentially, negative happens, it seems to be something that I just can’t get out of my mind.

For example, we have a leaky tap. One day, the hand towel in our bathroom was left touching the edge of this leaky tap. You can imagine what happened… the towel was slowly soaking up water, the water was then dripping out the other end of the towel. Before I could realise, there was a massive wet patch on the floor.

All I could think was that I was a negligent tenant, that I was going to cause the person below me a leak, and that everyone would think I was stupid. Nevermind the fact that the landlord should have fixed this leaky tap – they don’t believe it’s a problem – but I still felt really bad for something that hadn’t even happened.

These are the kinds of events that happen in my life that I just worry about, sometimes for a full day. I also worry about offending people, even if it gets to the point where I will let them offend or upset me instead. It’s crazy.

I need to start asking myself ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ If I actually stand up for myself for a change, the worst that could happen is that this person won’t like me – bear in mind these are often merely strangers that don’t really factor into my life. Why do I care so much about what they think?

Why do I care so much about what the landlord thinks, about what the neighbours downstairs think?

I mean really, what’s the worst that could happen if the leaky tap that I asked to be fixed months ago causes a very small damp patch?!