Anxiety is a huge part of my life. Everyday I experience anxiety, sometimes its good anxiety, sometimes bad, and nowadays most of it is good.
But there was a time when anxiety ruled my life. You could say there was good reason, with my illness and the interferon, but when is it enough worrying and you just get to calm down?
With anxiety, never. A little worrying brings about a whirlwind of unease, whips into an avalanching tornado with you in the centre. It is all enveloping, all encompassing, and there are no thoughts to put it aside. It just rules every moment of your day.
At my worst I was trembling and my heart was pounding so hard I couldn't catch my breath, my muscles would seize up so hard that they would hurt but I couldn't relax the muscle, I couldn't talk without sounding like I was shivering. I wasn't sad, but I wasn't happy and I wasn't angry but I was nervous and it wouldn't stop and I couldn't sleep, I would clean until 3 am, busy my hands with anything, and let my environment soak up my unease.
Though my anxiety was worse when I was sick, it was the first time I really realized that it has been a problem for me my entire life. I can remember being anxious at 6 years old. I didn't understand why some things upset me, and that I was projecting feelings of anxiety on to objects and images, when I saw these things it made me sad, and nervous, VERY nervous.
I saw that these things didn't upset other kids like it did me. It took me 25 years to really sort out why things and places and images made me upset.
My childhood was wonderful. There was never any real need for me to worry; though we weren't rich my brother and I had everything we needed, lots of love and parents in a good relationship. We weren't exposed to abuse or anything bad but weren't in a bubble either.
When my uncle, my fathers twin came to live with us from Ontario when I was about six, he was already very sick with HIV. I could see he looked exactly like my dad in many respects, but there was something different. He was sick and needed to go to the hospital, my brother and I couldn't make too much noise when he was sleeping and sometimes he had night terrors. I loved my uncle and cherished every second I got to be around him. He was so charismatic and witty, an amazing artist, my dads identical twin, he almost seemed magical to me. He is basically the reason why I am a power fag hag.
It was in those days of being too young to understand why my Uncle Bertie's disease wouldn't go away and he could come to my school and play with me at the park that my anxiety really formed, and I began the projection of my feelings, and that has continued to this day.
When Uncle Bertie died when I was 10, I had seen it coming. I watched the progression of his disease
until he was too sick for us to see him. Then one morning my mother told us he was gone. I don't remember crying then, but over the next few years I grieved and was absolutely upside down. I guess what teen isn't in many ways totally messed up but I was angrier, meaner, but also sadder and more nervous inside than most if not all the kids I was around in school, and in my family. I was full of true teen angst, but there was something stronger than that underneath. I was never one to manifest my feelings with self harm, I turned it inwards until I exploded like a bottle rocket. Then I understood I was angry but still didn't recognize my anxiety.
Playing violin brought my anxiety to a new plane altogether. I could suddenly channel all these feelings into my instrument and literally make it my voice. All that was inside could now be expressed, and I could give life and beauty to something with my own emotion. Well skill had something to do with it too I guess. My violin is still my best medicine next to writing, and regular playing keeps me calmer. Performing was one place that the anxiety could make or break me, if the physical symptoms were present sometimes it just froze my fingers and made them feel heavy, but just enough anxiety and I could play at my very best, using all my skills and emoting perfectly through the music, and I felt like my fingers were flying all by themselves. It made me the confident person I am today, knowing I could over power my anxiety to actually make it work for me.
Now just because anxiety has been an issue for me, doesn't mean that I don't want it. Anxiety is what keeps me going in life, the regular kind of anxiety I get which is not a bad anxiety, but not always the best either, which pushes me to do better. It's what gets me out for a run, to pursue new hobbies or new career opportunities. It scares me to think of myself being a flat line of calm all the time, that's just not who I am at this point.
These days my anxiety is up but its not a bad anxiety. It's the excited, even giddy nervousness of moving in with my love but also to a new lifestyle altogether on the farm. Hex in the styx is going to be different, but it's the kind of different I'm ready for. It's within my hour comfort zone so it's just far enough away. I know once I get there I will be much calmer but right now I'm up too late with the gears turning away. I am trying to put together a business, get a new day job AND move at the same time, so my anxiety forces me to make mental check lists till 2am.
Everything that put my anxiety into overdrive in my life, experiences like my uncles illness and death and my own illness and dads illness and divorce, whatever, has been worth it. It may have made me wobbly but it gave me stronger legs to stand on in the end. It's given me power to overcome. Even if I had to pop a few ativan along the way to keep me from flying way off the tracks, I still got to a place where I could use my anxiety to help myself. As weird and backwards as that almost sounds, that's what anxiety is.
Now how about a little Anxiety cat? If you don't have anxiety, you just might after you look at a few anxiety cat memes. I didn't make these up in case you have a life and don't look at cat memes several times a week. Ok every second day. Ok everyday.
-E.
1 comment:
anxiety twins! text me next time you're up until 2am - we can compare lists! <3
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