Release what's broken underneath [Silversun Pickups, "Royal We"]
I was going to write about how I've been away from the blogosphere for nearly a week. Instead, let's talk about fear. Let's talk about anxiety. Let's talk about how, when that takes over (and when it wins), everything else around me shuts down. Everything else around me is seen as something new to ratchet up the fear, anxiety, or pain. It's "me against the world" when anxiety and fear win.
Today, I went to go pick Sarah up from work. Instead of taking the highway, which is usually quicker, I took back road through the parts of Baltimore I do not belong. Where I am probably not welcome. And I felt my heart racing. I felt my hands clenching the steering wheel, even as I was willing myself to let go, let go. I began trying to focus on that anxiety, in the "I am not the only one who feels this," to release it, and turn it into a moment for tonglen, or at least trying to. I saw the pieces of trash that are ubiquitous around most of Baltimore, I saw the people crossing the street against the light, I saw the other cars. I thought of people who felt this anxiety on a daily basis, tried to make it seem larger than just me, in my car, cut off from the world.
I was listening to some of my favourite music, that I am most currently obsessed with (Silversun Pickups' album, Swoon, if anyone cares to know), but I lost track of a large part of it. Even my favourite song. Everything was blank, I was detached from everything around me. I wasn't recognizing breathing, I forgot my practice, I just felt the walls of anxiety. Walls, walling me in, telling me that where I was was Incredibly Dangerous. That it was not a Good Place to be. That I had to rush through as quickly as I could. That was the only thing I could think of.
And it makes me incredibly sad. It breaks my heart that there are people who live in that state all of the time. That I have spent parts of my life in that space - the walls all around, blocking out everyone and everything. That it was somehow Safer. I have spent a portion of my life shut off from my world because of depression. I have struggled with it about half of my life. I've worked hard to get off medication and to maintain a sense of who I am and that I am a part o this world. I have worked toward not using destructive behaviors to make myself feel, to focus myself away from what I really am feeling. I have worked toward trying to choose healthy behaviors.
It's not always successful. But more often than not these days, more often even before the thought hits my brain, I am making healthier choices. I have been blessed with an amazing partner. Amazing family. Amazing friends. Super therapists. I have worked, and I think when I start talking about not following things through, I forget about the year and a half I drove forty-five minutes a week to State College while I was in college, just so I could see a therapist that my advisor trusted. I forget about the years between 2004 and 2008, the four years where I spent the majority of it in weekly therapy, working through the workings of my mind, learning to deal with life in a healthy manner. The weeks I spent in 50-minute hours, laughing, crying, talking about the things that scared me, that I didn't think I could do.
When I was seeing my therapist in Madison, shortly after a painful, difficult, dreaded, expected, and horrible break-up, my therapist told me that I was doing really well, in how I was dealing with everything. That I was learning, that I had the tools I needed, that I had done my work, and it was learning to trust those tools.
Even now, three years later, I still forget to trust those tools. Yesterday's #trust30 prompt was about what one's intuition looks like. And in so many ways, it's like trust, it's elusive some days. It's not what I think, and I forget to look for it. It gets walled off, it gets walled off from what I expect and what I think I want to know. And what I want to know is that things are going to be okay. But, that's not guaranteed. It's never guaranteed.
All I can do is try, and to remember that I have so many tools in this treasure chest of a life.
This entry was originally posted at http://dancingwaves.dreamwidth.org/840930.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Today, I went to go pick Sarah up from work. Instead of taking the highway, which is usually quicker, I took back road through the parts of Baltimore I do not belong. Where I am probably not welcome. And I felt my heart racing. I felt my hands clenching the steering wheel, even as I was willing myself to let go, let go. I began trying to focus on that anxiety, in the "I am not the only one who feels this," to release it, and turn it into a moment for tonglen, or at least trying to. I saw the pieces of trash that are ubiquitous around most of Baltimore, I saw the people crossing the street against the light, I saw the other cars. I thought of people who felt this anxiety on a daily basis, tried to make it seem larger than just me, in my car, cut off from the world.
I was listening to some of my favourite music, that I am most currently obsessed with (Silversun Pickups' album, Swoon, if anyone cares to know), but I lost track of a large part of it. Even my favourite song. Everything was blank, I was detached from everything around me. I wasn't recognizing breathing, I forgot my practice, I just felt the walls of anxiety. Walls, walling me in, telling me that where I was was Incredibly Dangerous. That it was not a Good Place to be. That I had to rush through as quickly as I could. That was the only thing I could think of.
And it makes me incredibly sad. It breaks my heart that there are people who live in that state all of the time. That I have spent parts of my life in that space - the walls all around, blocking out everyone and everything. That it was somehow Safer. I have spent a portion of my life shut off from my world because of depression. I have struggled with it about half of my life. I've worked hard to get off medication and to maintain a sense of who I am and that I am a part o this world. I have worked toward not using destructive behaviors to make myself feel, to focus myself away from what I really am feeling. I have worked toward trying to choose healthy behaviors.
It's not always successful. But more often than not these days, more often even before the thought hits my brain, I am making healthier choices. I have been blessed with an amazing partner. Amazing family. Amazing friends. Super therapists. I have worked, and I think when I start talking about not following things through, I forget about the year and a half I drove forty-five minutes a week to State College while I was in college, just so I could see a therapist that my advisor trusted. I forget about the years between 2004 and 2008, the four years where I spent the majority of it in weekly therapy, working through the workings of my mind, learning to deal with life in a healthy manner. The weeks I spent in 50-minute hours, laughing, crying, talking about the things that scared me, that I didn't think I could do.
When I was seeing my therapist in Madison, shortly after a painful, difficult, dreaded, expected, and horrible break-up, my therapist told me that I was doing really well, in how I was dealing with everything. That I was learning, that I had the tools I needed, that I had done my work, and it was learning to trust those tools.
Even now, three years later, I still forget to trust those tools. Yesterday's #trust30 prompt was about what one's intuition looks like. And in so many ways, it's like trust, it's elusive some days. It's not what I think, and I forget to look for it. It gets walled off, it gets walled off from what I expect and what I think I want to know. And what I want to know is that things are going to be okay. But, that's not guaranteed. It's never guaranteed.
All I can do is try, and to remember that I have so many tools in this treasure chest of a life.
This entry was originally posted at http://dancingwaves.dreamwidth.org/840930.html. Please comment there using OpenID.