Dear Anxiety,
You suck.
Yours truly,
Amanda
Once upon a time, I used to think that I got anxious because I was too imperfect. I thought that anxiety was a natural reaction to the mistakes that I made in life. If only I made less mistakes, I could totally get rid of anxiety. It was a simple matter of cause and effect.
The problem with this is that it made me totally and completely paralyzed. For years there, I was almost afraid to leave my home because there were too many opportunities to hurt people if I left. It was as if I was afraid to touch the world. I guess I was so convinced of my inherent badness that I thought I had to totally contain it within myself. I’m not sure how far away I am from those feelings these days.
Eventually though, I did learn that it is impossible to be perfect. Well, I guess it’s more accurate to say that I’m trying (desperately trying) to learn that. But what I did realize was that my mind could create anxiety out of almost anything. It really didn’t matter if I never “touched” the world. I would still find a way to be anxious. I could always find some imperfection. I could dig deep enough and distort reality just enough to get caught in that whirlwind of downward spiraling emotions.
In a way, realizing this was freeing. It was an acknowledgement that the anxiety was a product of my mind rather than my imperfection. Sure this is an imperfection in itself, but of a different sort.
This is where I learned my greatest lesson about anxiety — that it lies. (Thank you Jenny Lawson from The Bloggess for your brilliant “depression lies” motto which I have taken and applied towards my own situation.) Anxiety will tell me that these feelings are created from the outside — that anxiety is a natural reaction to whatever is going on — and that if I could just remedy this one situation, then I will find peace. But that’s all bull shit.
See, the feelings stay. If I somehow sidestep or overcome one anxiety trigger, another will immediately follow. Because the problem is the reaction not the trigger. If I give in to my temptation to nullify the feeling, it will just come back. It’s a compulsive loop. And it won’t be broken by acting compulsively (no matter how much my mind convinces me to the contrary.) The only way to break it is within me.
And yet I am the one that I trust the least.
And that is why anxiety sucks. Because it has wormed its way into my consciousness and has created a web of such interconnected tendons that it can seem almost impossible to break free.
I would like to end this by saying that one day I will beat anxiety. But that isn’t true. The battle will never be over, and I will never beat it for good. It will always come back.
But I guess what I can say is that while I will never win, neither will it. It will always find an adversary in me. It will win may battles, too many for my own good. But the war will not go to anxiety. I will find a way to make truth and peace prevail at least part of the time.
Tomorrow the battle will face a new day, and I pray that tomorrow perhaps I will be a stronger adversary.