The thing about living with an anxiety disorder is that you never know when those cloying fingers of fear will wrap themselves around you and bring you to a debilitating halt. Sure, there are medications you can take to ease the symptoms and cognitive behavioral techniques you can employ to gain some measure of control. But even with those tools at your disposal, there are more than a few days when it’s still not enough, when those sneaky tendrils of anxiety, stress, and paranoia snake their way into your mind and body and wrap themselves tightly around you, holding you immobile and paralyzing you completely. You can take a self-care day, of course, focusing on resting and regaining the upper hand, but after taking a couple self-care days in a row, it’s easy to start feeling guilty about it because you know there are things around you that need to be done.
Like depression, anxiety, too, is a chronic liar. It tells you that everyone and everything is out to get you, that you’re constantly in danger. It takes everything in your willpower to fight against those lies, to push back against that fight-or-flight instinct, and to settle into a state of gentle repose instead. But it’s hard because that ball of fear stays lodged firmly in the pit of your stomach and, for me at least, my mind loses its ability to focus and my skin feels like it’s on fire with hypersensitivity.
Today is one of those days where it’s a fight and a struggle. Tears have been threatening to slip down my cheeks most of the afternoon already. One part of me wants to slip back into the safety of my bed, to sleep and to hide. Another part of me recognizes that won’t help nearly as much as I want it to and insists I stay put and fight. And so I write. I wield the only weapon currently at my disposal, the sword of words and the sharing of experience. I’m thankful for good friends I can talk to on days like this, friends who won’t judge and who will, in fact, do what they can to support me and prop me up when I can’t seem to do so myself.
This anxiety will pass. It always does. I rely on my mantra to remind me to breathe, and to keep breathing, in and out, as often as necessary, in order to make it from this moment to the next. I fall back on my faith, reminding myself that God walks with me and beside me, and that even if all my human friends were to turn away from me, He is still there for me. The key to all this is patience, a lesson I’ve learned all too well in the past 18 months and which I continue to learn and put into practice. I am a fighter, a warrior, and I wage battle inside myself, with myself, as often as necessary to bring my own body into submission, using whatever tools I have at hand. And I have put together quite the toolkit over the months, but I haven’t done it alone, and for that I am always grateful.
Life marches on. I insist on marching with it. Yes, I have mental illness, but I refuse to allow it to define me. Instead, I learn anew every day how to define myself, in spite of my illness — and perhaps even because of it — and how to keep moving forward. Because forward is the only acceptable direction. I’ve lived in the darkness before; I refuse to go back. The light is what I seek because that is where hope lives and life thrives.
One day, one step, one breath.
