I experience anxiety in a deeply physical way, feeling it grip my heart and make my blood run cold with a shocking literalness. It is consuming, when it is like that. When it is, I should say, like this. When I am down the hole, I am very down the hole.
I wondered today about whether it would be better if my anxiety remained inchoate. Would it be easier if the dread were generalized, non-specific, looming but unnamable? If I could not Google it, could not pick at it with specificity, could not inspect it so closely, working it over and over again in my mind, would it be easier to set aside and turn away?
I don’t know. And I won’t know. Because my anxiety is not a gloomy specter weighing me down but rather a screeching poltergeist, taking up residence in specific ailments in their most terrifying form. It always starts with something reasonable, a legitimate if minor concern. But my small worries don’t stay small. My brain takes that hint of concern, that reasonable “Huh, this seems weird” and slides headlong down the hill, spinning wildly out of control until it thuds into the answer, which is unfailingly whatever the most catastrophic conclusion might be.
It is always the same, really. I go through the same routine each time. I remind myself that this has happened before, multiple times, more times that I can probably list, if I am being honest about it, and I have always been wrong — a true 100% failure rate. I tell myself that whatever it is I am fixating on is rare, and that it is unlikely to be the cause of my problem. I admonish myself to stay off of the internet, to stop looking it up, stop reading articles with the hope that they might somehow ease my worry. But, I rarely listen to myself.
The problem is the voice. You probably have it too, the small one in the back of your mind that sometimes just won’t stop whispering, pestering you, push push pushing your buttons. Mine is insistent. Intrusive is really the best word for it. It says things like, “You’ve been wrong before but this time you are right. You *know* you are right.” It’s convincing when it says that, even if I’m not sure why. The voice likes to make sure that I know that even if something is unlikely, that doesn’t really mean much, does it, if you are the one who has it? Unlikely things happen to people. It needles and prods and it never shuts up. It sweet talks and wheedles, nudging me gently, “Just look it up. Just once. A quick search will help. It never helps. I hate the voice.
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Because I have kept a blog off and on for years, I have a long record of this anxiety, documentation I can present to myself, evidence that my certainty that *this time* the anxiety is justified is probably incorrect too. But who looks at evidence during a tornado?
I wish it was different. I wish I was different. I wish this was not my struggle. It is exhausting, when it happens. It is consuming. It is so very consuming.
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If the risk of medication is that it will make you someone other than yourself, will strip you of some essential element that makes you you, a few years ago I reached the point where that trade off seemed worth it. I went on Celexa in 2014, and have used it off and on since. After being off of it for several years, I went back on in the midst of my third pregnancy, the pregnancy that would result in my son. It was a lifesaver, honestly. I remember it so clearly, laying in our livingroom with Phil, who was sick with the flu, and realizing that I was drowning. I felt like I was drowning and in that moment it seemed so clear: whatever risks Celexa might pose, they could not be as bad as whatever risks perpetually existing in that state of constant overdrive, constant adrenaline overload, constant panic was actively causing. And so I went back on the Celexa. It helped.
This time, I am already on Celexa. I am increasing the dosage, hoping that will make things better. But the anxiety will barely listen. It tells me that it won’t help, or that if it does, it won’t matter, because the thing I am worried about will still be true, even if I am not so anxious about it. I hate the anxiety.
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The best I can do is to remind myself that it will probably get better. No feeling lasts forever. I try to prepare for the worst, to buffer it somehow, to take the sting out of the blow if it comes (when it comes, my brain shouts). Maybe that is not helpful. I don’t know. It helps to give me some level of peace. But there is no peace, really. There is no peace because ultimately, I cannot control what will happen. I can not ensure that it will all be okay. It may not all be okay.
My anxiety pre-dates parenthood, but I cannot pretend that parenthood has not changed it. The fear of harm coming to my child, the fear of what he would experience if I were to cease being — its power is breathtaking. And that must surely be universal, even if I experience it in a more extreme way. I try to find comfort in putting things in place should something unexpected, something dreadful happen. I’ve worked to make a team for my kid, a constellation of people who will be there to help him and his dad, to support him as he grows should something happen to me. Having people who share my heart, who are built like me, in his life or ready to step in and help bridge the gap or chasm that could appear helps me to breathe better. It does not quite give me comfort itself, but it gives me the seeds of it. It makes me feel a little less out of control. But only a little. It is still so very heart stopping to think about that I can manage only small bites.
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I am 38 and it is almost certain that I will not outgrow my anxiety. It will be with me always, waxing and waning as it has for the majority of my life. I know that. I know that is true. But it is hard to accept that at any time it might show and wallop me, uninvited, unwelcome. It will though. There are stretches — sometimes long, peaceful stretches — where it is a small background noise mostly tuned out and forgotten. But then it rears its head, making itself known loudly and without pause. It will not be ignored in those times. A friend described it today as “my brain misbehaving.” I like that. It helps me feel more gracious towards the anxiety, as though it is naughty child rather than a coup. Sometimes, my brain misbehaves.
For now, I will keep breathing and keep hoping. I will keep trying to hang out to the things that I know are truest and best. I will hug tighter and longer and eventually, hopefully, this too will pass.
The Belly Fish 