Anxiety, it seems can have a couple of
effects on its victim; It can either send you into a state of paralysis where
you are worried, and self-conscious to the point that anxiety becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy (I have anxiety, so I'm anxious), or it can give
people a swift kick up the backside into doing something
For me it was neither, and both at the
same time. Whilst pacing around my room and questioning my sanity, mortality
and ability to do anything, I'd often decide to go on runs in order to forget
about everything. The verb; the doing of things. No matter what it was, I’d
start doing things. My house mates saw this as strange (as well as annoying,
pelting a sponge ball against my wall at half 4 in the morning because I
couldn't sleep), but what was going on here was actually nothing productive. I
wasn't turning a negative into a positive; I was just filling my anxious times
with more trivial activities. Throwing a ball against a wall and catching it,
now there's no reason to be anxious about that, is there?
But there was. I'm not going to lie and
act like anxiety didn't have anything to do with the six or seven years of
almost daily abuse of marijuana, coupled with intermittent spells of binge
drinking and netflix. It was a result of the way I had been living my life. 22
year old me took a 4 month long, trembling, nervous look into the mirror and
decided he didn't like what he saw.
My house mates would often look bemused
by my heavy breathing patterns; habitually clicking my fingers, and sporadically
leaving the room when things got too intense. "What's the matter,
mate?" was the outcome of this, as they would gingerly approach me later
on in the day. The thing is, I would have absolutely loved to talk to somebody
about what was bothering me, but when people would ask, I had no response. I
actually didn't know what was wrong with me. There was no one definitive thing,
and I feel like that is a recurring theme of the anxiety I experienced; you
can't quite put your finger on what the problem is. In reflection I definitely
think that it was my sub-concious telling me that I had to make a change. It
was lots of little things that had manifested into this big, cloudy, ever
expanding problem. In reality it was manageable, and not a big deal. The problem
was, I couldn't believe that.
My anxiety was serious. I couldn't go an
hour without the impending fear of doom settling down by my side, and I knew
that it was always there to stay. There was never any welcome relief, just hope
that it would stop. I was asking it away instead of telling it. It was that
sort of attitude that, I feel, intensified my cycle. Instead of grabbing it by
the balls and saying no, I don't want you in my life any more, I lived in hope.
Hope that it would go away; hope that I would one day be OK. The thing is, with
that sort of attitude, nobody would get anywhere.
In an ideal world, none of us would get
anxious. None of us would get sad, lonely, or worried; none of us would die.
When anxiety takes a hold of your life, you feel like a prisoner to your own
thoughts and a fugitive to happiness. It's not like I can explain anxiety in a
1000 words to someone who doesn't understand; I couldn't explain it to the
people who saw me go through it day after day, hour after hour. This article is
for the people who do suffer, and I'm telling you that you can overcome
it.
What is apparent to me now, in my life
presently and going forward, is that we should not always see anxiety as
one-dimensional. It is a multi-faceted, complex emotion that ranges in severity
both mentally and physically. We should not always see it negatively,
either. I believe that it is your mind trying to tell you to do something. That
something can be anything, and productivity can definitely be a positive
by-product of anxiety. As I sit writing this now, after an anxious quiver 20
minutes or so ago, I feel productive, happy and content. I feel like I can use
this degree I have in Journalism, and that I can write something that people
can relate too. I remember seeing a quote on anxiety, that said something
to the effect of, and excuse the paraphrase, "try not to see anxiety as
the mask of death, but rather the pulse of life". That quote seems most
poignant to me at this time.
Anxiety usually strikes because of an
underlying issue. My issue was that my life had become shit, coupled with
depression because my father tried to slit his wrists. I refused anti -
depressants, anti - anxiety tablets - but said yes to therapy. Talking about
things really puts things into perspective, no matter how warped yours is. I'm
not saying all this too brag, I'm trying to tell you to look beyond the anxiety
and ask what's really causing the problem; it might be the best question you've
ever asked.
