angry jalebi

... and tonight is one of those nights.

I don't know how I feel about this gif. It reminds me of a time in my life when my anxiety was a lot more physical. I experienced it a lot in my hands. In the middle of my palm and in my wrists, it felt like my veins were being tied in the tightest little knots and it was sharp, painful. That's when I knew I was anxious about something. I'd get that familiar, horrible feeling in my hands and it was my cue to do what I did best back then. Avoid.

That's why I don't know how to feel. On one hand, it feels slightly triggering to see this image because it reminds me of that feeling. But it also makes me realise that I don't get that feeling in my hands anymore. And I don't know if that's progress, because my anxiety started to manifest in other ways, but it feels like it might be, just because it doesn't happen anymore. One down, you know?

These past two months have been hard. I mean, this past year has been a difficult one, but the last two months in particular have been rough. I'm always up and down, bouncing from one extreme feeling to another, but I can sense when it's different and this time it is. I can feel myself slipping into an unfamiliar (yet somehow slightly familiar) state of mind. I'm confused all the time. Tired all the time. Sad all the time. Overwhelmed all the time. I feel so many things yet I feel nothing at all, all at once. I don't have any hope. I don't think I'm capable of being truly happy or satisfied in this life. I feel loss. I feel a deep sadness for myself, for the little girl I was because she went through pain for nothing because I don't have the strength to do her justice. I feel like I wasted her life. Like if she could see a glimpse of the future and into my mind, she wouldn't see the point in carrying on because it never really got better. I'm suffering. I've always been suffering. And I think I always will.

For a long time I felt choked by my secret anxiety. 

It sat lodged in my throat, and every time I opened my mouth to reveal it, no words came out. I chalked it up to nerves. I thought everyone felt the way I felt and that, like me, they were fucking great at hiding it. We were a silent clan of anxiety warriors and nobody would ever know. But as I grew older my anxieties grew with me, and even when I stopped growing they continued to evolve. 

Suddenly my body couldn’t contain them anymore. The anxious moments turned into anxious weeks and months, the trembling hands turned into full body shakes as if I held an earthquake inside me, controlled hyperventilating before a presentation turned into curling up under the sheets and wanting to die because I had to make a phone call that month. 

Every day, my mood would rise like a tide and then come crashing down moments later, the waves swallowing me whole. Drowning me. 

The anxiety had spread from a small hole in the back of my mind to every nerve and cell in my body. It sat back in my brain and put it’s feet up. It enclosed it’s stiff hands around my heart and laced it’s fingers through my ribcage, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe. Everything became a battle. 

Getting out of bed in the morning. 

Forcing myself to eat something. 

Lifting my head at the bathroom sink. 

Going to work and pretending my chest wasn’t caving in. 

My anxiety convinces me I’m incapable of ever being happy and loved, and it whispers in my ear that everything is always my fault even when it’s not. The saddest thing is, I don’t know who I am without my anxiety. When I wake up feeling good, I’m struck with a nagging feeling of emptiness not long after. 

I don’t know how to explain anxiety to someone who has never had it. Not in a way that would make them really get it. The only way I can accurately describe it is that it’s like being in an abusive relationship with my own mind. Anxiety’s harsh words cut into my skin like a knife and it leaves bruises where no one can see them. 

Everyone hates you. 

You’re pointless. 

You can’t do anything right. 

You should just die. 

The trick is it speaks in first person, making me think I believe those things — that those thoughts are mine so they’re true. And the whole time this is happening, I’m holding it together and functioning, just like everybody else. I’m getting on with shit, just like everybody else. I’m cheerful when I bump into you on the street. Just. Like. Every. Body. Else. 

Because I have no choice. 

Because my abuser is weak. 

My anxiety is weak.