Anxiety, you arsehole

Anxiety, you arsehole, you can go away now. You're not welcome here. You have never been welcome.

Yeah, you! I'm talking to you, Anxiety. You've lodged yourself in my head and on my chest and you're making it hard for me to breathe, to function.

Everything was going along so well and you had to come and crash my party. Again.

Why do you do that to me? Just when everything seems to be going along so well. I had plans, you fucker. I stood up and I declared this was my year and you took one look at me attempting to stand outside my comfort zone and you pushed me to the ground and said "get back in your box, bitch".

You first showed your ugly face again when I attempted to go back to work in an office environment, you know, to challenge myself. To stand up to you. Three days in and you beat me. Kicked me in the guts. Made me cry and stripped me of what self confidence I'd built up over the six months previous.

The very next day I took action against you. Rather than hide under the doona I marched on. I registered the name for the home business I'm setting up. I bought a domain name and paid for a ticket to the Australian VA Conference. I was winning. I thought I was anyway.

And then I hit a brick wall in my endeavours to meet a man. I wrote a post about my yearning for another child and the constant feelings of rejection and disappointment Internet dating had been causing me and that gave you power. The words I let spill out became food for the sleeping Anxiety monster within me. Yeah, I'm talking about you, Anxiety, you arsehole!

I knew you'd been hanging around quite close to the surface but I'd been ignoring you, hoping you'd piss off. You made it impossible for me to come here to write about what had been going on. The words scared me. That was until I wrote this post about nothing over the weekend in an attempt to shrug you off and clear the fog in my head.

I thought I was ok but then I started feeling that tightness I get just before a mini breakdown. I had a shower, letting the warm water rush over me, to cleanse the murkiness in my heart. I'm ok, I tried to convince myself. There's nothing to feel bad about.

Most of the family had gone for a walk and I was alone. I stepped out of the shower, grabbed my towel and clenched it up to my face. My chest was heaving now. The bottled up emotions were trying to escape. You had grown strong while I had exhausted myself in the battle to keep you away.

My breath caught in my throat and I started to cry. I couldn't stop. I fought the tears, gagging on my towel. I didn't want anyone to find me this way because I couldn't explain what was wrong. I just felt bad.

Standing up I looked in the mirror at you and made an internal scream asking for you to fuck off. I brushed my teeth, put my contacts on, went through the motions. I got dressed, packed our bags because it was time to head back to the city, and tried to focus on the doing rather than the thinking.

The family started to return from their walk and when my sister asked me how I was going I lied. "I'm fine", I replied. She's had enough on her plate lately and I didn't want to burden her with your visit to me again.

By the time my sister's family left and Noo was playing happily in the other room I was sitting with my parents contemplating clearing the lunch things when I blurted it out: "I'm not feeling well today!" and burst into tears all over again.

They know me so well. Your visits to me come regularly and they are often the ones to help me exorcise you, if only for a while. Thankfully you don't come nearly as often, or for as long as you used to, but still you tend to arrive in this rude, abrupt and disruptive way about every three to six months.

I was babbling through the tears to my parents trying to explain what I was feeling and why. But I didn't have any real answers, you are just present. As I looked over to these people who I love so much and who love me so much I noticed my dad was welling up too. It broke my heart seeing their pain as they watched mine.

Noo could hear me crying from the next room. He came in asking questions wanting to know if I was ok. Dad and I were wiping away our tears as we all tried to explain to my gorgeous little four year old that I was fine.

"Let's go back to the city, you'll be happy in the city", came Noo's solution to my problem. We had to laugh then.

Back home in the city

Forced to ignore you Anxiety I was able to push on, to get in the car and drive back down the Mountains to the city, our home. Of course you followed me. Sat right next to me in the car the whole way but you were silent as Noo slept on in the back and I focused on the Sunday afternoon traffic.

It has been two days since and I feel a little better but still bruised by the attack.

I just wish you'd leave me alone once and for all.

Anxiety, you arsehole.


V.

Linking up with #teamIBOT at Essentially Jess