Anxiety comes in a lot of forms and people experience it differently. We also tend to call it different names. For me, I call it Panic. Panic first appeared in my life when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s when I was 15. It starts with a thought. Back then it was a fairly typical thought that a lot of people with disabilities think – “Why me?”. As I’ve gotten older, it’s morphed into “What am I going to do?”. When I was a teenager, the why would get louder in my head. With the noise in my head building, I’d curl up into a ball in the foetal position. Then I’d start yelling it at the top of my lungs. My arms would be up over my head like I was protecting my face. My parents would understandably not know what to do. They’d try to pull my arms down or try to talk me down, but at the end of the day it just needed to calm down itself. The only thing that would work would be playing music to calm me down. I used to go to sleep to Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters on repeat.
Nowadays it comes as a “What am I going to do?”. My thoughts start racing about how all these treatments I do for my Crohn’s are just holding back the flood gates. My brain tells me that one day those flood gates are going to burst and it’ll be over. I won’t be able to work, won’t be able to feed my family, I’ll have to sell all my collections of stuff, and then what? I shut down. I can’t share what I’m thinking with anyone. I lay on my side on the couch, and try to wait till it passes. Sometimes, if I can get angry, that can help. Anger is a bit of a misunderstood emotion. I find it motivating. Jumpdafuckup by Soulfly is particularly motivating for me. If I can’t get angry, I just have to wait till it passes, and try to distract my mind by watching something on TV. The Panic mostly comes at night, mostly. Often when I’m trying to sleep. Luckily, I have a very floofy cat called Presley who has slept on me for the past seven years. Patting her gives me something else to focus on until it passes.
Why am I telling you this? Catharsis? Maybe I can rationalise it by saying that if you experience it too, you’re not alone. Also, because when it comes to some of this stuff, it’s not healthy for me to shut down. Knowing it will pass is useful, because I know that I’m not actually having a heart attack. But not sharing what I’m experiencing with others can mean I seem withdrawn or angry. Me talking about it in this column is helpful, and let’s be honest, all columnists are pretty self-serving and just want to appear all knowing or heal their own shit, right?
Saying that the world is getting more stressful and you just need to get over it isn’t helpful. Talking about it more is. You’re not abnormal and you’re not alone. If you’re able to reach out, well done, because that will help you recognise this, I hope. At the very least, you share something with a selfish columnist in the Waikato.
Take care.
