I Get Anxious

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAMy husband says I’m a delicate flower, and while, yeah, that’s true, it’s not all that’s true. I have anxiety. I have PTSD. I have issues.

This is not a case of disease-or-malady-of-the-week, a la celiac wannabees, or whatever Madison Avenue tells us this month is wrong with us (You need oat bran! You need Vitamin E! You need aloe!).

I really, really get anxious. I take a little pill each morning which cuts out the crazy part of anxiety — the part that screams all day long in my ear WE’RE DOOMED. YOU F*CKED UP AGAIN. EVERYONE HATES YOU. DIE DIE DIE. And for this, I am truly grateful to Big Pharma for coming up with a chemical that counteracts the panic in my brain.

There’s no need to panic. But my brain/body panics a lot. Count yourself grateful that you’re not me. Because it is beyond sucky to get into your car, and then be unable to leave the driveway because you suddenly had a vision of yourself hurtling down the highway and crashing headlong into another vehicle, and the impact accordions the front of the car, I am crushed, I can’t breathe, I am being squeezed to death, and blip, I actually, truly feel my soul slip free from this dying body. I felt it. It was real. #truestory that never actually happened.

There’s no need to visualize my daughters’ bodies severed under the rumbling wheels of the kiddie train at the zoo. It’s unnecessary to waste minutes or hours waiting for the earthquake that will flatten the house on top of me. I can feel the roof coming down. I can taste the grit in my teeth. I can see the meteor coming with my name on it. I think these things. I have done so for years.

But usually my anxiety is of a lighter shade of freak: I don’t want to go to a party. I don’t want to be on the freeway for an hour. I don’t want to go out and face the eyes that feel like a thousand needles or the smiles that sometimes seem like bared teeth. I don’t want to have to explain myself. I used to force myself to go, and ended the day feeling exhausted, broken, unable to string words together, my skin erupting in hives and my hands shaking with the palsy of terror.

But I don’t make myself “be good” anymore. I don’t perform because other people might be disappointed. I know how it feels to be kind to myself and how it feels when I’m not.

I didn’t go to an event yesterday that I had wanted to cover, that I’d looked forward to writing about, because when it came time to go, my inner animal said no. It didn’t feel safe or wise. (And it was totally safe — a gathering of women to celebrate other women heroines. Utterly, completely safe as can be.) I took care of my inner fear-bot with books and ice-cold raw cucumbers and pineapple chunks, with a lemon freezer bar and a nice walk around the block. I didn’t die a grisly death and no meteors hit me. I feel better today. I’m writing now, aren’t I?

You know the positive part of this? I write good stories. I make my imaginary stories feel real. I can use this power for good. Most days that’s what happens. But sometimes I drop out because it’s too much. I curl into an armadillo ball and breathe until the baddies go away. (By the way, if you also suffer from anxiety, try tapping for anxiety; it’s pretty amazing. It’s free, it’s drug-free, and you can watch it on the Internet. Plus, it works.)

Don’t take it personally if I don’t show up sometimes. It’s because I can’t. But I’ll show up the next time. Probably.

I am a delicate flower. And it’s OK that you know that about me.

Writing What Scares You

-MAM33typinghandI have written a few essays lately, inspired by the lovely and talented writers Jordan Rosenfeld, Rachel Thompson and Lillian Ann Slugocki, that scared the bejeebers out of me. Actually, the work scared me even more than that, but I’m trying to be polite. And what I’ve discovered is that it’s harder than I ever thought to put certain words and experiences down on paper. But it also feels better than I expected to have done so.

I’ve had a couple of stories in my mind for many years that I thought, “Someday I will write that down. Someday, I’ll put that on paper and everyone will read it and know how I feel.”

Truth of the matter is, “someday” took a very long time to get here – decades. Twenty, thirty years, even. Why did it take so long? What held me back? Fear, of course – and not just nerves: “I wonder if I can do justice to this topic?” Not just, “Am I the best writer for this, or who wants to hear my story anyway?” I’m talking post-traumatic stress disorder-level fear. Terror. Panic attacks. Insomnia.

Gut-spilling is utterly demoralizing. When you, as a writer, make yourself vulnerable by writing something dear to your heart, you take a chance that people will read it with respect, and not brutalize you or shun you. You hope people will like it (and I don’t mean just your mom or your spouse).

Should I paint myself neon green, set my hair on fire, and walk down the street naked? Feels like it today, when the comments are racking up, the Facebook shares, comments, likes are ticking away, and I can see it being retweeted. A story I’ve written is birthed into the world, and the trolls are out with pitchforks and clubs, flaming while they sip their coffee and sport with a topic that for them is a moment’s entertainment, but for me, is the result of years of pent-up angst, fear, and shame. A story that haunts me still.

Here’s the link to one of these pieces: http://www.spj.org/quill_issue.asp?ref=2174

Others are still waiting to see the light, to get the editor’s go-ahead. I wrote it, I revised it, I took the plunge and sent it out, an editor snapped it up and has it in the queue. Isn’t that what we are dying for? Waiting all out writerly lives for? Of course. But birth pangs are hard, and even afterbirth pains hurt.

Lessons learned?

  • Don’t read the comments.
  • Don’t feed the trolls.
  • It’s not about me, it’s about the commenter.
  • If I have helped one person, it’s been worth it.
  • My friends love and support me.
  • Not everyone deserves to read my stories.
  • You can’t stop the Internet.
  • Telling is freeing. Telling is healing.

It’s scary as heck to tell your secrets. Find a buddy, and tell them anyway. It’s terrifying. But I did it. Can you?