bottom turn

i'm goin' surfin 'cuz i don't like your face

edit: i keep almost deleting this post altogether. i’ll continue trying not to.

Made it to August.

The back end of July left a mark. I want to talk about it/I don’t want to talk about it. I’m trying to figure it out/I’m trying to forget it.

I’ve already shared my struggles with anxiety here. Already talked about how strange this stranger is; depression, remaining on the other end of known. I wouldn’t say we’re friendly but I know what tea to offer when it comes around.

When anxiety arrives(unwanted, yet somehow having her own key?), she doesn’t want a drink. Instead she sweeps an arm and clears the counter. She stepstools my sink to rip the cabinets off the wall. Steals the light when she bites down on the bulbs.

I don’t know her.

After days and days of fight or flight it’s hard not to feel like this is you now—all nerves always touched and the need to escape runs you over and over and over while its driver screams “Come on—get IN.” You think: this is who I am now—afraid to leave the house. 7 am panic attacks. Lunch break panic attacks. Make a phone call to hear a voice because if you do not the Big Bad Thing will happen and you are the cause and you are the joke and all you want is for it to stop. You have yet to learn how to ride the wave so you run from it which means it only swells larger for longer. Everyone mandated to do so asks do you feel safe and how do you answer when everything foghorns Danger…even your own mind is a threat—especially your mind is threat and how does one get away from that?

Docs kept assuring: “acute withdrawal; it goes away.” And the worst of it did slide off of me, eventually—storm clouds gone to a neighboring city. There are still little moments when I try to leave the house and think absolutely not. Sometimes I breathe and wait and glide with that bully wave, and sometimes I do stay home and crawl into bed with a book instead. The wave still rising but losing inspiration as I fall into the pages. Reading remains such good medicine.

I fell into the story I told myself: deeming birth and postpartum the culprit. And true, motherhood will shift you. Or shove you. But what if I didn’t have her, and this still happened? What’s the story then? Does the source matter? Ultimately, no. Motherhood is not the only mode of transportation. What matters is surviving, and when anxiety arrives that means offering her a seat at my table.¹ This could very well be a part of living that I need to get to know and figure out.

Panic and anxiety are so physical. Though I remain fascinated by this physicality, I despise this trait of my guest, so I’ve started moving my body different. It is not rooted so much in pace as it is with intent. I try to give my breath more attention. I am still not that good at it so I practice, and sometimes the practice feels dumb and sometimes it makes things worse because I get stuck on what you might call the beat of the bomb. My pulse/the lungs act as proof of “being” and at its absolute worst my anxiety builds a sprawling estate here, until living feels so wrong and so dangerous that…it must be stopped.

My mind has done nothing but do its job. React to perceived threat. Fear told me not to trust her and I listened. Running from it only wastes time. And there is no time, is there? There is no time.

And here I be with a shitty house guest. Determining their place of origin isn’t the goal.² Knowing or not doesn’t change it. Doesn’t make it any less real, won’t untrip the wire. Doesn’t get it to stop. The waves are here and knowing why will not shut them off. So I’ll give surfing a go, yeah? Let the proverbial swells lift me like victory while I breathe. Balance. Aim to find my way to shore.

1. Though I imagine anxiety patting my arm with “no need” before sitting down in fear’s lap & grabbing mashed potatoes with both hands

2. So where did you grow up? What brought you to these parts? How do I get you to go the fuck away?