Wanted: Anxiety Relief

The fear's on different floors, locked in boxes, scattered in the places, worn out spaces I don't go. And if that's true, if it's everywhere and nowhere and exactly right here, where I don't want to look - then it's probably a big thing. Bigger than me. Maybe bigger than I should mess with:

But I want to understand.
Don't you?

Things thought while captive

Trauma, PTSD, anxiety attacks. OCD, social anxiety, phobias, mental health. What do all those labels mean? On a good day, hopefully not too much. Not the weight of the world, not on a good day.

For anxiety sufferers, a whole lot of the time they're just a fancy way of saying that we're lonely, restless, aching, breaking, stunned, silent, scared, trapped... Exhausted.

It's like I've spent a lifetime playing pin the tail on the donkey, and it's luck, if now and then, the labels fit; If we can wear them without feeling too broken, bitter, numb.

Just now, I'm a little roughed up: My gut filled with dread, heavy even though it's empty and I feel a bit ill because I'm trying to think what makes me so scared that I need to jump out of my skin.

Mental health, stigma, and anxiety

This isn't about right and wrong. Most people find it hard to tolerate ambiguities, and isn't anxiety just that? Ambiguous.

First you're shaking, then you're stressed: It's oh so quiet, and then...

It's hard to get this anxiety thing when your mind thinks in black and white, when opposites attract and your breath sucks you in like a vacuum and it doesn't let go.

So you try to make space, let the grey in; You try to get out there, do all the things you're supposed to do, that the doctor, anxiety therapist, psychiatrist, tells you to do.

Hold up your end of the bargain. And if that's not enough, c'est la vie. It's not my fault-- I didn't start this thing.

It started long ago, maybe in my genes. Runs in the family, y'know, or maybe Freud was right, even if he was a cokehead.

Maybe I'll never know except that I didn't start this thing,
this thing that only I can finish.

Coping with Anxiety

By packing my purse full of preventative measures, things that prop me up, a flashlight to unveil the darkness and a cell phone, just in case I need to call a cab to get away from yesterday, fast.

I sit around at 4am, staring at the television screen: It's standing still, my heart is beating,
Man, I wish the Xanax would kick in.

And it will go as quickly as it came, bit by bit, then all at once.
Like the great flood, and I was the sea.

Do you see me? I'm trying not to run too far away, so maybe you'll catch me. Maybe I'll be able to just keep still, think the right thing, take the right pill.

There's always tomorrow, that much I know. And maybe, just maybe I could find anxiety relief.