I come up against this wall plenty, in treating anxiety: Combating the sense of hopelessness, of powerlessness, that only too often accompanies the worst symptoms of anxiety disorders. How do I not get stuck when simply feeling things seems way above my pay grade? "If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself." -The Art of War

Is panic emotional pollution? Running on adrenaline, cortisol -the fear center of the brain staging neurochemical warfare on your nervous system- is the equivalent of climate change. It's dangerous. It's doing your whole system damage you can't even see: Forests for trees. Anxiety: I can't stand it anymore Anxiety alters the way our minds and bodies respond to stress so that it's harder, in the long term, to return to a state of calm and restfulness. I can't stand it anymore. If you have an anxiety disorder, you know what I mean.

Have you ever felt safe? Maybe that seems like a stupid question, and if it does, consider yourself lucky is about all I can say. My therapist asked me something like it once, and I ended up triggered, taking a 20 minute tangent via Intellectuals 'R Us to pick up a freakin' clue. Look hard enough at most things in modern life and they are pretty scary. Panic: Life = risk? Life = risk? Is that as good as things get?? Well, catastrophizing ever so slightly less, life = many things but in amongst them, inevitably, is an element of risk.

Anxiety manifests itself in the everyday, supposedly humdrum of it all, and fear has a way of telling me things which are otherwise impossible to speak; The things I cannot acknowledge must still be expressed, for so long as they are part of me, they will find ways to be. And so it is that the common cliches that clutter up the mind become the stuff of our most intense anxieties, and preoccupations:

What do you do if you feel stuck, helpless, hopeless, trapped, or in a crisis state? What happens when the help you get isn't enough, isn't good enough, or just isn't available at that time? Why is  treating anxiety often hit-and-miss? Why can't they cure it? Treating anxiety: Life is more than a 50-minute slot

Treating anxiety and my self-worth walk the same path, as much as I hate to admit it. When it comes to anxiety and panic - I don't want to see it. I don't want to feel it. I do want to fight it, and I do want to help, or at least find the kind of help that helps. But that is far, far easier said than done. When the way I'm treating anxiety fails, my self-worth falters, too.

Anxiety fills a room, even if it's empty. Uncanny but it manages, almost every time. The claws in my head grow wings, sprout tentacles, take over: my room, the house, the neighbourhood, and soon entire nations... What?! Oh, wait. Gradually, then all at once. That's how this stuff works because of course at first I am only dimly aware of it. It's not really an issue. The panic isn't big enough I'm tripping over it. Yet. Beyond black and white thinking

Most days I feel like I'm breaking and entering -in search of a place I fit. A narcissistic fantasy? The inverse reflection of all the pain I've kept on ice... The parts of the story that are hoped for, soon forgotten, and incredibly unlikely to come true. Living with anxiety: control?

I'm sitting in my apartment, my mind playing fast and loose with past and present, time and space. It's humid and muggy and I haven't slept properly in weeks. What makes Nightmare on Elm Street seem like Annie?

Yesterday I spent an hour deciding whether to get out of bed. Then another hour deciding if I felt okay to take a shower or eat something, then some considerable time pacing, trying to rid myself of the anxiety standing between me and actually getting dressed (pajamas are seductive, evil, wonderful things). At first I wasn't going to go to my usual Yoga class but then I was out, and it was round the corner anyway, so with some umming and ahhing and a couple of changes direction, I went. Left class with my nervous system a lot more chilled. But why all the resistance? It's like I want to live up to all these sayings: Carpe Diem, Own the Day. Only I feel more like a drone.