I have spent a lot of time over the past couple years fearing my own emotions.
I had a lot of anxiety as a kid and teenager, but had managed to have it largely in check for most of my adult life, until a couple summers ago when we had some really bad issues with a rental property we owned, which set me into a bit of an anxiety spiral that I’m still trying to get out of. I have learned that for me, stress begets more stress; when I am already amped up about one thing, I will have a much harder time responding to the next stressful thing with a proportionate amount of stress, which results in me getting amped up even further, and so on. I think this probably driven primarily by brain chemistry, and therefore not nearly as under my control as I’d like. I managed to keep it in check for over a decade by just not allowing myself to become too stressed - but that was in large part possible because my life was relatively uncomplicated.
The last couple years have been hard. It started with the suicide at our rental property (which was obviously far worse for the family than for me, but it did throw me off as well). My dad died six months later, and then my mom sort of struggled with that, and I worried for her. A couple other things happened after that that ordinarily probably wouldn’t have made me wig out, but I was already primed to wig out, so that’s what I did.
And then there’s everything that’s happened this year. This year has honestly been hell. Obviously COVID has sucked for everyone, and I had a lot of anxiety about it at the very beginning, though I managed to mostly shake it off after a month or so, once I felt like I had a sense of what to expect. Then the unrest in Minneapolis broke out, and I live like three blocks from where it started and a block off of the main street where everything was being burned, so we spent a week sleeping in shifts so we could watch for activity on our street. That is honestly one of the most stressful things I have ever lived through, and it has radically shaken my ability to feel safe in my home. I think I have a little bit of PTSD from that.
And now there’s everything with my mom.
I do feel better on the Zoloft - so much better, in fact, that I can see my thought patterns clearly and think about them instead of just being consumed by panic, which has been the norm for me for so much of this year.
I’m thinking about this today as I’m trying to manage, or at least have a better awareness of, my emotions as my mom goes to see her new oncologist. In the past, when I knew there would be new information emerging, I have spent the day in a more-or-less constant state of panic. The day that my mom was finally diagnosed with cancer, I suspected the worst and spent the entire day, until the news FINALLY came at like 7 in the evening, in such a state of panic that I could hardly function. It’s one of the worst days I can ever remember having. To be honest, it was far worse than the day after, when my worst fears had been confirmed.
And today, as I’m anticipating getting bad news via the oncologist, I’m not sure what I dread most - the news itself, the awful aftermath of getting the news, or the hellish anticipation of the news. It’s like a big tangle of mutually-amplifying negativity - the news will likely suck. I will be unhappy after hearing the news, and I am not looking forward to that. I am scared about how awful I will feel, which is giving me dread, and the dread is making me anxiously anticipate the news, and the anxiety is giving me MORE anxiety about spending the day in a wretched state of panic all over again.
I just want out of this cycle. There will obviously be sadness, grief, worry as everything unfolds, but I want to be free to experience it without the added effect of fear OF the sadness, grief, and worry, for fuck’s sake. This is bad enough without my brain multiplying the impact of every negative emotion.
All morning, everytime I’ve remembered that my mom sees the oncologist today, I feel a little surge of stress - maybe not quite panic, thankfully - which I sort of suspect is mostly just driven by habit. I’m so used to the hyper-anticipation of every little negative thing by now that they’ve become their own stress triggers.
But it dawned on me a couple nights ago just how maddeningly dysfunctional it is to feel all your awful feelings twice the way I have been. This is NOT an insight I’d have been able to have without the Zoloft, I’m fairly certain. But the Zoloft can’t change my habits for me.
So everytime I feel that panic, I am trying to remind myself - whatever happens, I will figure out a way to deal with it, and I will just deal with it. Sometimes it will feel unbearable, but other times it will feel okay. It’s one of the worst things, but it’s something most of us go through at some point, and something I would have had to go through regardless, whether now or years down the line. It’s not okay. But it’s also sort of okay.
-
They say you learn a lot out there
How to scorch and burn
Only have to bury your friends
Then you’ll find it gets worse
Standing out on the ledge
With no way to get down
You start praying for wings to grow
Oh, baby, just let go
Nathaniel Rateliff - And It’s Still Alright
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