I started a new job today. I fought hard with myself not to run away before lunchtime. I was successful with that. I began to count the minutes down to home time though, and I felt that all too familiar feeling in my stomach.
It’s cold, heavy, and awfully slimy. It writhes in my gut, growing larger with every panicked thought that darts through my brain.
Anxiety.
I travel home, fighting to smother the tears that keep coming to the surface. I normally do not cry. The medication makes it hard for me to cry over “small stuff”. I seem to save the tears for the “big stuff”, like when I am panicking over not knowing the in’s and out’s of a new job after 8 hours. Well, they leak out anyway. I sit there and sob while my all too patient partner drives me home. He’s seen this before too; but he’s understanding. He knows I suffer.
I get home and I cry, cry, cry, cry, and cry a little more. I cry for four hours (almost straight) and that brings me to now. I’m sitting here typing this so that I can try say what my brain is screaming at me. It won’t be a fun trip.
I cannot go in again tomorrow. I’m embarrassed by this. I’m absolutely mortified by my lack of strength but fucking hell I am tired. I cannot begin to fight anxiety when I have no ammo in my gun. Yet to buy ammo, I need money, to get money I must have a job, to have a job, I must be in a (relatively) healthy mindset, to have a healthy mindset I have to have ammo… you see where this is going.
My heart is telling me to ring in sick tomorrow, to try gather some ammo to tackle the work-anxiety, but how? Another part of me says “fuck it, just go in” and then I begin the cycle of paralyzing fear and sobbing again.
It’s horrible. This has happened before. I think I am a little bit broken, but gently glued back together with kid’s glue. Like some kind of vase that, if you glance at it quickly and look away again, you’d think it’s not a broken vase at all (sure it’s a little scuffed around the edges, but its a 31 year old vase, of course its going to get wear and tear)! Come a little bit closer though and then you’ll see them. The cracks: sneakily glued into place with Pritt Stick.
The crazy thing about this vase (yes, I’m sticking with this analogy) is that it can withstand incredible storms. The raging floods brought on by Loss, and Grief; the nasty hailstorms of disturbing family secrets, even the hurricanes of academic stress.
The only thing that will send it crumbling into a pile is Fear. Specifically Fear of Failure.
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