anxiety

Choogling

~ Bon Steele ~ 3 Comments

The face of anxiety is varied.

It is a fear of failure. It is a fear of success. It is a fear of never going anywhere. It is a fear of going somewhere and then fucking it up, but good. It is a fear of answering the phone. Fear of not answering it. Fear of rejection. Fear of offending someone, somehow. Fear of looking stupid. Fear of everything, everything, everything.

There are days, even as I look somewhat desperately for a job, that it is hard for me to even listen to voicemails left on my phone.

It is debilitating and exhausting. It makes everyday tasks seem insurmountable. Piles of clean laundry, waiting to be folded become monuments to Everything That is Wrong With Me™.

On the upside, I know most of it is in my head.

 

my head is a dark place, sometimes
my head is a dark place, sometimes

The downside is, of course, that often that doesn’t fucking matter. I can be perfectly aware that my thoughts aren’t right/normal/whatever and it doesn’t.fucking.matter. I will still sit in dread, petrified by the thoughts circulating in my brain like meth-addled goldfish.

Every now and again, I get a bright glimmer of me (as I used to be) flickering through my body. I’ll sit up straighter, start making plans and lists, think about story ideas, put away a few pieces of laundry. All too soon, the energy and oomph fade.

It’s disheartening, y’all.
It’s disheartening as fuck.

All I can do is to keep choogling. I’m too stubborn to just lay down and give up.

———————————————-

I started that ^^ post about three days ago. It took me that long to finish writing (*counts*) 270 or so words. Good grief.
Since then, my mood has crept back up to a more even keel and I’ve even (GASP!) put away a lot of laundry. Mt. Clean is no more. I feel like I should plant a fucking flag or something. I’m still climbing and there is still work to do. But, I am also not hiding in a corner and praying that it all overlooks me.

I’ll take it.

🙂

 

Peace and flag-planting on YOUR deepest, darkest night terrors m’friends. 

 

 

Halp, halp. I’m being depressed.

~ Bon Steele ~ 3 Comments

Flippant title is not meant to be insulting. I was just amused by the rhyme and how it fit in with my current mental situation.
Thanks,
-The Mgmt

I read a really interesting article yesterday. It had to do with how people who are struggling with mental illness(es) often lead dual lives. A photographer, who also suffers from depression, is doing a beautiful series called “Dualities” that seeks to show the inner and outer faces of what living without endless spoons is truly like.

I thought about this article for a long time. I don’t know that  I would classify myself as having a mental illness, per se. I am easily overwhelmed and I suffer a form of social anxiety with large crowds or unknowns. I get hysterically furious if I am startled and it takes a good bit to calm down from hearing people bark at me in anger. But never have I been given The Diagnosis(tm, pat pending) from doctors or therapii1.

I wondered what my portraits would like, if she did them. I think that they would look something like this.

LEFT:

BON_has a sad again
The house has become chaos, the chaos overwhelms, and things pile up but there is no energy to do them, even getting out of bed is a chore to be dreaded. Crying takes too much energy, better to just hobbit-up and pretend that everything is OK.

RIGHT:

close up
Everything is sparkly and gay and full of laughter. Wit and energy bubble up and crash over everything, leaving a mirth residue and completed writings. Eventually it all gets away from center and wholesome energy becomes chaos and then we precede to LEFT, again.
It isn’t always this bad, but it can be if I am not careful. Prolonged stress and/or illness make it worse. Not writing makes even more hideous.I have  been in a place of no writing, no exercising, no time to de-stress. This, I truly believe, is part of what caused my usually kickass immune system to seek companionship with a flu; sort of like a belligerent and lonely drunk picking fights in a bar.
I’ll get back to working on it. Strangely enough, the enforced rest has done wonders for the stress. I’m still a little freaked, but everything doesn’t seem so fucking LOOMING as it has been.

My mental place is what it is, and I am working on it as I can.

1 – “Therapii” is the plural form, of course.

I Think That Shakespeare Said it Best

~ Bon Steele ~ 1 Comment

of course, he often did..

 “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”1

 Today is a day of reflection and thought. I am sitting here in my office, halfway to my 45th birthday. What, I wonder, is my mark upon this world? Do I even need to make a mark? What have I done with my life, that I could die feeling that I had lived all that I could?

And, to be fair and honest, the answer is “Quite a lot, you silly twit. Stop being maudlin.”
I have. I have a wonderful daughter. I have a wonderful set of friends and pseudo-husband. I am about to finish all the paperwork & flaming hoop-leaping required to finish my degree. I have a lovely home in a pretty, rural area.
I am blessed in so.many.ways.

But there are places I want to go, things that I want to do, that I want to see. Things that explore beyond the little confines of my life as it currently stands.

I am, usually, a grabber of horns. I want to do something, I go and do it. However, in the last few years I have felt too old, too used up, to broken, too busy, too out of shape.

“I can do anything!” became “I don’t think I can do that. I’m [___insert excuse___]” instead.

I have to tell you friends, that is a lonely way to live your life. Hiding from the world and then feeling left out?  Recipe for disaster.

Well, fuck that. I am better than that. I am worth more than fading away and sitting quiet and hoping that I will be overlooked2.

No. I will pick back up the reins of my life. I will drive myself to where I want to be, physically, emotionally, and mentally. I have a plan. I have a therapist3.  I will do whatever I can to win the war on apathy and lethargy.

Image

1 – The quote in its entirety:

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger.”
           ― William Shakespeare, Henry V

2 – And perversely, feeling depressed when I was. Because THAT makes sense, yo.

3 – Oh, thank goodness!