This is what I know about Anxiety
I’ve been wondering around the lonely halls of my mind trying to figure out how I want to start this year. 2020’s come-down was long. I felt like I broke up with a part of myself somewhere along the way when I let it all go.
I’ve been staying out late scrambling notes down on my phone. I’ve been spending too much time baking in the sun. Smoking too many cigarettes in my car listening to Two Door Cinema Club on my iPhone, since my car speakers have crapped themselves (again). I’ve been drinking too much, eating too much, swearing too much. I’ve been pouring life up in a Margarita mixer and open throating it. I’ve got lovebites and bug bites. I’ve been living. I still have glitter in my hair from god knows what fucking festival and I still can’t seem to get the sand out of my cracks down below, but I wouldn’t wish for anything else. All of it is life’s love rash all over me.
I think 2020 forced me to appreciate freedom. The ability to be agile. Flexible. Bend it like Beckham, baby. So, really, all I want this year is my freedom.
A week ago I opened my Instagram up to my friends and spoke to them about their anxiety experiences. Something I’ve been working through. I go through periods of intense anxiety, like seasons; it always crushes me when I least expect it. It’s all-consuming. For me, anxiety feels like a tight chest, biting my fingernails until they bleed; it feels like a shallow breath and cracked out heartbeat. It feels like checking that you’ve locked the door three times. It feels like avoiding going to the supermarket alone because it’s almost triggering. It’s the constant doubt and fear of the unknown. Don’t even get me started on hangxiety. Historically, I haven’t spoken to many people about my anxiety. I used to take citalopram every day. It helped. I took it (I believe) for nearly two years. I went on it when I came home from New York. I was in a really bad space when I got back from New York. It’s hard being ejected out of an environment you felt most at home within, being separated from a newfound family, but that city was drowning me. It nearly swallowed me whole.
I stopped taking Citalopram one day randomly. It was almost like my mind just ditched it. I went cold turkey (against all the recommendations from my psychiatrist). But, it worked for me. When I was taking Citalopram, I felt ashamed. I used to pop the pills in my work’s bathroom. It made me feel numb, and sometimes it made me feel like nothing at all. But all of it couldn’t mask this weird shame. And I really had no idea why I felt so much guilt for being on medication. I always used to feel sick when I was driving to my psychiatrist’s office in Ponsonby, and I don’t know why. I just felt like less of a person. Incapable of managing my own brain. Anyway, after engaging in an online discussion (of sorts) about anxiety, I was blown away with how many people are living through this very lucid nightmare. I was shocked but heartened at the number of people currently on medication for their struggles with anxiety. It left me wondering why we don’t talk about the under-belly of anxiety, the number of people struggling with it and how we can better support each other. I feel like when someone says their anxious, it’s so common that people can almost flog it off. Like, oh, whatever, same. But seriously. This thing is really fucking with people. I think what I learnt the most over the last week is how cooked the concept of feeling ashamed about being on medication is, like, we’re actively trying to better ourselves, heal ourselves, wake up – but, at the same time, we’re ashamed of doing so. Ashamed to tell our employer or boyfriend. I just want people to be more real about anxiety. People are out here sharing this perfect image: they wake up, down back a luxurious, creamy green smoothie and slog some personalised Vitally vitamins, but others need more than a drop of collagen to function.
I guess, what I am trying to say is, part of my pledge for freedom in 2021 is also my relentless pursuit for transparency. I need to start showing up for myself more. I’m over cat-fish filters, going to parties with social piranhas that bitch about me the moment I dash to the bar. I’m over not sharing with you exactly how I feel. I struggle with anxiety, sometimes it’s really intense, sometimes it’s not. I currently gulp down Bach Rescue Remedy, BraveFace Day Spray, I want to marry Andy from Headspace, and I learnt from a friend (hi Molly) a clever breathing technique that I want to share with you.
Stand w both feet grounded, find your pulse on your wrist and listen to it super closely, then slowly in your head think of all the 5 senses around your, what you can hear, see, smell, touch and taste. It's so good for bringing directly into the present. The pulse thing is just so grounding, it reminds you that your body is working in real time and in that moment it's more important and bigger than your mind or stresses. It's a real physical reminder of the present. Idk but it helps me so much.
It’s interesting, because, for something that’s taken up so much of my life. That’s lived in my head rent-free for the last twenty or so years, I still really know sweet f all about anxiety. All I know is that I am not alone. And this whole guilt thing with medication, it’s got to end. I wish people with authentic influence would start using their platforms to speak more candidly about mental health. I’m fucking done with the vitamins.
Thank you to everyone who reached out and helped me write this. I hope I did you proud. I tried.
