I love showers. Hot showers. Just one tiny turn off from pain, so it’s just hitting the edge. Because when the shower hits that point, my brain has to focus on the most prominent pain, and turns off the rest, so it’s only in the shower that my body stops hurting. It’s glorious.
It also lets me get a sense of what else is going on in my body, like the near-constant flutter of butterflies-in-my-stomach. And my mind jumps back 25 years……
I wish I understood the mechanisms of anxiety, at least within myself. I believe, perhaps mistakenly, that understanding these mechanisms would make it easier to resolve them, to overcome them. So that they’d stop ruling my life.
I had intended to leave my apartment about 5 hours ago to go get a haircut. It still hasn’t happened. Or, more accurately, I still haven’t gotten up and left.
It’s a bizarre feeling. It’s like that if I “decide” to do something, that decision gets consciously processed in the usual way and then….. nothing happens. I don’t rise out of my chair. My legs don’t move into position to lift me up. But if my legs are uncomfortable in their current position, I can move them just fine.
I can decide to type, or not to type, or to think about pretty much anything, but once I start thinking about “going outside”, suddenly there’s a *crowd* of other thoughts that urgently need my attention. Like I should take a shower. Or I should check my email. Or read an article. Or just play 15min of a game.
Looking at the door doesn’t cause me any consternation or fear. I’ve opened the door several times today to step out to get some air. That’s a non-issue. But once I decide that this move is to leave? Nope, nothing happens. Or, more accurately, something that *isn’t* me getting up to leave happens. E.g. this article.
There’s no obvious cause in my consciousness for this, no “nope, let’s do something else”-thought, I’m just suddenly flipping through twitter, or facebook, or doing a random search for details on my insurance, or….. So there’s nothing to discuss or argue against, to make my case in favour of a months-overdue haircut. The haircut is cheap, so the cost isn’t an issue.
And I am on edge, anxious. And I know that the moment I decide “ok, fine, not today”, I’ll feel my entire body relax, as if it were bracing for a massive burst of muscle-energy that is now no longer needed.
And it’ll be another day without a haircut. And if I can’t handle going outside, 100m from my home, for that, what fucking hope does the rest of my life have?
I’ve spent most of my life dealing with ‘rage’ issues. I’ve never been physically violent, but verbal vitriol, especially online, has been an issue in the past (and something that I continue to work on, of course). So I know of what I speak when I talk about the seductiveness of rage, and the appeal of anger, and the problems that can accompany them.
For the skimmers: if you conclude from this article that I believe that one should never feel or act on anger, then you have not read this article correctly.
In retrospect, I spent much of my teenage years and early twenties in a mild depression. The why of that is not pertinent to this article, but it’s important to understand that depression doesn’t simply mean ‘feeling sad’. Oftentimes there’s no feeling at all: feeling sad would be a positive change of affairs, because then I would have actually felt *something*.
Here’s a thing that I attribute to my anxiety, but perhaps other people (not suffering from anxiety) deal with it too.
I’ll get engrossed in reading articles/playing games that time passes and I get hungry. Not “omfg, I’m going to die if I don’t eat”-hungry, but the pangs aren’t minor. Noticing them, bringing them into attention, is uncomfortable.
So I’ll go back to reading articles/playing games “for just a couple more minutes”, moving the hunger back out of awareness such that I don’t feel the pangs anymore. Then I’ll think about getting some food, and the cycle continues.
This can mean that sometimes (on a day off) I don’t eat from the moment I wake up for 10+ hours, until I finally suck up the wherewithal to just go make something to eat. Or if I’ve made the mistake of doing this for several days in a row, such that I keep failing to go for groceries, I end up ordering food (which is, of course, expensive, but I can do it through the computer, so I can avoid thinking about it some more…..).
This is one of the many shitty things that anxiety does, and contributes to me not showing up places (because I’ve put off eating, which requires me to get groceries, and oh look, I’m supposed to be at x in 20 minutes…..), and wiping out my money.
(Posting this as a way of motivating myself to get to the grocery store before in closes in 75min. No suggestions/advice sought)
I did laundry today.
I can appreciate that this seems like a minor thing. ‘Seriously, Brian? Posting about doing laundry? Ffs…..’
My anxiety has been pretty bad the last couple of weeks. The threat of job loss hanging over my head, alongside dealing with incompetent and unprofessional HR staff (I know, I know, ‘HR staff’ would have been sufficient…..), plus some kind of low-level fever that I’ve had for about a week now……. It’s all pretty difficult. I’m fortunate to have good friends.
‘Doing laundry’ takes me roughly 2 hours. I don’t own a washing machine or dryer, and the nearest coin laundry is 10-15min away, depending on how long I have to wait for a bus. I need to sit there while it runs. So I need to find a day where I can set aside 2hrs of basically doing nothing (there’s insufficient space to do the marking that I’ve committed to doing), and I need to spend some time getting physical cash (because why the fuck would I carry cash when debit is ubiquitous?). For everyone else, this is a bit of a pain in the ass. For someone with anxiety, where every step in this process requires a chunk of additional effort: This. Fucking. Sucks.
[Here’s a visual aid. Imagine, though, that this is required for *every* task. Like going to the ATM to get money. Get clothes into a bag for bringing to the laundry place. Actually going to the laundry place.]
It’s been [a socially unacceptable amount of time] since I did laundry. Y’know that scene in Ghostbusters 2, where Weaver is going to stay over at Murray’s apartment, and she discovers all his unwashed clothes, and he’s like ‘no, no, they don’t smell bad, they’re still good’, and it’s hilarious? It’s not so hilarious when you’re living it. Especially when hygiene is particularly important to you. I mentioned having good friends: if they noticed my situation, they didn’t comment. And I appreciate that.
My local laundry place does a drop-off service. I’m thinking of doing that just to take the edge off my anxiety: I’ll only have to set aside 20-30min twice in a week, about twice a month (2 round trips each time, drop off then pick up), and I won’t need to worry about change. It’ll cost my about $17 a pop, instead of $4, but it might be worth it to ensure that the laundry gets done. (I’ve looked into pickup services: they don’t charge for the pickup, but they charge 2-3 times what my local place charges, and their minimum is often $30-$50)
Anywho. I did laundry today.