In all honesty, I am not an optimistic, cheerful person by nature. I just tend to do a good job of making myself seem like my attitude is more radiant and sparkly than my dark panic-stricken, inner dialogue. Practice makes perfect.
Most days my face says this:
But my brain says this:
A little-known fact about me is that I have, for many, many years struggled with debilitating anxiety, panic attacks, more than random depressive thoughts and the inevitable insomniac nights that plague these conditions. Not being able to sleep – for whatever reason – is a silent hell like no other. If you have never fallen prey to the cyclical pulverisation of consecutive sleepless nights, then consider yourself an exceptionally lucky human.
I mostly like to write about things being good. People mostly like to read about things being good. But despite the lengthy list of magical and amazing things that happened in my life this year – most significantly the birth of my daughter – 2016 has been one of the most overwhelming and underwhelming of years in multiple ways. (I had my chest cut open in 2015 and my father died in 2014, so that says a lot about how much of a sewerage plant explosion this year had been).
I know loads of people feel the same way about this year in general.
I especially haven’t felt a whole lot of funny this past little while. I have felt tired and a little sick from deep in my insides.
I am struggling a lot lately. This past week was rife with anxiety, self-doubt and feeling there is no reason to be hopeful.
The weather and my mood were the same.
Grey.
Believing that you are devoid of hope and unable to be optimistic is the worst feeling of all. Hopelessness is the biggest playing card anxiety can deal you. Feeling like nothing matters or that you can’t change things is a debilitating cycle. Anxiety is a debilitating cycle.
Despite the lengthy list of things that are unmistakably great. I feel quite lost.
And I worry so much about the kind of world from which I will have to protect my baby girl.
I worry about the broken volume control of hate that has gotten stuck on high.
I worry that we are forsaking kindness, and are tumbling into the tentacles of global conflict. Hatred is the machine of war that the vast majority of we humans want desperately to avoid. The gears clunk and churn as the scale is steadily tipping.
I worry about trees and soil and plants.
I worry about our future.
I worry about our past.
I worry about making a difference.
I worry about things beyond my control.
I worry about the things I can control.
I worry about water.
I worry about the ocean.
I worry that we have gone too far.
I worry that we have too far to go.
I worry.
Anxiety can make you feel alone in a room filled with love. Panic can make you second guess everything and anything. Sometimes I look at my toes and feel like I have never seen them before because I feel that detached.
Our society promotes strength and success; we thrive on the perceptions of communicating competence and confidence. We don’t always talk about how hard it is to do that. Humans were not meant to do things alone.
But my past has taught me that sometimes it is ok to question if everything is all going to shatter and splinter around you. Because feeling this down means I/we can only go up.
Luckily I am old enough to have fallen and clawed back out of way worse feelings before; this too shall pass.
Luckily I am loved.
Sometimes I have to remind myself to get up and keep moving. I have to stay focused on the things that are good. And that is all I can do.
If you are struggling too, so am I.
I love you.
Let’s just keep moving.
11 Comments
Staying focused on all that is good, keep moving forward and always know you are never alone. Love you more x
Thank you Tracy; you are extraordinarily courageous and generous at articulating such a difficult internal struggle in such a loving and optimistic way!!! Continue doing what you do and being who you are and all will be well.
Beautiful post, honest post.
❤️
Your act of sharing is an act of kindness, so I hope I can repay your kindness with a feeling of something other than anxiety. This is a poem that has pushed me through some mega-atrocities (personal, and/or worldwide)… I’ve kept it near for a few weeks now.
Thanks Related Poem Content Details
BY W. S. MERWIN
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is
You are loved <3 thank you for sharing
Hang on to that knowledge that you are indeed truly loved. Wishing you a smooth end to 2016 and a much less shitty 2017
I love you so much and I’ve always looked up to and been inspired by you. Today is no different – your honesty and vulnerability is beautiful. Thank you for sharing xxx
Tracy-I understand the way you are feeling as I am one of many “living” with panic disorder and anxiety.
I am one who began this rugged journey in my early 20’s and am now 68 yrs. old and although still dealing with it, sometime ago I accepted the fact this is part of who I am and that I can live a life beyond
it. I do this with my sense of humor, creative logic that is present more than not(as you also possess!). I also focus on those things that pull me from the deep end and work at loving those who give me the time of day and in our world where it is easy to get lost, lose validation there is this burning desire to hang in
when things get tough and I know you know what this entails because your writing and voicing your feelings shows that the person who has such love coming her way through your Family, child has many
many reasons to work at whatever it takes to be a piece(Peace)of it all. I want to also share that with our
heart surgery it is common to experience crippling anxiety, displacement, depression that can come and go for years due to the interruption of the body during this life saving surgery. so if you experienced anxiety prior to the surgery it can be confusing to experience these things afterwards as the darkness
can take your life off course only to find the light in this beautiful world that we cling too! Please hold
fast to that daughter of yours and your partner, friends and family who find that you in their lives are a
key for them to maintain a special Joy and a certain outlook of hope, faith because of the kind of person
that you are and believe me you are unique! Each of us is part of a new world of changes that we will face together. We will wade through them all together changing the way we live, love and continue always fighting for truth, good, and help this Earth and the animals/plants/mountains and waterways
be there for our children and their children. Don’t mind my sermon as Rylee(my spaniel)and I just returned from a walk in the cold fog in the park and we are both tired. Hang in there and swim in all
the love that surrounds you!
I can totally resonate with this <3 like I could have written it, just a different life
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