When the Darkness Comes Calling

You think too much.

You don't need to feel anxious about this.

Calm down. It's not that big a deal. Don't be so sensitive.


I am a healthy, happy person.

I have a quick smile and a loud laugh that erupts more often than trips out of my mouth. I dance in my kitchen and moonwalk my way out of my socks at night. I can make it through my day to day with no true fear that (barring some horror) I won't make it, even on my worst days.  And I'm pretty good at laughing things off - like those fun statements above that helpful and loving people use when I look at them with that expression.  You know, the one that's stuck somewhere between panic and despair, with a little bit of "This is what drowning feels like" thrown in.

At least, that's where the feeling sits, so I assume that's where the expression lies.

It's a bizarrely colored feeling, too. Have I told you that I see colors? I mean - yes, I can see the world in technicolor - but emotions and feelings, concepts and ideas...they're colorful in my mind. Although, they're not exactly in my mind, in my mind. They take up space outside my head, sometimes running to hide behind me so that I can't deal with them. The hiders, to be honest, are usually the negative things - fear, anger, anxiety, or - the most frustrating - a character who isn't letting me see her clearly just yet. These are the things I have to coax to the forefront of my mind, and often when I see them they are a sickly yellow, or maybe a CAUTION!! orange.

Somehow this looks cute? How is that possible?

Google tells me this is synesthesia, a brain dysfunction (or whatever) in which sensory paths cross and mingle or tangle. The outcome is that our senses manifest in abnormal ways. The most common form of this is having colors attached to letters and numbers, or seeing sound.

(The brain is a bizarre and beautiful thing, isn't it?)

It took me just under 30 years to realize that other people don't see the world in this way, that other writers don't first discover their stories as colors. My therapist was fascinated by it, but since it never seemed to negatively impact my life there was no real need to explore it or have it officially diagnosed. My current functional medicine practitioner encourages me to embrace it.  You are a vibrant color girl! That's who you are! 

It's just the way I see the world.

My anxiety is electric blue - and when I say electric, I do mean electric...it jolts and zaps when you don't tread carefully. It can be frightening, but there is a strange sort of luminescent beauty to the fear. More often than not it's only charged to the level of static cling. But sometimes it reaches levels of Jurassic Park Electric Fence Danger.  (I've talked about that before...check it out.)

This scene terrified me as a kid.

Sometimes, though, these colors go dark. It's not quite like someone turned out the light as much as it is that they poured horrible, sticky, inky tar over my brain. The brightest pink turns sour, rancid even, and I feel like I'll either explode or suffocate. Feelings have always been waves to me: they begin at my feet, and when they reach my chest is when they're most intense - often why it takes me a loooooooong time to feel and react to things - and when they are inky they threaten to drown me. My mom reminds me that as intense as they are, my feelings can't actually kill me, and so I do the things I've learned to help the tar go away - or at least to help the wave recede.

I am grateful that, though I have grappled with that Darkness, I have never felt abandoned in it. I have heard from those who have been left, untied, with no light, in that dark and scary place. And their stories frighten me. People with depression actually believe others will be better off without them alive. It's like walking through pitch black with no light and no idea of where safety is, or if there even is safety.

When the Darkness comes calling it can be disguised as many things: anger, fear, pushing people away when we need them the most. Because when the Darkness comes calling it isn't simply about turning on the light switch again. (No shade, Dumbledore...turning on the light can help.) No, it is about somehow extracting yourself from the tar, and it feels like all you have is a Q-Tip.

I am grateful my mental health has never pulled me that deeply into the tar. That Darkness looms, and dampens my colors sometimes, but ultimately I am alright. That's not the case for others. (If it's not the case for you, don't listen to the voice that tells you everyone else is better off without you. We aren't. We need you. Call 1-800-273-8255...they may have something better than a Q-Tip for helping you escape the tar. At the very least, they can Q-Tip with you.)

I guess I'm asking you to take a moment and remember that even the healthiest among us suffer. Even those who "have it all" struggle. The loudest laughers may actually be mired in an inky bog. This is not lack of courage. It is not lack of love.

It's just the brain, doing it's bizarre and beautiful - sometimes horrible - thing.

Me, My Anxiety, and I

Several months ago I wrote a post in which I promised I would talk about why I'm going to therapy: My anxiety.  It's taken 6 months for several reasons, two of which I feel I need to state here.

1. I don't want to give anyone the idea that I'm a big bundle of nerves all the time and am therefore not capable of doing anything, or that I need to be handled with kid gloves.  I am a bundle of nerves much of the time, but I am capable as shit.  And I promise you, the kid gloves only serve to make the anxiety worse.  Give me your authenticity - what you really think and feel and dream about and fear and hope for and can't abide by - give me something to connect to.  None of that will make me feel anxious.  I promise.

2. I feel gross using the phrase, "my anxiety."  Too often I've seen it used as a way people justify rudeness, flakiness, or just a general sense of discomfort.  I truly believe in removing the stigma - please, God, can we get rid of the mental health stigma?? - but seeing people flippantly say, "Oh, my gawd, I am so stressed I'm literally having a panic attack.  Literally." while standing in line at a coffee shop doesn't do much for the cause and makes me question the validity of using that language in my own life.

So, disclaimers presented, I guess I should  tell you a little about my experience as a fairly anxious person.  Here I go:




It's normal.

Guys.

My life?  It's a normal thing.  I'm a normal human.  (Well, maybe not completely normal, but my abnormality has less to do with anxiety and more to do with a goofy sense of humor and quirky view of the world.)

I go about my day and do my work and see my friends and family and laugh and cry and generally experience one or more anxiety episode a day.  I think of these as my "anxiety responses."  What am I responding to?  Any number of things, really.  I've started paying attention to my triggers, and have compiled a partial list for your entertainment.

A Not-At-All Comprehensive List of Things That Trigger An Anxiety Response in Stephanie
- Not getting enough sleep
- Eating sweets
- Eating some "healthy" foods (I'm lookin' at you, sweet potato)
- Not eating enough throughout the day
- My (very peaceful and gentle) alarm going off in the morning
- Slicing vegetables
- Making eye contact with another driver at an intersection
- Feeling unprepared for an upcoming event
- Feeling unprepared for a hypothetical event
- Having a busy schedule
- Having an open schedule
- Sitting at my desk at work
- Parking my car
- Coffee hour at church
- Walking in a large crowd
- Literally nothing at all

None of these items always causes an anxiety response!  They just do sometimes.  These are some of my general triggers.  Something happens (or doesn't) and the wave of anxiety hits.  I've learned to breathe through this experience, or to maybe take a nap or hit the gym.  It's certainly uncomfortable, but not debilitating.

Sometimes it feels like this.

Or maybe this.

Sometimes, though - sometimes it almost is debilitating.  Sometimes the wave of anxiety gets stuck in my chest.  Every so often I blow something from that list way out of proportion, or maybe more than one combine to make a SUPER RESPONSE that I can't seem to shake.  Or maybe something happens, something bad or good (like signing with an agent!) that trips my brain up enough that my body can't tell the difference between fear and excitement so I end up stuck in the anxiety cycle.  Or maybe - and this is the worst of all - maybe I find myself in a waiting season of life.

I am a doer.  I do.  And when I do, I do well.  I am confident and capable.  Powerful.

One could even say I'm super.

But when I've done all I can and am stuck waiting?  When I'm chained in the train yard when I should be powering along the tracks?  That's when the anxiety kicks in.  This anxiety:

This is the anxiety that shuts me down.  This is when my skin is electric, jolting not only me, but those near by.  This is when I don't want anyone to touch me, because even a pat on the shoulder might tear apart the tenuous grasp I have on myself, and I might actually explode.  This is the anxiety that makes me forget how to breathe.  It is the voice that tells me I will never be good enough.  That no matter what I do, it won't be enough.  It traps me in a loop, endlessly caught between the need to DO and the knowledge that it won't be enough.  I become a malfunctioning oscillating fan, clicking over and over again, unable to move to the next position.

Until I remind myself to breathe.

And breathe again.
Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale.

And then I text my mom, or I walk through my office and find my dad, and I say to them, "I am feeling anxious about ________."

Suddenly the fist around my heart relaxes, and the knot in my chest loosens just enough.  I am okay again, at least until the next time it hits.

I'm learning, thankfully. I am discovering things that help.  Things like talking about it: telling someone, joking to the people at the gym about a workout being a good place to direct my anxiety, laughing at the fact that, "surprise, surprise, I'm anxious today."  It helps.  And so do a lot of other things.

Look!  I made another list!

A Not-At-All Comprehensive List of Things That Relieve Anxiety In Stephanie
- Talking to my parents
- Being with loved ones
- Public speaking
- Working out
- Eating a nutritious meal
- Taking a nap
- Laughing REALLY hard
- Roller coasters!
- Writing
- Talking to my therapist (duh!)
- Prayer/mediation
- Seeing people talk about things they really love
- Sitting at my grandma's graveside

See? Normal. Ish.

Friends, I am doing well - so freaking well - and I hope you can see that.  I hope you are doing well, too.  If you're not, well, drop me a line.  And maybe we can breathe together.