Drugged by the Anxiety Rabbit
By Casey Douglass
I was trying to decide
whether to post a horror story I’ve written, or to write a more
personal post. After checking out a particular song, I’ve landed on
the latter. The power of music y’all. The song is linked at the end
of the post if you want to check it out early doors.
I’ve been having the
severest bout of anxiety I’ve experienced in over a decade. It was
caused by a health concern that might have some validity, and was
something I’d initially dealt with in a skilful, level headed, calm
way. By skilful, I mean keeping things in perspective, being
accepting, and not going into panic mode with my anxiety disorder.
Then, going to sleep later that night, I became very prone to the
anxious thoughts hitting home, causing massive whole-body anxiety
flushes and agitation. It absolutely wrecked me and kept me awake
most of the night. This lowered my resilience in general and left me
even more open to my fears.
Anxiety is a bugger.
During the day, I can call on more mental elements and tools to
balance things and keep myself from chasing the rabbit. Unlike in
Alice in Wonderland or The Matrix, following the rabbit when anxious
means a topsy turvy adventure into anxiety land. It’s like fake
news but more personal, you end up believing your own mind’s
propaganda. At night, it isn’t a case of not following the rabbit,
its more like the rabbit had chloroform in its little paw, knocking
me out and dragging me down that tunnel against my will.
I felt like my mind had
been ripped open and become prone to every paranoid fear and thought.
I managed three hours of sleep I’d estimate, and none of those were
consecutive. I know this shit inside out, have lived with it for more
than 25 years, and it still gave me hell. The days since have seen me
slowly rebuilding my resilience and perspective, with periods of
anxiety rushes, and feelings of fear and doom. Each day has been
slightly better than the last in this regard, which I am thankful
for, but it all feels so fragile. I am living hour to hour, trying
not to think further ahead than that. I’m very tired, very rough,
and just trying to gently coax my body out of its sensitized state so
that I can make more balanced choices in things. It has also been a
balancing act when it comes to my usual Obsessive Compulsive
tendencies, not letting myself slip back into old behaviours, as that
will just compound things. On the plus side, my anxiety has left me
nauseous which has cut down my usual levels of comfort eating. A
small positive there at least.
I’ve been trying to
write or post something each day, even if it’s just a tweet. I’m
not sure how much sense they make as my mind is pretty foggy but at
least I’m trying. I’ve had no paid work since 2018 started, and
that’s a mixed blessing right now. I’m so so tired. Finding stuff
to write purely for myself is helpful to give me a focus without the
stress of someone wanting something to be a certain way, but on the
other hand, fuck, I hate feeling like such a failure when it comes to
making a go of this writing thing. At the moment, I have bigger fish
to fry just getting through the day though, so I can think about it
and not feel too down.
Thanks for having a
read, and thanks to anyone who has interacted with me in the last
three or four days on social media, I appreciate it. Social media
isn’t the best of places a lot of the time, but it’s always
lovely to see there are some nice people on there too.
Oh. The song. Korn’s
Jonathan Davis has a solo album coming out, and What It Is is a track
from it. Really liking it right now:
