After writing down around ten simple lines today I had what I would guess is an epiphany. It was brief, it was good and it was as slippery as a bar of soap to hold on to. A brief collection of sentences I've read before in others' words but translated into my own. Their raison d'etre was as an anxiety reference. Some affirmations about what my understanding is and why not to get the fear. My own personal regurgitation if you will. But they are only words and without belief are nothing. With each read affirmations become just a repetitive reading process and the meaning behind them loses its potency to penetrate into the mind. Letters belonging to words belonging to sentences is what they become. That is why I think if you are going to refer to affirmations of any kind then they are better written by yourself. In this moment today though something clicked and it all made sense. It felt like a eureka moment.
It couldn't have come at a better time too because like most days these past months the hours are seeped in darkest thickest inky clouds I just cannot steer out of. Too heavy to blow away and to sticky to detach myself from. Its been, and maybe will remain for a time yet, a period of melancholy. So it was today and then suddenly click. There was a parting of the celestial seas above to let in the bright sun and I felt my mood lift. Maybe I was raised on high with it. All the nasty anxiety that was sapping me in my earlier stupor today remained but I felt above it, it didn't matter. Not that I was ready to book a holiday or pronounce myself cured but a moment of bliss, hope and realisation that although fleeting I don't think I can lose it and think I will find again. Its the moment I have been looking for. Like the first crack in the dam holding back my inner strength.
It dawned on me that its all about belief. That is fair enough but you cannot make yourself believe. It has to just happen. Belief in yourself. There is not cure. Its about accomodating the anxiety to the extent of living with it in the knowledge that you are stronger than it or above it. Its not something you can force. By whatever means you have to find belief that you can cope with the anxiety whether it be through a god, self help, medication or something else. Whatever reason leads you to the belief that you can cope will enable you to cope and without that belief you will continually be swallowed under. Not sure if that makes much sense but there it is. In a moment I believed I could cope and I believed I understood and it all fell into place and the anxiety remained but was no longer a problem. I was bigger than it and my inner voice was louder than that negative little voice that usually dominates my thoughts drowning it out to a whisper. I felt free somehow like all the shackles had snapped off.
But then there is the mind. There is definitely a duality within which makes it very difficult to hold on to belief for long because the mind says differently. Automatic thoughts: you can't cope, you are breaking down, there is no future, etc. Its a twisted sod. It is the evil inquisitor with his many devices of torture to our heresy of truth. And that is what started to drag me back down. I started to feel ill and the voice within kept telling me I was ill and that I should be worried. On reflection I see it was fatigue. So much fatigue since I started those drives and I see the process now. Anticipatory anxiety for me is a tense state, during the drives the anxiety levels fluctuate between very high to panic and then afterward always fatigue. I said previously that I felt no relief after the drives and I didn't mentally but physically I must have. Hours of tensing up prior in apprehension, adrenaline overload during and then the release afterward allowing the fatigue to flood in during the letting go of tension. This was all I felt today. I had the anxiety/panic all morning, a moment of clarity and then was able to let go leaving me feeling lethargic and tired.
Today I called off my drive to pick up the boy from nursery because I felt so panicky and that looming over me wasn't helping. It was my only drive of the week as well but can't be helped. I've plenty more to come before the summer holidays. Last week was good and bad with the drives. I only had three to do. On the Monday I had a real hard time getting in the car but once I was on my way the anxiety eased until I found a full car park at the other end and panic whacked the bell like a "High Striker" and sent me fleeing much to my wife's disgust. Sorry, don't know how many times sorry before I admitted that I have nothing to be sorry for. Guilt goes hand in hand with perceived failures. The next day I just couldn't do it. I spent the day on a Boneshaker and just couldn't even contemplate doing it. On day three though I got myself together, gritted my teeth and just did it. A successful drive like all fortysomething successful drives before. Exposure certainly doesn't get any easier when you are not able to handle the anxiety. Its no different from dipping an arachnophobe into a tank of spiders over and over when they still have the fear and hoping that eventually that fear will go- it doesn't. You have to lose the fear before you can do the exposure so my school runs are all arse from elbow.
Apologies for the lack of updates. Three weeks have passed and not only have I not been posting here but also not frequenting my usual haunts. Its just been a bit difficult getting my head together. I didn't fancy much posting any of that stuff to depress other people and wasn't much in the mood for reading. But I hope to post more frequently now and getting around the blogs again. That is my hope anyway but life and anxiety are never predictable. But I feel more optimistic after the latter part of the day today and I hope to have more of that.
