Anxiety

There was a trend a month or two ago on twitter that asked people to describe anxiety and what it felt like.  My offering was to say that anxiety was like you were a balloon surrounded by sharp knives pointing at you from every direction, that you were afraid of inflating for fear that you would be popped, afraid to move, afraid to fall, and afraid that even if you stayed perfectly still, one of the knives might move closer and pop your balloon.  That was my explanation and I think it describes my experience of anxiety quite well, however there was a detail I didn't mention in the tweet for brevity more than anything, and that is that sometimes, the knives aren't actually there.

Sometimes the threat doesn't actually exist, but you believe it does, and that belief in and of itself is enough to paralyse you in that moment which can last for seconds, or minutes, or even hours at a time.  Sometimes it can even last a lot longer, but I would say at that point the issue is more than just a feeling of anxiousness and would instead conclude that there's something more at play, something deeper that you really should explore with a professional.

I've experienced depression quite a few times in my life, to the point where I actually believe if you have depression it never truly goes away you just have times when you can function and times when you can't.  That might be a biased conclusion since my depression is episodic, it lasts for weeks or months at a time then passes and can be non-existent, the longest period without it lasted several years for me but I have come to accept that it will inevitably return as it always does, the most recent episode began last year and came to an end but when it did it was replaced by a constant state of anxiety that I could not overcome and life got very difficult for me.

I don't know what state of mind I am in right now because I haven't reflected on it in depth, partly because I am scared to do that for what it might uncover, but also partly because relatively speaking I am able to function on some level right now and I need that in order to survive.  The fear of looking at yourself in that mirror and reflecting on everything as you see it laid bare is a fear that is really born in the ego because no physical injury or pain can be caused by doing that but still we feel threatened by it when we are in a vulnerable state of mind.  We need to feel strong in spirit before we can pick ourselves apart and look at what is going on and if needs be to rebuild it in a new image.  That strength is hard to find at the best of times but during periods of depression we have such little strength to accomplish even basic tasks that the idea of devoting energy to something so critical is unfathomable to us.

Whilst the analogy of knifes around a balloon can be quite fitting to describe anxiety, there is another knife that I didn't mention, this one is perhaps the most dangerous of them all, the one that is already inside the balloon, the one that causes the whole thing to pop in that moment of self destruction when we give up and deflate entirely.

I realise that all of these metaphors are quite dark, but truth be told, anxiety is dark by nature, as is depression, that is perhaps why they often go hand in hand.  Although you can experience one without the other, it is often the case that they lead into each other or that they take turns controlling you, your thoughts, and your energy levels, draining them or diverting them into feelings you don't want to have.

When it comes to breaking the hold these can have over you, as I have said in other posts on this blog that have touched on these concepts, they can pass on their own sometimes but there will be times where they will not end until you get the help you need.  Physiological changes occur when you are in a state of depression and this is also true of anxiety, physical symptoms manifest themselves and when they don't pass on their own you do need to seek professional help.  That can be the last thing you want to do, especially if you experience social anxiety and don't want to have to deal with yet another person who you have to relate the whole experience to with details that you're not even ready to admit to yourself.  Therein lies the catch-22 that I know many people encounter when they experience mental health problems, that you need a professional to help you deal with your problems but you need to be able to present those problems in order to gain access to those professionals.

The lengths we will go to in order to hide what we are going through are often the greatest threat, more danger comes from ignoring the problem than will ever come from admitting it exists, for that admission won't change the fact it exists, whether you admit it or not it's there, it's real, and you're already struggling with it, admitting it exists is the first step to confronting it.