For those not in the know, I have anxiety issues. Now, I would normally say “had anxiety issues” because I thought they were under control … but yesterday belayed all that.
I handle stress in an unhealthy way. When something/events go awry, I tend to dig in, struggle, work on them with a lot of cursing and time-pressure, and then when the crisis has passed … experience the worst part.
I relax.
And it’s in that relaxation that my anxiety is fed. Because all of that stress has to go somewhere, so instead of a broken skoolie or a failed marriage, it just feeds into my worst fears and my body reacts like a herd of werewolves is after me … and I’m the special of the day.
This all started in 2014 when I ran away from a marriage I was deeply unhappy in and restarted my life in Miami Florida. At first I was happy, truly happy. Then the stress from decades of bad relationship decisions had nowhere to go and BANG! … it was off to the anxiety races.
It starts with flight or flight. Without any control from me, my body acts like death is imminent. Every muscle tenses, breathing races, and my brain goes to the darkest of places. Every part of me (except the logical part) knows that evil is near and I’m in real danger. Only … I’m not. It’s all an illusion.
But it feels 100% real.
I’ll spare you the details of my greatest fears and how they play out in my reptile brain, but yesterday they roared back with a vengeance. And I had to ask why. Was the failure of our bus’ power station all that bad? Was there something else happening that was more of a hardship than I thought?
Something triggered that attack, and I need to know what.
So what are my current struggles? What’s being fixed, what’s still wallowing, and what’s being ignored?
YouTube. I have been trying for years to be successful, only with limited gains to show for it. I’m in the middle of a semi-major pivot and I have no idea if it’s going to work. All I know is it’s different and I have to put real effort into all of the differences. With zero clue how it will work out.
Health. Where I was once a daily gym rat who ate healthy and partied with friends just as much, I now sit here in a recliner typing into a laptop. Physically I am a shell of what I once was. Emotionally as well, if honesty is allowed. And no matter how I try to motivate myself, nothing changes.
I am not happy. Every part of my life is just a recurring work in progress and I have no real joy anywhere and at anytime. I’m coasting.
The world is falling apart, I hate every word I read in the news, and I feel hopeless and helpless.
I’m going to die this way in far fewer years than I wish I had left. I am on the wrong side of life’s mountain and sliding closer to the bottom of that slope that I want to admit. Which means that numbers 1-4 have only a wee little bit of time to get flipped.
There’s more, but you have to start somewhere. LOL!
I honestly don’t know how to deal with all of this. As far as YouTube, I’m actually reaching back into my old software engineering days and using project management methods that helped build large systems. And I think it has a chance of taking my large dream and breaking it into pieces that can be built and assembled together into my desired ultimate solution.
But I’m not so sure than my personal life can be treated the same way, with corporate indifference and efficiency. What I do personally needs to feel personal. I don’t need to exercise more, I need to be a guy who likes to exercise. It needs to be a part of me, not a goal to be checked off.
I have a vision of myself that is simply not there, and I don’t know how to manifest him in the real world.
So with this article, I’m going to start figuring it all out. I do currently write daily (OK, semi-daily) journals, but those are immediately forgotten and never reviewed. There is no accountability. But maybe putting those words here will make a small difference.
So I want to write feelings in the morning, set myself simple goals for the day, and then march forward towards a larger permanence. And today, I’m going to move. Physically go somewhere, see something I haven’t seen before, maybe take a hike. Or at least use my body to get elsewhere.
I’ll snap a photo to prove what I accomplished.
So wish me well on this journey. Because I have a final choice … resolve this now, become the man I see inside my head … or stop complaining and keep this recliner warm until I don’t wake up one morning.
(That was dark, wasn’t it? LOL!)