Anxiety

Whenever I'm in a pattern of predictability - I'm calm. I know what to expect in the morning, I know how my day will go, I know what will happen in the evening, this week, this month. Whenever this pattern breaks, I enter the state of panic. At first I get shocked, then I'm unable to move or think or speak, then I start doing something automatic without realizing that there is no use in what I'm doing or why I'm doing it - and most of the times it is useless anyway. I can stay in this in-between state for hours, unable to decide what to do next. Unless someone gives me a good push, I would march forward in limbo. This then can add to the anxiety, and if I don't break the loop, the only way to break it is usually to sleep it off.

I wonder how much of this is coming from the distant past, and how much has been accumulated during my adult years, and how much of this can be broken and reprogrammed so that I can go with the change, no questions asked, no panic or paralysis settling in, no anxiety at all. I look for patterns, for any new pattern, for anything to hook my sanity into - and know that it won't be bothered. Know that I can settle and sail forward in silent waters. Know that tomorrow will be exactly as it was today, that today is exactly as it was yesterday, that every day is predictable. Knowing this will allow me to relax. But I also know that this is not true. There will always be a wind, a storm, a stone under the water, a hole in my boat - there will always be something to upset the calm, and I won't ever be able to predict any of it, no matter how hard I try. And when it happens, I have to shift gears fast. I have to toss what I was hoping to get out of my day and be happy with what it turned into - overcome the disappointment and carry on - as if nothing happened. I don't know when I'll master this skill, but certainly today it is far from being operational. 

The most disturbing detail of this trend of mine is - it all happens in my head. The past is no longer there, but it keeps influencing how I feel, adding to the present in real emotions. The future hasn't happened yet, but it gives me several outcomes to chew on, and to add to the present, again, in the form of more emotions. Did actually anything happen physically? No. But, once the anxiety settles in over something that didn't happen or happened in the past, once it manifests itself in my mind - boom - I feel it in the now. I stop enjoying what I'm doing and start obsessing over what things in my head, to the point where they become real - flushing my body with a dose of chemicals - and those are as real as if someone was standing with a knife to my throat. I know that if I only let myself be - if I only allow myself for those breaks in my existence - for the time and space when I can do nothing, stare at the wall or into the sky - and trust the time - know that as the tome goes by, so will my anxiety. If I only let myself feel it and roll with it like with an old friend - mildly annoying - but nevertheless one that would constitute a good company and whom I can trust. I seem to always forget this magical quality that the time has - it passes. No matter what I do, it will all expire. No matter what I begin, it will all end. If I only wait long enough, if I try to remember that what seems like an emergency right this minute, might not be an issue at all once a couple hours pass, and might not even be worth mentioning after it has been several days?

The pattern that was broken is my crutch. I realize that even chaos has the pattern, even the constant change has the pattern - it changes. Once I see how fluid it is, I can let myself flow with it. I can be bumped along the way, but it won't phase me inside - hence, goodbye anxiety. If only it were so easy, it is. I'm sure I will battle with this one for a while - but at least for now, it's gone. 

Photo by square eyes.