After almost a week of no anxiety, it reared its head last week.
Twice.
If you are me, you try and reason your way out of it. You try and sort out what it is that triggered the anxiety and then you try and talk yourself down and use logic and breathe. You try and point out all of the things that you are doing to find a job, you remind yourself that you have enough money to get by for now, that you are not going to be homeless, that the world will not end.
You remind yourself that you are not a burden, that people still care about you, that they reach out. You try and substitute fact for feeling. It’s not a completely bad strategy. You eat, you go for a bike ride, you meditate. When your brain lies and tells you that you will become unemployed and homeless because you really aren’t good at anything, you remind yourself of all the reasons that’s not true.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes you manage the anxiety with an Ativan and Nutella eaten straight from the jar.
The anxiety? It’s not reasonable. It’s not a thing to be reasoned with. Nor seemingly is there any rhyme to it. Anxiety, it turns out is a feeling and not a fact.
From what I read it sounds like Canada has handled COVID as well as possible, and I hope that means jobs open up soon for you and others. Different situation here, same rising anxiety this past week. I wonder for me if it is that it’s been four months of staying at home and away from most family, especially missing close family out of state and worried for elderly mother in the south. Our political mess adds to the anxiety. There is little escape because I stay home to stay safe. I’m tamping it down the best I can with exercise, breathing, distraction, talking facts…still it’s not a normal time.
I have found myself lying in bed unable to sleep, and not sure why…and out of know where comes this rush of anxiousness. I can’t even put words to it. I can’t even put my finger on the cause. I lay there in the darkness, and I breathe until I am past it.
I hate it.
I hate that you’re dealing with it too.