Archives for category: Anxiety
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Making a Choice

January 16, 2013 //
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Choice is a tricky thing, and carries with it the characteristic of ‘accountability’, for each choice I make.  Education and coaching tell me things like ‘don’t blame the victim’ and give me reminders that events forced on me against my will are ‘not my fault’. That sounds easy enough, but it’s a complicated thing, because my own choices at any point after an event that ‘isn’t my fault’ are still entirely mine, and the accountability for them is also mine. Isn’t it? Does a brain injury, or child abuse, or domestic violence get me off the hook for being accountable for my own actions, my own choices? It doesn’t seem that it would…but are my choices themselves, or my ability to make them well, altered by my brain injury? My PTSD? My hormones? What does that mean for me, or for my relationships?

I’m staring at a lifetime of bad decision making, poor choices, failures to be accountable, and I am frustrated and tired and disappointed that at 49 I am not a better human being than I am. I spent the night in quiet contemplation, no real hope of sleep. I am tired, too tired for clear thinking, terrified to let my mind rest and risk losing a moment of understanding or any sort of step forward. My anxiety is completely out of control and I feel lost and very aware that my decision-making may be impaired… except… wasn’t it already?

Life lays out the choices. I have to see them, and make a choice. I’m choosing to do a better job of being a good human being, moment to moment. I expect that choice will have it’s own unique challenges, and may be more difficult than it sounds. (I hope that if I have to let go of what means most to me right now because of failures to be a better human being sooner, I will find being committed to treating myself and others well, and being honest and thoughtful with my choices in the future, will be enough to earn something that means as much as what I have cost myself through my bad choices in the past.)

We’re all having our own experience. The significance of what we do isn’t solely our own – someone else will experience it along with us, in their own context, understood from their unique perspective. Please help me make the world just a bit better than I have made it on my own, so far; treat someone who is hurting with compassion and understand that they are having their own experience, and that is both their truth and their world. Treat people well, especially the ones you love. Make good choices that meet your needs over time. I am pretty sure that if I successfully did those things every day, life would be wonderful.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50

Observations about Anxiety

January 15, 2013 //
3

Yesterday’s pain loiters in my consciousness, an unwelcome visitor whose incessant self-centered small talk has become a sort of white noise of negative messaging in the background of my day; anxiety. My intellect, and years of experience, tell me the anxiety, although difficult to dismiss or suppress, isn’t ‘real’. Well, it isn’t real like my keyboard, my office chair, my desk, or the sounds of humanity all around me. It’s a very different sort of ‘real’, commanding my attention without a concrete presence.

I am trembling and nauseous, watchful and hesitant, short of breath and feeling the weight of my fears and doubts on my chest. “It will pass…” I tell myself, over and over, as I work. “Focus on work, follow the routine…” the mundane details of daily life distract and soothe…eventually.  I’m sleeping at night… that’s something. Anxiety is much worse if I am not sleeping… but the nightmares ruin my concentration and feeling of peace. Nightmares of violence, nightmares of being trapped, nightmares that are my sleeping mind alerting my waking mind that I feel overwhelmed – as if I didn’t know. The headache isn’t helping me with finding balance and feeling calm, a search that has gradually become more a puzzle than a journey, over the past year.  I hurt and it clouds my thinking.

…I need some quiet time to think. I need to spend some quality time with myself – figure things out, focus on my heart, my soul… I need to paint.  Peculiarly, although I am aware of my needs, I struggle to meet them lately. My last opportunity, and only opportunity since before the holiday season, ended badly – I was anxious almost to the point of terror, and feeling more lonely than solitary, confused, and somehow bereft of purpose and meaning, both trapped and exposed. It wasn’t a very good way to spend 24 hours and now I find myself vaguely reluctant to try again, even while I feel like I can’t manage my time well enough to get a moment alone. Being a human primate, a being of both reason and emotion, sometimes seems needlessly complicated.

I need to walk more; I can really think when I am walking. I need to be more consistent with my yoga practice; it helps me relax and be mindful and serene, and compassionate with myself. I need to talk less, and listen more. I need to find a quiet space to call my own. I have hopes that the rose garden can become that space, over time… I sure need to figure something out, solve the anxiety like a problem, somehow.

Categories Anxiety, Art, Post Traumatic Stress, Words
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