I’m working on my second coffee, sipping on it even though it has gone cold. I’ve got a wicked headache today. Worse than usual, and tightly focused in a very specific location. It’s annoying. My Traveling Partner and his son are hanging out, watching videos, talking about life.
At some point, the ambient level of anxiety in the room (and, honestly, I really object to even having that be “a thing” at all) begins to increase. My Traveling Partner’s comments become more stressed moment-by-moment, as though he is on the edge of having an argument with someone, though there is nothing to argue with; he’s making sound and reasonable points relevant to the content we’re watching. His son is quiet… that kind of quiet that suggests a very busy mind held back by firm hands. He seems… “glum” and also… intent, focused on something going on in his inner world, and perhaps only half listening. My partner exclaims something about his anxiety, and the video itself potentially driving that. He turns it off. His son speaks up in the affirmative – him, too. For once, none of this is about me, or my issues, or my anxiety – but I see it, and I “get it”. Realizing the enormous potential for this whole mess to worsen notably if my own anxiety were also to be triggered (which it easily could be by my partner’s expressed stress), I take my coffee into the studio to give room for them to sort shit out, and avoid being triggered myself. Nothing confrontational, just taking care of myself, and doing what I can to support a healthy environment by not adding to the mess.
So here I am. This quiet somewhat chilly room. The tap-a-tap-a-tap of fingers on the keyboard. This cold cup of coffee. This headache.
I have an anxiety disorder. Having a moment, episode, or experience of anxiety doesn’t make someone “disordered” – just human. My own anxiety rises to the level of “disordered” because of the potential for extremes in that emotional experience, the difficulty I have managing or resolving it, and the ridiculous way it can linger unresolved just making shit worse for days or weeks or months, even wrecking relationships, and jobs. It’s pretty serious. I’ve also taken many years of therapy to work on it, and take medication to help manage the worst of it day-to-day.
I’ve learned to accept the physical chemistry of anxiety as a very separate thing from any lived event that may trigger an emotional experience of anxiety; the chemistry and the emotional experience often need to be managed or supported quite differently. It took fucking years to get a grip on how best to handle my own anxiety, and I’ve got some good tools in my toolkit these days…but they aren’t “one size fits all”. (Hell, they don’t even always work for me!) As much as I’d love to say “just do this thing and it’ll all be fine”, I’m very much aware that what works for me (and my results vary) may not work for you at all. I share the journey, and the practices, because something may be helpful, even if only once in a serendipitous moment of inspiration. I hope any of it offers you healthy perspective, or even potentially an observation or practice that you can use to make sense of your own bullshit and baggage in a way that allows you to move forward on your journey to become the person you most want to be.
…Why do I even care, at all…?
Honestly? Layers and feedback loops. If I’m anxious around other people who struggle with anxiety, it seems likely that the potential for shared anxiety to creep in and escalate will increase. My anxiety feeding someone else’s anxiety, and increasing anxiety someone else is feeding potentially triggering (or exacerbating) mine sounds like (is) a really terrible experience that can lead to confusing or problematic interactions. Then too, just dealing with my own anxiety while aware of my partner’s, his son’s, the world’s… the layers of anxiety just make for a shitty emotional experience characterized by some very uncomfortable sensations and thought spirals. No thank you. So. I try to be helpful and share what works for me because anxiety is a wholly shitty experience for everyone.
So, I think it over. Talk to my partner. Take a kind and helpful approach as much as possible with everyone here in this moment. Share my thoughts and experiences, make a potentially (I hope) useful suggestion or two, and hope for the best – while also working my ass off to avoid taking any scrap of this “personally”, because it just isn’t. It’s simply very human.
Evening Light 