Category Archives: anxiety

Today is September 18, 2017. I am alive and well.

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Mortal love is but the licking of honey from thorns.   Anonymous

Does that quote mean that my basic being and your basic being is created with thorns and then covered with honey? I don’t feel thorny, nor do my friends. When meeting someone for the first time I don’t feel that I might get pricked when the honey of their being melts away. I believe in the kindness and goodness of people.

Does the quote speak to the presence of my character defects? I do have character defects. People love me despite them. I will write that my worst one is selfishness. I am extremely selfish with my time. I crave time not spent with others, but rather time with myself. Worry is another character defect. I can worry about everything. Worry is a flower I plant knowing that it’s going to die and leave me petals. Worry is a baked cake that falls in the middle but still tastes great. It just doesn’t look like how I thought it ought. In other words, many of my worries are legitimate and do happen but I’m always left with something good that comes from mess.

This past week my garbage disposal stopped working and my truck wouldn’t start.

My garbage disposal was doing nothing. I worried that the sink was going to clog and spill over. Guy told me about a restart button. It was there! I pressed it and now all is fine.

I dreamt my truck wouldn’t start and come morning, my truck didn’t start. I was worried I’d have to spend most of my time waiting for buses, riding buses. It turns out that I simply needed a new battery. My dead battery was under warranty. I paid nothing!

So, I speak to having faith that all will work out. It curbs my worrying.

My love for others goes deeper than honey and I am not pricked by and do not worry about thorns. If a person’s short comings are too much for me, I step away with love. If a person doesn’t like me, I think “good.” I all ready don’t have enough time for those I love. Having one less person to pay attention to is a blessing.

On another note, I celebrated 24 years of sobriety yesterday. Coming from the daily drunk that I was, this is a miracle. God has blessed me in many ways. Sobriety is just one of them.

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Today is July 4, 2016. I am alive and struggling.

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I stopped taking my anti-anxiety medication three months ago. I had been on it for at least ten years. The doctor said my body had probably gotten used to it and it no longer was doing what it was intended to do. For two days, I have been riddled with anxiety to the point of being paralyzed. Anxiety is like having all the nerves outside my skin, pulsating with fluorescent lighting. It is having a brain obsessed with what could go wrong:  my truck could get a flat tire again or die in traffic; someone could have logged into my checking account; my home could get bed bugs; and the new, cheap products for my face could cause me to break out in a rash. Silly. Nonsense. Whatever it may be called, my mind doesn’t drop my obsessions easily. They pin themselves to me as easy as pinning a name tag just above my left breast.

I have been hiding out in books. No writing. No shaving my legs (I’m a hairy Greek girl). No cleaning my condo. I talk my way through grocery shopping and laundry, grateful that I’m able to do those things.

Maybe the solution is to take anti-anxiety meds again. That seems too easy, like filling an empty ice tray with water. Today, I choose not too. I am happy to be free from one of my seven medications. The others my brain needs–I don’t want to fall off the scale again. Here’s to weight keeping me stable. I am heavy enough not to float away with a lopsided mind. This is good.