Classic.

Did you read that post yesterday? Didja? Amazing, wasn't it? Can you imagine sitting in a chair across from me listening to that instead of reading it?

Don't. It's kind of scary. It's chronic anxiety. It's overwhelming, I think; it certainly is to me. Today is better. I need to talk to my PNP, because as the seasons change and the days get shorter (thanks a lot, Northeastern US), we often need to adjust the medication I take to help control it. I need to take some other steps too, but oddly, one of the consequences of anxiety for me is my mind saying, Go!Go!GO!GO!!! and my body freezing up. This has probably saved me a lot of grief, because it keeps me from doing some really dumb stuff. But it also keeps me from engaging other coping mechanisms. Crazy shit, yanno...walking, knitting, spinning (at a WHEEL, not my own two feet). Anything that would discharge some of the anxious energy, really, or at least safely distract me long enough to let the energy dissipate. It's very frustrating.

And what's worse is the feeling I get if I have acted while in anxiety's grip. I said something to a friend over the weekend; it could change the nature of the friendship. Some would say that this person isn't much of a friend if they can't understand what's going on, and listen to me again when I've had a chance to relax. This is true. This friend knows this is part of me. And really, what I said is not of outright meanness or such like that. But I can't shake the feeling of impending doom, that this is THE END of something. What I brought up, in my own obsequious way, needs to be discussed; how I brought it up is cringe-worthy, in my mind. My belief is that friends can work things out. I have many, many friends who have stood by me when things have been exponentially worse. My intuition says that this person is a friend of that caliber. Anxiety tells me hell no, you're kidding yourself, you've screwed up again and you deserve what you get for what you said. Funny thing is, that sort of thing has happened only once in my life, and the man-boy who used it against me knew exactly what he was doing. (That's a textbook definition of something, isn't it? Certainly cruelty.) Experience should be my teacher: out of hundreds of thousands interactions I've had with people, only one has been a total schmuck. That experience was almost indescribably painful. Yet I am fortunate. (And perhaps sheltered, but we won't discuss that today.) I honestly can say that I can recall no one else ever treating me like that...yet it's the first place my brain goes during a conflict. Even though my experience has been otherwise, I expect to be unloaded for minor transgressions. Hmmm.

So I will continue to fight against it, to listen to the true teacher instead of the relentless pedant. The work goes on. Thank you for "listening."