When you live with something for 10 years, you feel like you should know everything that comes with that, all the feelings, symptoms. I don’t know how or when it started; it feels like we were always together, like twins from birth. At the beginning, you think everyone is the same. Everyone has that nauseous feeling when they get an exam, and everyone feels like they would faint during their first date. But no. You understand they are not like you. And you feel you can live with this uninvited guest. And I guess you do. But just because you lived with it doesn’t mean that you can accept it.
Because you start to see everything through it. Never without it. You can't plan a date, you can't plan a vacation, you can't even predict your next hour without thinking about that. Sometimes you don’t need to plan something. Sometimes you brush your teeth, and something triggers you. It decides your day for you. You begin to feel every fiber in your body, every sensation, every movement. The more you don’t want to admit, the more it comes back to haunt you, like a snake rattling quietly through your backyard. Feels very easy, something anyone would experience, but in your heart, you know it's not like everybody else’s. You feel different, you feel crazy, you feel weak.
Sometimes it comes barging in the door, and when you don’t want to open the door, begging and crying, waiting for it to go away, it kicks you down to the floor with the door. Sometimes you feel gracious enough to let it in. Let it stay for a while before it goes to its other stop. When you give that kindness, it also lets you breathe a little. Then you start to think, maybe this is not that bad, I can get used to it, I can manage it. Then it starts laughing in your face, thinking how much of a fool you are to think this would always be easy.
Then you realize you can't trust anything your mind says. But who to trust if you are not going to trust your own mind? Then you try again, you try to reason with your mind, trying to negotiate, not this time, not today, please, today is important, you cry. Your mind starts to say, if you know this is going to happen, why do you let it? It’s like you try to scream, I don’t want this either. There is nothing I can do, your mind says, maybe try to find something else to make it go away. You agree that this makes sense.
You try different pills; sometimes they work, sometimes they give you other symptoms, and you get to a point: fine, I don’t want this pill; it was better before. But you can't come out of this road easily, too; there are times when you feel worse. So much worse that you are now in the hospital getting IV shots to make you sleep. Everyone looks at you like you lost it. Maybe you really did lose it. They pity you. You pity yourself.
But none of it changes the fact that it waits for you at the end of the day. Like a carriage that turns into a pumpkin at midnight, you count the hours to see it again. That time finally comes, you are home, in your bed. Safe and sound. As usual.
Your best mates don’t understand what's happening. Why aren’t you with them at the sleepover? How could they? They are not living with it. For them, what a charming Saturday. But it always ends up with you crying your eyes out, shaking, and vomiting.
Maybe you should always run like it’s a race. If you never stop, it can never catch you. If you never go out, if you never live, it will leave you alone. You wouldn’t be attractive. It wouldn’t want you.
But maybe what you are thinking is totally wrong. Maybe there really is a danger that it knows; maybe it tries to protect you. But this is not a great warning, right? Especially for simple stupid things. No, this is not how it is supposed to be. But who can know this? Who knows it better than you?
It’s your anxiety, after all, your little body trying to take the warnings and trying to fight with your brain. Sometimes with medications, sometimes with IV, sometimes without anything, you survive those attacks, yourself curling up in your bed, crying silently in your own vomit. Maybe it’s the only thing that really understands you like you. Maybe you should escape with it, not from it.
